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Nick
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 11802
Location: Sydney, NSW
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OK, let's maybe focus on some positive ideas, rather than moaning about how it can't be done? For starters, Battlebots is completely unrealistic and out of reach anywhere in the world right now - I was thinking of a 10 to 15 minute length and the make it very much a reality type 'no sets' show. We would have to tart up the arena, but if we concentrated on beetles and used our proposed new arena, then we could take it to a good or at least unusual venue, more like what Marto suggested.
As I see it frequency is our major problem; we would need to hold some extra events and save up footage before releasing a "season".
Using beetleweights will mean some close-up photography, but also makes multiple and overhead camera positions easy and lighting is also cheaper & easier.
If we are going for more of a reality format or just need lots of footage, perhaps we fit out some builders with Gopro cameras?
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Thu Jul 15, 2010 12:04 pm |
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bytraper
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 195
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I know, I'm full of brilliant ideas....!
The thing you have to consider is that with TV, nobody is going to front up with a crap bot, especially if it is going to be on TV and theres the remote opportunity for sponsorship. Its against the advertising policies of TVS, but who's to say what stickers/bot colours/t-shirts people can wear?
It also opens the door for sales promotions and sponsors who have money and want their logo's on good bots, which means more fights more often. And who wants to sponsor a wedge? I'd rather look at action bots like demon etc... Heck, everyone would want to sponsor demon...
With the qty of fights in VIC, NSW and QLD and the good camera work of some of you, theres going to be enough footage to have a decent show at least once a fortnight. You have to remember the minimum it has to be is 22 minutes, so it doesn't have to all be about robot fights, you could also include interviews with the builders, between fights and possibly a how to section showing people how they can scrounge bits to make their first bots...
Once you show on TV, you'll start to get more people because word will spread quickly. On top of that, brett can get off his backside and post the show on the front page of the website to promote things further on the internet.
Just need someone with a deep voice that can overdub the fights and have a few awesome sounding metallic thumps when bots collide... nobody wants to hear little bumps they want to hear grinding and whatnot... all easily editable and add-able (thats not even a word)...
You could even build a few staged fights, with bots that destruct on impact... etc etc etc
I also think theres a reason that beetle weights were never televised. Can you say booring? Anybody has the capacity to make a bot of any size, thats a fact, but not everybody has the will to do it.
But you get my gist... The more exciting you make it, the more people will want to be a part of it. If kids want to do it, then great, that gets parents involved. You could also have a bit of an introduction to each bot... show what they can do to old household appliances and what not...
Opinions on my awesome ideas?
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Thu Jul 15, 2010 1:57 pm |
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Nick
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 11802
Location: Sydney, NSW
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I award 8/10 for awesomness! 22 minutes is a fairly long time, but for each show, we could have a few minutes on construction, repair, design principles, etc that would more than make up for any shortfall of fight video. That sort of stuff is important to attracting new builders anyway - it shows them it's not really that difficult to get into the sport.
For impressive audio, we would stick a surface mic to the underside of the arena, it will mak the small bots sound more like tanks . Finding a good commentary voice might be a challenge; finding a good talking head will even harder - having a good presenter can make or break a show.
@ Marto: down here I would want to use only camera that record to SD cards or direct to disks. That way I can easily copy everything into my Premier Pro editing PC. It would still take quite a while to collect the footage, but its something that can be left going.
We would probably use the same production technique as a commercial serial show - have a shooting schedule and keep a large backlog of shows so that (say) an eirht month season is compressed into a much shorter run of weekly or fortnightly shows.
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Thu Jul 15, 2010 2:37 pm |
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bytraper
Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 195
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Valen: thats all you need, really the audio would be best if its overdubbed... That way witty comments can be though of without the need to come up with something on the fly, noises can be amplified, the spinning up of shells and and spinners can sound like jet engines and crowd and children wow'ing can all be added... the station has legal rights to use music from certain companies so that can also be added to the backgrounds for free (if theres anything decent).
But think about it, by the time you introduce the bots and show what they are capable of, with a quick interview with the builder, you've probably killed about an hour already. so it could be quite easily stretched out to go over consecutive episodes while showing fights in between to keep the action going.. And im not talking about the kind of stretching you see in aircraft crash investigations where they repeat footage over and over to extend the show
A few smoke makers in bots will liven things up and give the commentator some action to comment on when things get slow etc etc etc...
Theres millions of ways to make something way interesting, not to , mention that you'll be able to legally advertise the club on there because its a not for profit organisation which should bring interested people to watch the next lot of fights and talk to the builders of their favorite robots... and to find out about joining and competing.
You can even gauge responses by asking people to email their favourite bots and picking the winner... the list goes on and on.
As for the naysayers, those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by those doing it.
right?
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Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:02 pm |
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