To make things easier:
Episode 1: Rockets and Riddles Ruin the Roost! Episode 2: Riddling Clues Give Batman a Boost! Thanks to Sara Kraft for beta viewing, brainstorming, encouraging, etc.
Bonus link to a fun news article.
For those interested, the story of how it all came to be:
About five weeks ago, I was talking to Anna late at night, and I made the mistake of mentioning to her that Timmy was bothering me with this idea for a vid. Not really a coherent idea. Just a song he wanted to do. With no explanation of how it was even going to be possible.
I mentioned it in the context of "No, Timmy, we are not doing it. It's too out there, even for us."
Anna did not respond with the expected "haha, yeah, that's pretty bad."
I guess it's my own fault. I mean, just trying to write up that expected response right there, I was fighting myself. I kept coming up with adjectives like "crazy," "random," and "silly" and then going "wait a minute, since when is that a
bad thing? No, have to rephrase..."
Anyway, instead of agreeing with me and laughing the whole thing off, she immediately responded with something like "OMG! Now you have to do it!"
I told her it wasn't possible. I told her that not even Timmy had the slightest inkling of how to even start on the practical details. It was just Timmy being random and silly, as Timmy is wont to do. Some ideas just have to be left.
Eventually, disappointed, she gave up trying to convince me otherwise.
I couldn't help it, though. I started thinking about it. Wondering if there was a way to do it. I mean, Anna was insisting, and her birthday was coming up, and... maybe...
I spent the next week going through scripts, making a list of clips I could maybe use. Anna's birthday came and went.
I spent the next two weeks gathering and cataloguing clips. Still had no real idea what I was doing, but at least I knew what I had available.
The next week, I got to work. I got a beta to encourage me and help me knock ideas around. I made some progress, but still had barely any idea what I was doing. Things were going in fits and spurts, but they still managed to get out of hand. Meanwhile, I was browsing the web, gathering the other material I'd need. At some point, I gave up trying to find stuff ready-made, and started downloading the entire first season of this one show. A couple days later, I started downloading another season.
It didn't take much longer before WMM became overwhelmed by the sheer volume of video I had imported. It started crashing on a semi-regular basis, often before it even finished loading the project files.
Still it was building. I was making it up as I was going along, but it really was getting out of hand.
I split the thing in half. Turned it into two videos. And kept going, fighting WMM every step of the way (and learning the capabilities of a couple of other video editing programs on the side).
Now, five weeks later, exactly a month after Anna's birthday, here it is...
Whatever it is. A fanfic video, perhaps.
Enjoy.
And...
Happy One Month After Your Birthday, Anna!
Paul
