This is a quick link to videos which I have created to the parody songs of Jethal Silverwing.
You can also visit Kithicor.org under audio/video, and down load a better quality of any of these videos and or listen to more of Jethal’s great songs.
Also thought this would be a good place to sorta give you a history behind each project.
I Walk Alone
Created in 2006, forgot which month
My very first video.
I had been viewing the ones Jethal had made and really wanted to try my hand at it.
I was hooked on the Green Day song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”.
I wanted to do something for this song, yet I wanted to make some sort of story to go along with it. So the premise here is that the hunter in the video is mostly a peaceful person. Traveling the world with her pet “shadow”. After being killed she returns to the land of the living. She has had enough, she takes up armor and sword to head back out into the word to seek vengeance against the undead which claimed her life.
The video was recorded using Fraps in the game World Of Warcraft, and edited using the MS video software that comes with XP.
I Want That Rock
Created Aug 2006
My first video using one of Jethal Silverwing’s parody songs.
I sat down and began to write up a story board script of scenes I wanted to record. From camera angles to placement of people. I went out and scouted out locations, making note of different areas for the scenes.
The person who was to play the dwarf was a guildmate Uilleam. He was going to use his dwarf Alt. for this project but due to time constraints and my burning need to get the images out of my head, Dufoo was born.
It took me a couple of days to get Dufoo from level 1 to about 22, enough to get him around Thundering steppes without dying. Dufoo was patterned on Uilleam alt dwarf, who is a monk. The beginning idea was to use Dufoo as a stand in when Uilleam could not come to a shoot.
As the filming started, it became harder for Uilleam to get the extra time to come to these shoots and I had to use Dufoo more. I had not planned on doing a single person shoot, because of how hard it is to get a full body shot of your self. Also in any group shots the camera uses the viewer and the center.
I needed people willing to be the part of the Jethal Silverwing band, so I put out casting calls on the SOE forums. I even offered payment for a person’s time. I was very serous about the project and if that is what it took, well I had a bit of coin I could offer. We had a bit of shuffling around when it came time to fill the spots but I ended up with a bunch of great people. Klumpp from Legacy of Honor, Spindel from Vagabond Knights, Lindar the dirge of my dreams! Gnibbles as well.
These guys were great! They were willing to wait around till the sun came up. ( one thing I found out quickly after throwing away a pile of film, do not film at night unless that is what your going for, then do all shooting at night…don’t mix day and night shots.) They listened and worked to time their emotes with each other.
Again I wanted to make some little story happen during the video outside of just the song. I started out wanting to make the dwarf harvest crazy for rocks, the Band came out to sing about it and see how crazy this dwarf was. I threw in the girls to add sex appeal to the whole thing, that and I promised our bard, Lindar he would have groupies.
I had planned on having the Band take off with the girls but, in the end the dwarfs harvesting craze got to everyone. The band is harvesting, the girls are harvesting and of course the dwarf is beating them to every node.
I learned a good lesson with this shoot, to take more footage than you think you will need. I really hate reusing footage. Sometimes you can get away with it, other times it is redundant to do so and weakens the strength of the project.
This time I used gamecam to film and adobe to edit.
Greater Faydark Girls
Create May 2007
Almost a whole year since I made a video.
When Jethal made this song, images began to play over in my mind, and like with “I want that rock”, I had to get them out of my head.
I did use David Lee Roth’s Califorina Girls video as a blue print for this video. The opening scenes of the band came from this video.
Nothing change much from other productions. I wrote up a story board script of what scenes I would need, what I wanted to see and where. How many people would be needed for each shot and what they should be wearing. etc. Casting calls went out and the response was again great. There was a few changes in the band, but Klumpp remained our band ogre.
Few extra things going on. If you look close to the Qeynos girls spot you might see Antonica waving from the top steps. I made a screw up during the halfling part, forgot to turn off target circles, Oh duh.
Looking back at this one now, I still feel it was one of the best ones I have done so far. Just because of the whole story line and Lucan showing up at the end. heheheh
Used gamecam and adobe again for filming and editing.
Poetry In Motion
Created Sept 2007
Jethal created this song because he was asked to. Up to this point he has made his songs about rangers. So it was a challenge to him to create one for the monks. When Zanadi and Trueflight joined the Legion of Kithicor I knew I had my stars for this video.
The story line behind this one is; a new monk is born into the world. As she grows she visits each of the monk training areas to learn from each of the different clans of monks. One day while out hunting she meets a handsome ranger, they fight side by side and in the end they leave the world together. Do they die? That is up to you to decide, they were surrounded during their last battle.
I made use of the 360 shots for this video. Monks and 360 shots seem to go hand in hand. I also wanted to get full shots of Zan’s monk moves, and the 360 shots did the trick. I think I drove Zan crazy at times trying to match up the named movements in the song, while I had fun ( read pulling hair out) trying to remember which was which during editing.
Used gamecam and adobe
Brell’s Magic Keg Is For Ale
Created March 2008
When I heard this song, the images began to pour in. I had to get this done, not for Brew day but because the images were burning a hole in my head. Filming took place during the month of February, and was finished before March. Since we were so close to Brew day, I held off on the release till we were a bit closer.
