2020 Videos

Witness Building Witness
1

As we discussed during the kickoff call, we’ll produce two videos this year: one Edgeryders style invitation video (due date asap) and one introduction to the project video proposed by me.

The invitation video

Due date: asap
Will be put together by Edgeryders peeps, based on other similar works like this one.
The purpose of this video is to add some interactive material to the invitation we’ll create for the 7th of December.

The introduction video

Due date: 5th of December
Will be put together by Joriam, with a narrative introduction based on Magic The Gathering’s trailers (just please don’t expect animations, I’ll just use clever voice over and free imagery with cool filters) followed by a more explanatory part, similar to the invitation video, but longer
The objective of this video is to quickly and effectively bring people to where we’re at with this project in a narrative sense, a purpose sense, also in a more logistical sense, telling people what are the next steps. The idea is to start the Dec7th call showing this video to the people present and just after the call make it available to the public.
After the call, this is the video that’s gonna be on the top of our communication until we prepare something more robust next year (and only after we’ve prepared more material).

Requirements for all videos

— Landscape
— 1080p quality
— No earbud microphones (phone mics are a-ok)
— Please chose a room with low ceiling and a lot of furniture to avoid reverberation
— Whenever you record, give it 2 seconds of silence before and after you talk (easier to cut!)

I hate to say this, folks… I really do! But everything is urgent.
Do your best to make it happen as quickly as you can, and let’s celebrate partial success, ok?

Video Requests

Alberto @alberto

— For the introduction video: a 1-1:30 min piece on the failure of Capitalism, also introducing the project, how you folks conceived it, why were you led to create this
— For the introduction video: a 15-30 sec comment on the worldbuilding being open-source material
— A clip with 5 seconds of absolute silence in the same room you recorded (to help with noise cancelation)

Yudhan @yudhanjaya

— For the introduction video: a 1 min introduction mentioning your work as a SciFi writer, how technology influenced your work and how your work influenced your relationship to technology
— For the introduction video: a 15-30 sec piece telling people we’re not creating a full world, but a basis of a world that’s designed to be iterated
— Help me with the text for the narrative intro (I’ll explain that in the section below)
— A clip with 5 seconds of absolute silence in the same room you recorded (to help with noise cancelation)

Joriam

— For the introduction video: a 1 min introduction to the collaboration aspect of the work, inviting people to join in and promising there will be a space for people, mentioning some of the public iterations we’re thinking
— For the introduction video: a 15-30 sec piece mentioning the importance of imagining futures to build them
— A clip with 5 seconds of absolute silence in the same room you recorded (to help with noise cancelation)

The narrative bit

I know I’m asking a lot here, because we’ll need to create something before our world is really buil, but I still think we can be provoking without being too specific.
I need ideally 3 snippets of text that show the economical/political possibilities of our new worlds without explaining them too much. This is more or less the level of tone and length I’m expecting:

“Oh you think you can decide better than the AI? Haha! What will you propose next? Kings? Presidents? Feudal lords?”
“Oh sweetie, you’re never ever going to jail - being studious as you are. Keep researching and you can do whatever you please. Whatever.”
“This is an eviction note: your genetic material is no longer in wealth rank 3, you have five days to pack your belongings.”

I’m counting on you for that @yudhanjaya, but of course, ask for help if you need! :slight_smile:

Did I forget anything?

If you noticed I forgot anything — or if you think it would be nice to have more voices on either of the videos (I’d love to have @nadia’s, for example, but she had left the call when we made some of those decisions), please let me know.

I’m not sure if other people can edit my post. If so, here’s my full consent: go for it, improve it and tag people who should see the changes.

Let’s make it happen :wink:

3 Likes
2

By voices You mean:
A. literal voices coming out of mouth recordings
or
B. opinions about something?

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Joriam! This is really great. You have just become my hero! I hear and obey. Any indication on:

  • Daytime vs nighttime
  • Dos and donts in clothing, etc.
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Sorry, I was too poetic :joy: I meant points of view!

But it also involves literal voices — would you like to be present in either of the videos representing some aspect of this project?

