Westercons and Bids at the San Diego Fannish Inquisition

[kevin_standlee]

We finally got Fannish Inquisition videos for the seated Westercon and bids for Westercons posted. The Westercon Inquisition was two hours before the Worldcon one, and it's how we learned that the P2 camera's built-in microphone just won't pick up much of the ambient sound in the room, particularly for the people who don't know how to speak into a microphone. (I'm an exception, as is rono_60103.) For the Worldcon Inquisition, we were able to get a microphone line directly into the camera, and that worked wonderfully for the sound.

Because of worries about the new P2 camera, Lisa also was rolling the older Sony DSC-H2 on which she has been recording meetings and inquisitions for the past several years. Somewhat to our surprise, the tiny microphone built into the Sony was slightly better than the P2's microphone, so we used that as the source for these three videos. It wasn't great, but it worked. Unfortunately, due to a technical limitation on the length of videos on the Sony, it cut off before Denver finished. (Lisa forgot to cycle the Sony between presentations like she did on the P2.)

Here's Lea Rush with the Westercon 69 (Portland) presentation.

Tempe in 2017 is the bid that won, unopposed, and will host Westercon 70.

Denver in 2018 is currently the only bid for the 2018 Westercon. The site of Westercon 71 will be voted upon next year in Portland. Assuming Denver files their paperwork with Portland before the end of this year, only sites from the Central and South Regions of Westercon (in effect, everything south of the Oregon/Idaho-California/Nevada state line) are eligible.

Lisa intends to roll both cameras at Worldcon as well so that we have spare recordings if the primary ones fail at any time.

We'd prefer to film from two different angles, including one from the head table; however, this would require extensive post-production editing for which I know we will not have the time. As it is, we'll probably be ripping lower-resolution recordings off the camera at 30-minute intervals and dumping the MP4 files straight to YouTube rather than including any titles, credits, or anything else. Given the interest in the 2015 WSFS Business Meeting, I anticipate that speed and good-quality sound (not necessarily video) is more important than any glitzy production values this year.

Comments

[peanut13171.livejournal.com]

Thank you for recording those and sharing them with us. I watched them all and found them very interesting.