August 26, 2012 at 05:20How to make a fascinating cyber series from windows mIRC, ICQ, and Firefox
Many of you probably read back in 2007, the fascinating article by ACiD user - The Scene is a real underground of the Internet , and judging by the comments, some even watched the original The Scene series indicated in the article. For those who are not comfortable, or have forgotten, some information.
I recently stumbled upon this series on a rutracker, thinking that it was translated with subtitles or voice like many other shows. But everything turned out to be much more interesting: The user under the nickname ID-Daemon, at the cost of incredible efforts for six months, managed to draw the first series almost manually. Currently 12 out of 20 episodes of the first of two seasons are fully Russified.
The Russian version of the show is provided as a complete replacement for animation and synchronization of chat conversations, text of letters, and some key parts of the Windows XP interface. The speech was also fully voiced.
Under the cut, links to distributions, Review, Soundtrack, as well as the full history of ID-Daemonassociated with this series, with which he accompanies his releases, in attempts to popularize this show, which is not standard for ordinary people, and to obtain the right to publish the series in the Series section . At the moment, the show is located in the Rutracker.org branch »Miscellaneous» Miscellaneous »Video
In the fall of 2010, I was going to translate an article about Shane Pitman, the leader of the release group Razor1911, one of the most famous groups of pirated games that released Quake before the official release. This is a rather long and interesting article about how he was on stage, how he was arrested, and how his life turned out after that.
In this regard, I read various articles on Wikipedia, about the warez scene, about groups, about the FBI operations that were carried out against them in different years, and also came across an article about the operation “Site Down”:
ru.wikipedia.org /wiki/%D0%9E%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%...%D1%8F_Site_Down
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Site_Down
The Russian version does not have this, but the English mentions a strange similarity between the real events of 2005 and the TV series “Scene”. That's how I found out about him. I downloaded it, started to look and was simply mesmerized by it.
In Russia, only a few could see the “scene”, who not only by some miracle learned about the series, but also knew enough English and slang to understand the incredibly twisted detective story.
The atmosphere makes a lasting impression. I watched what was happening on the computer screen, listened to the knock of keys, the music that the character was listening to. I saw what we are used to doing every day today, and no longer notice how it looks. I seemed to be in the place of the heroes of the film. Sometimes instinctively I wanted to move a window with the mouse or close it. A particularly unusual feeling is when I myself wrote while watching someone in ICQ or had to watch something on the Internet. My virtual life was mixed with the events of the film, and from this the events became even more mysterious. For a week, I slowly watched all 20 episodes.
I immediately thought it would be nice to translate this so that those who do not know English could also watch, the series was clearly worth it. But how to do that? The fact is that in this first of its kind film, the action takes place on the computer screen of his heroes, where we see how they communicate in a chat. Subtitles would only confuse the viewer, the screen is already overloaded with text, sometimes simultaneously changing in different windows. An off-screen translation would also not work, even if it was polyphonic, it would be difficult to understand which line someone was speaking. It seems that the only option was to redraw the English letters into Russian, that is, actually completely redo the video. But I did not know how to do this.
About a week later, I told a friend about the “scene”, and it turned out that there is a person who can try to draw letters, as I already did this before, sometimes inserting text into the video, Russifying individual texts or words for the song. The volumes of work were certainly not comparable, but we decided to try.
At the price of incredible efforts, for half a year it was possible to draw 1 series almost manually and it was laid out on the root tracker. The distribution was immediately closed due to non-standard technical parameters.
After negotiations with the moderators, the series was still allowed to be distributed, but not in the series section, but in the “miscellaneous” section, which I had not even heard of before. I don’t know how, but if I want to watch a movie, I’m looking for it in the “movies” section, the series in the “series” section, and the music in the “music” section. I thought that in the "miscellaneous" section of the series hardly anyone would notice. But since it’s still difficult to evaluate the whole picture from 1 episode, I decided that later, when more episodes will be ready, I can ask for the distribution to be returned to the series.