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Those are smaller details, but if you wanna nail it — daytime, monocoloured clothing (no stripes, no crossed patterns) :slight_smile:

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“The Conclave has released the human-to-human interaction protocol version 3.1.56. All abbots and abbesses please update processes ASAP, to preserve a smooth running of our work and prayer.”

1 Like
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Sounds like a plan!

In the meantime, I have gone through the onboarding of @marcolok and @michi1 who will work on the illustrations part of this initial phase and they will also be able to produce a couple of sketches that may be used in the first video

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Oh that’s lovely to hear @IvanC @marcolok @michi1!
Amici, benvenuti a bordo! Scusate, il mio italiano è pessimo :joy:

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Ah, non si direbbe :slight_smile:

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Notes for my video fragments:

We are building a fictional world. Something like the Star Trek Universe, or the Harry Potter Universe. The difference is, better economics. We want our imaginary economies to be radically different from the one we live in, and yet credible and rigorous. We need solid, vivid, business cultures, organizational models, infrastructure, trading systems, finance. And if we can imagine these things… well, maybe we could build them, out here in the real world.

""I trained as an economist because I wanted to help understand the economy, and make it better. I was inspired by the “can do” attitude of economists up to Keynes. Their message is, our well being depends on this large emergent system we are all part of, “the economy”, and we can understand it, and change it for the better. Even re-design it! Became disillusioned when academia threw in the towel, and doubled down on defending a neoliberal, Washington Consensus-type economics that never worked in theory, with minimal tweaks so that it would stumble on in practice. Economics can, and must, do better. We must offer models that inspire people to be part of. The Green and Digital transitions offer an opportunity.

So, I boarded the pirate ship of Edgeryders. Together, we dreamed up the Sci-Fi Economics Lab: a space where we can do 21st century economics with the same freedom of mind as 18th and 19th century economists. And that entails a certain amount of utopianism.".

So, I boarded the pirate ship of Edgeryders. Together, we dreamed up the Sci-Fi Economics Lab: a space where we can do 21st century economics with the same freedom of mind as 18th and 19th century economists. And that entails a certain amount of utopianism."

We are making our world open source. We want anyone to be able to use it to set a novel in. Or a short story, a film, a game – anything at all. Of course, you could set them in the Star Wars universe too, but in that case you had better not be too successful. Because if you are, the lawyers will come calling. They will have takedown notices, or even lawsuits. But this? This is meant to be a common resource, built by the joint work of authors, economists, social scientists. And it stays in the commons, for all of us.

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@Joriam heads up: new idea from @nadia

I’d like to try something new
A kind of live portrait where you look into the camera and dont say anything - shot outdoors somewhere nice
and then you do a voiceover of the text you had in mind

Is that OK for you?

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Ok so the invitation video is the pre-event invitation video that is to be produced in the next few days, correct?

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exactly, it would be good if we could have the pieces by monday
@yudhanjaya, @joriam, @alberto

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OK, so @nadia and presumably @estragon are on it. The idea is voiceover audio + “video portraits” or stock footage. My audio for both videos is now recorded and uploaded on our shared drive. Nadia will add the video material in the same folder as she edits. If you need access to the folder let me know.

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The idea itself sounds pretty cool, but for which of the videos are you think about this?
I don’t think it would fit the more explanation bits!

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Count on me! Will send them tomorrow

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its for the invitation video that we produce before the event @joriam …

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Alright, here’s my delivery.
I didn’t have access to Alberto’s folder, so I’m not sure if I did the same thing he did, but I did my best!

Files 01 and 02 are for the audio — but since I recorded with the camera, thought I could also add the full video here, just in case. I think file 02 will have the right length, but I also added another slightly longer take.

Files 03-05 are external shots for Nadia’s idea. One open shot, one close shot and one blurry shot (that was a mistake, but I thought it looked neat in the end, wanted to give it as an option).

File 06 is just a couple of second of silence so you can get the noise profile. Please ignore my frustration at the end of it.

I think that’s all I had for this delivery. If I’m missing anything please let me know!

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Thank you Joriam, I think this will work fine! ping @nadia @alberto @estragon

1 Like
20

Here is what came out using material I have but without voiceover added. I have to focus on other stuff now, can someone else add the voices on top of this?

low res:

High res:
Download from: https://vimeo.com/479489750
password: scifieconlab

2 Likes