I could not think of any extra story line to slip into this one. The theme of the video was the best story line so I just stuck to it.
Cheesit finishes his brew day quest, gets his keg, but does not drink and has no idea what to do with it. His good buddy the drunken dwarf has some great ideas for it, and in the end, gets Cheesit keg for him self.
I went through the same process that I do for every video. I do up a detailed script/story board, breaking down the song lyric’s. I make a ton of notes on images I want to capture for each bit of film. There is one thing most people do not know, but Cheesit and Dufoo can not be in the world at the same time since both live on Jethal’s account. So when you see them together on the screen, well that is a little bit of new video magic I now have.
Another thing I really like about this one was the fact that it had almost 90% indoor shots! NO more waiting for the sun to come up and rush the shooting before we lost light.
I used gamecam again to film but this time I also used Pinacle and a new adobe video software.
I am thinking about trying wegame capture program for my next project.
Don’t Steal My Node
Started some time in Sept of 2008 ~ finished Nov 2008
Jethal came to me and said DO this one! It was the first time I had faced doing a video to one of his songs that I had not picked.
Getting the story board down was not hard, I tend to always think of shots and picture his song into a video format when ever I hear them. So I had a few idea in mind except for a couple of parts of it, the long musical spots …..I could not stomach doing another /dance recording for it.
The hard part was trying to come up with different ways to present this video than what I have done in the past. My filming is limited to what we can do within Norrath, and I am always afraid of repeating my self when I film a shot.
So I started to play around with other moments and emotes and figured we could try a crouch and shuffle movement. It was next to impossible to totally have everyone’s steps fit the beat of the music, but I gave it my best shot and at times it almost does. The simple shuffle step movements we close enough to the tempo to work.
The next major issue was the time it took from story board, to filming to editing. The filming took off ok, then decided I Just did not like fraps filming it at half screen. I was losing soo much detail, I changed to full screen after we had already filmed alot of shots of Jethal and Lowkick in KP.
Next issues was gathering people. In the past I put out casting calls…but in the end I would still have to bribe who ever was in game to fill in my empty spots so this time around I just played it by ear and asked as I went. It worked out ok, but I think I will go back to more of a structured schedule.
I will say that I am going to put together a short out take video because some of the “lets emote at the same time shots” were actually the best I have ever seen. EVERYONE was spot on! *shock*
what is sad is, I just could not find a spot to use them. I tend to take more footage than I need for “Just in case”.
I have my basic outlines and story boards but sometimes when I go to edit, my idea just does not fit or work out as well as I had hoped. So I have gotten into a habit of taking extra shots while I have people lined up and there. Extra movements, emotes, angles..etc.. In this case some of the extra stuff I got was great, it needs to be seen.
Then it seems it was taking longer to get the shots needed, getting people rounded up to do them.
I was at about 75% thorough with the shots and editing when my system went down.
.(roll eyes)
I was beginning to think I would not get this one done.
When I got my system back up and reviewed what I had, make a few notes and set out to get the last bit of footage I needed. That is when the ball began to race down hill. I got the shots and finished editing with in a day or so.
Up till now, every video we do has a second video in it, the credits. This time how ever we just could not come up with anything good for the end. The credit area I leave to Jethal with some ideas, but neither of us could come up with anything WOW this time. We did use a different song at the end..but for those out there who have come to expect the surprise credits, I am sorry if we let you down. Maybe next time! That’s the thing with making these though, trying hard not to get stuck in a rut and do thing the same all the time.
Dark Elf Girl
Created Nov of 2008
One of the better shoots I have done. I think because I went back to a very strict schedule, days and times and offered to pay people for their time and trouble. I was worried that I had gone over board with the effects in this one but, they fit in. I wanted to spice up the visuals and the only way to do it was to add more effects to the editing process. The time it took to film, edit and post this up was less than a couple of weeks. I think it took a total of a week and a half.
The only strange thing to happen was the problem I ran into over on youtube but you can read about that over in 3, 2, 2 action area.
Dec 10th 2008
Frostfell Don’t Be Late
Since this was all filmed in-doors, waiting for light was never a problem. Well, except for the frostfell ones, which I found out, never really goes through a lighting cycle.
Only issues I ran into was time issues. We had to keep setting up new shoot times because spindel kept having other things come up. When I was finally able to snag him and Tosta, things went really fast from there.
I had to log in as Cheesit and Jethal quite a few times to get other shots I needed. I hate having to film that way because of how the camera is always centered on the toon. Which is not really good for close up shots because I only get them from the wasit up and there is alot of wasted space at the top.
I am how ever getting better using Adobe Elements 3 as far as editing and using the effects. It is not so much of a fight now, things seem to go smoother. I was so used to Adobe Premier it was a bit hard learning this other program, but I am getting it to do what I want so far now that I understand how to do them.
Will need a new song for next years frostfell though, and nothing is jumping out at me just yet.