New Enhanced Edition - LACON 2009 - Misha's Panel
Direct link to video. Link to YouTube channel. (38 videos available.)
It's been a while since I've edited a solo Misha panel, but I've just published a new one.
Like I mentioned in a previous post, one of the main reasons I wanted to do this one was thanks to finding audio files from this convention from juice817 on LJ. For Misha's panel, this added 12 minutes of audio-only coverage not found in the available videos, including one lengthy 11-minute stretch. The rest of their audio files filled in many tiny gaps between videos, making the panel more coherent and properly sequential.
The first 5 minutes of my edit includes the official clip that Creation posted on their YouTube channel. Their video was the only one that caught the first 30 seconds of the panel, and their audio is beautiful since it was tied into their sound system. I contacted them back in April and they very kindly gave me permission to use it in my edit.
There's one gap of unknown length partway between that 11-minute audio-only stretch, so this is not a complete panel, but hopefully it's pretty close. juice817's audio files from the other panels also had gaps between them that I was able to quantify since I had video coverage for those parts. These other gaps were usually between 30-120 seconds. I would guess this gap is comparable but I have no way to know for sure.
Before/After Comparison Photos
The over-all video quality is, as with the previous LA 2009 videos, pretty low. These sample screen shots represent the video source I used for over 86% of the final edit. They were nearly the only substantial source of video content from this panel, so thank goodness for them! (Juice817's audio files represent about 85% of the audio.)
What's Next?
I'm now turning my attention toward Asylum #3 from May 2009. I plan to work on 4 panels. The footage quality will be similar to the lower-quality footage from these past few LA 2009 videos. There will also definitely be gaps. So far I've synced up the footage from 3 of them and this is what I've found:
Saturday: J2 Panel - 46.5 minutes, 1 short gap near the beginning.
Saturday: Jared - 39 minutes, 6 short gaps scattered throughout.
Sunday: Jensen - 35 minutes, 11 short gaps scattered throughout.
Sunday: Jared - 29 minutes, 10 gaps of unidentified length scattered throughout.
@j2wiki managed to dig up an unexpected treasure from the depths of her archives in the form of a a 35.5 minute video from the J2 panel. It filled in 5 gaps between the other available footage and will help that panel be more complete. Most of the videos from this convention are very short clips, so this video was a great surprise.
J2wiki also has transcripts from the first 3 panels and those will help us to understand what we missed during the gaps. It looks like we're mostly missing parts of the fans' questions and/or the very beginnings of Jared's and/or Jensen's answers.
Jared's Sunday panel will be much more of a mystery. We're definitely missing some entire questions in those gaps. I also can't be certain of the exact order that each video clip occurred in when there isn't any overlapping footage that ties a clip to the previous or next question, so this may be my most disjointed panel edit yet. There are a few fairly detailed fan reports out there, but they all missed some things and they didn't list the questions in entirely the same sequence so this will have to be a "best guess" situation.
In digging through old LJ posts, I found that a couple people had once shared audio files from several panels at this convention, but the share links are of course now dead. I'd love to get my hands on those because they would likely help a lot with all of these gaps. I've tried to make contact with both people, but I haven't yet had any success. It's extremely rare that I manage to make contact with fans from the earlier years, and even if I do make contact they may not still have the files 17 years later. But sometimes I get lucky and find great treasures. I'll give it some time and try a couple other avenues before I declare it a lost cause. If anyone has any leads, please do let me know!
I don't have any plans to do Misha's panels from this convention right now, but maybe if I manage to dig up any audio files that include his panels I'll take a look at the existing footage to see if I think I can add much to what's already out there. If I can I'd probably reconsider, just like I did for LA 2009.
I'm aiming for a 6-week turnaround on the first video, which will be the J2 panel from Saturday.
Subtitle Update status
For anyone wondering about the status on converting my older videos to my current subtitle format (colored initials with white text), I'm getting soooo close. I just have my two oldest chronological videos left -- the CHICON 2007 J2 breakfast and then the 2007 SDCC panel.
My oldest videos have been really time consuming to convert because I'm also trying to add some of the standardizations to them that I slowly settled into with my later videos so that everything will be more consistent. I'll definitely miss my end-of-July goal, but hopefully not by too much.
If you're unfamiliar with this project...
Check out the pinned post on my blog. It has more details about what I'm doing. I also keep it updated with links to all my videos and a note about which panel I'm currently working on.
