A* Episode 1's Voiceover Contest is now underway!

This is where you can add whatever sound effects, music, or voice acting you want to the first episode's animation. Winners will be determined by a community poll once the contest entry deadline has passed, and will have their entry's credits and link permanently featured on Episode 1's page.


Contest submission guidelines:

1. Entries must include the full original animation, all the way from the opening title sequence to the end credit sequence, in its entirety, uninterrupted, and playing back at its normal rate. Aside from adding top/bottom/side bars or rescaling to fit YouTube's display size, if necessary, the original graphics must be presented completely and in their original aspect ratio--ie not cropped, stretched or squished. You can feel free to add your own screens and graphics before the original title sequence or after the original credit sequence, but not in-between.
   
   
2. You don't absolutely have to have voices in your entry, and if you do, they don't absolutely have to follow the script, although I'd like to hear your take on it. The episode's official script can be found as a .txt file under the "files" link at the bottom of the episode's page.
   
   
3. Entries must be on YouTube. This means that they must meet YouTube's content guidelines. If your entry is removed from YouTube for any reason, it will be disqualified, so please make sure you're in compliance with YouTube's requirements.
   
   
4. Material added to entries must not contain or give links to content that is obscene, derogatory, or otherwise horrible or insulting.
   
   
5. The "info" section of the movie's page on YouTube must contain
   
   

   	Quote: Entry by [name] for the A* Episode 1 Voiceover Contest at smbhax.com.

   
   where "[name]" is the A* forum username from which you post your entry in this thread (see next item).
   
   
6. Entries must be submitted via a post on this thread, by the user whose name is noted in the info section of the movie's page on YouTube as described in #5 above, before the contest's submission deadline, in the following format:
   
   

   	Quote: CONTEST ENTRY Credits: [the names of the people who worked on it as you would like them spelled on the episode's page if your entry wins; must not contain anything aside from the list of names, and the names must be people who actually worked on it; names must not be obscene, insulting, or trademarked names of companies] YouTube URL: [http:// address of your movie on YouTube]

   
   
7. You can edit your entry post at any time up to the deadline, but it must be complete at the end of the day (PST) of Thursday, April 2nd.

Winners will be determined by a poll started by me in the O* forum after the entry deadline has passed. The poll will run for one week. The top three entries will win. I'll be the tiebreaker in case of ties.


As for how to get an A* episode onto YouTube, I haven't done it myself (hopefully someone who has can write a handy little FAQ :), but my understanding is it can be done for instance something like this:

1. Go to the episode's page and click on the "files" link in the link section at the bottom.
2. Save the numbered "scene" .gif files to your computer. These are the individual scenes that make up the full episode's animation.
3. Drop the .gif files, in order, into the "Windows Movie Maker" program that comes with recent versions of Windows.
4. Edit the movie with Window Movie Maker's tools, ie adding sounds and whatnot.
5. Save the movie as a .wmv file.
6. Log in to YouTube and upload it.

That's all I know about that particular way of doing it. It certainly isn't the only way, as there are plenty of movie editing programs out there. If you need more details, try asking the other people here, someone's bound to know far more about the technical aspects of video files and YouTube than I do!


Thanks, and have fun with it! I'm looking forward to hearing your interpretations of A*'s characters and settings.

Will there be some female characters featured soon? =)

Mmmmmmayyyyyyyybe.

*cough*bounty hunter*cough*

But eh possibly not more than a line or two until say episode 4-ish.

Ohh say, how about Barny? There's nothing that says he (a computer) couldn't have a female voice. =D

I was just thinking that in alot of Sci fi related comics or shows you see the female sidekick tends to have a tomboyish or cliche name.

Barry could be anything from a super computer guardian angel to a tomboy gear head at this point for all we know :)

Yeah! Although just to clarify, Vero would (I mean, may in an upcoming episode) refer to Barny as a "he," due to the nickname sounding male, but that doesn't mean he didn't for instance give Barny a female voice synthesizer because it was cheaper or he had one handy already or just because he likes it that way. ;)

About that... does this satisfy those requirements?

Ooh, I may have found a way around youtube's image stretching.... example to follow.

Does the "after" appear to retain the proper aspect ratio, Rare?

Looks fine to me!

Is it hard to avoid having it look stretched?