CGE 2007: The DVD Project
Since I've been hit with about a zillion requests by PM, I thought I'd post this to serve as a quasi-FAQ for the oft-mentioned CGE DVD.
For those who wondered about the record number of cameras, two of them in every keynote were mine; I recorded each presentation in its entirety - with two very minor exceptions - from multiple angles, and did the same at the Friday night alumni dinner and the Saturday night auction. (The two exceptions were the Intellivision and CGE Stories panels, whose Q&A sessions ran over an hour; the main presentations were recorded intact, and so the missing Q&A questions have now become "CGE exclusives"). I had 23 hour-long tapes with me for the weekend, and I filled every last one of them to the end of the tape.)
I also did quite a bit of shooting in the museum and on the show floor, as well as from the skybox over the show floor. I did not, however, catch the Todd Rogers high score contest/awards presentation, or any of the Saturday night parties.
Over the next few months - I'm aiming for a just-in-time-for-Christmas release date here, but there's a saying about battle plans surviving contact with the enemy that brings me up short of making that an Official Announcement - I'll be editing this footage together, sprucing it up with graphics, inserting appropriate footage of games in action (when someone's talking about Astrosmash or Bloody Human Freeway, you'll see Astrosmash or Bloody Human Freeway), taking out any huge silences, that sort of thing. I have a custom-built rig at home that lets me output even RF-based systems directly to digital video, and it'll definitely get a workout here. The editing is done on my broadcast-grade Avid A/V editing system - this'll look just a little bit nicer than something that's done on someone's home PC with Vegas Video.I shot the auction like it was a live sporting event, and I intend to put it together that way too - this year's auction, with the amounts of money involved, was truly the Super Bowl of classic game collecting. (And for those of you who liked the model, don't worry, there's plenty of her in the video!)
I'm planning to have a trailer ready to show by about the halfway point of editing, with some of the highlights from that combined total of 23 hours of video I shot. The set itself will probably run around 3 dual-layer DVDs.
Now, of course, other people had cameras there too, and I'm sure they'll post their stuff to YouTube before too long. So why should you bother putting down an as-yet-undetermined amount of money for the "official" product?
Simple: These cameras had an all-access pass. Nothing was off-limits, not even the Friday dinner which is usually limited to the visiting guests of honor only and a very small select handful of invited guests. There are stories there that simply didn't make it into the panels. It'll all be put together on pro gear, interview/documentary-style. With the exception of the one instance where I tripped over my own camera (though, if it makes you feel any better, that was past the one-hour mark at the CGE Stories panel and the tape had already run out!), I dare say it was well-shot too!
Also, without wanting to sound confrontational about it, and without wanting to put down anyone who's ever stepped up to this particular plate (because it is a big undertaking) this is a CGE DVD project that will happen, unlike some of the murmurs of DVD releases in years past. The backbreaking work of shooting everything is already done, now the fun part - the editing - can begin. The show's organizers entrusted me with this year's show because this is the sort of thing I do for a living, and I'll actually get the thing on the market.
Any other questions or announcements about the DVDs can be posted in this thread. For now, though, I've gotta get to work.
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I want to see Joe, John, and Sean's Keynote speech.
) for the project in the meantime.