We started making 2 episodes. Time passed, and it soon became clear that we’ll translate the entire series in 10 years ... For half a year, only a few units downloaded it, it still remained in complete obscurity. It seemed that everything was lost, we will never finish the translation, and even if we finish, no one will see it anyway.
So it took almost 10 months. In the spring of 2012, again by chance, I met several more people who remembered this series, and they also wanted to help in the translation. Maybe we were lucky, or maybe it was a pattern, but suddenly a few great ideas came up, a special program was written that partially automated the process of drawing letters, and as a result, series 2 was completed in almost a week!
Remember the 1995 film Hackers? I am one of those people who have watched it a dozen times and yet I do not like it. I think the reason is that I do not particularly like metaphors, especially in such literal form of content as a movie. Although most viewers may not be against mathematical symbols flying around someone’s head, as representations of how they idealize computer code, I would prefer it to be shown how the character, say, exploited the vulnerability in the SSH version that is installed on server (as the Wachowski brothers did in 2003 in The Matrix - Reboot). No matter how you try to make hacking look glamorous, the fact remains that hackers spend most of their time staring at lines of text on a flat screen.
For better or worse, the “scene” is the first film that is not just shot about internet pirates, it actually looks like it was made for people from the computer community. Almost all dialogs are in the form of text on a computer screen, namely in IRC channels and fast messaging clients, with the exception of rare phone calls and face-to-face conversations. Live video itself is shown in a window that takes up less than a quarter of the screen. In fact, you are not so much watching the show as you are reading it.
Despite how boring this may sound, The Scene is an interesting idea that is surprisingly well implemented. Yes, he has a budget, in comparison with which the “Clerks” look epic, but this only gives a sharpness of realism comparable to the “Blair Witch” or Cloverfield. However, unlike The Witches of Blair, the script is written skillfully enough to get involved in a story full of intrigue that forces you to launch a torrent client and download each new episode. The lack of budget makes up for the characters, plot, and novelty of both the format and use of the Creative Commons license.
The story itself is quite attractive. It is about a group of people who have never met in real life, but nevertheless are in constant contact in order to release illegal copies of Hollywood films on the Internet. These dubious characters obviously have plenty of room for conflict, and the creator of the show, Mitchell Reichgut, certainly uses this fact. They are self-confident, full of lies and paranoia, and at the same time true friends. And of course there are reasons for paranoia - some of them may turn out to be completely different from who they say they are.
The “scene” proves (at least to those who like it, including me) that a good script is much more important than a big budget. And most importantly, it gives hope to anyone who would like to create, or simply find an exciting show licensed through Creative Commons. I must admit, while this of course does not make any TV channel afraid of competition, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.
This is what Internet TV should be like: try new ideas. I think it is safe to say that this idea was a success. I would recommend the “scene” to people who know how to download it, that makes sense. It was specially made for this new distribution channel, not only as a way of distribution, but also in content. If you have ever watched a movie or series that you downloaded from the Internet, this movie is a must watch for you.
Detailed article in the large German online publication Heise
General discussion of the series, which began at the beginning of its release
Discussions on the connection with the real arrests of the FBI on stage, which began in the summer of 2005
www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=12404
www. vcdq.com/forum/topic64311.html
Official website and mirror in Germany.
OST:
Maylynne-Catch Me
The Scene on Rutracker
600p rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3600572
720p rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4064846
The Scene Vkontakte
vk.com/the.scene
PS: I also contacted ID-Daemon with a desire to invite him to our community so that he could write good and fascinating articles, since he is so passionate about this topic.
UPD: ID Daemon also voiced the humorous series about Photoshop
Fucking Photoshop / You Suck at Photoshop
Fucking Photoshop
Vk.com/yousuckatphotoshop
Have a nice weekend watching The Scene.
Scene - a web series created by Jun Group Entertainment in 2004-2006. The first of its kind film, the action of which takes place on the screen of the computers of his heroes, where we see how they communicate in a chat.
The Heroes of the Scene are members of the fictional release group CPX, which distributes new films before their official release. The story begins with the fact that one of the founders of the group, under the pressure of circumstances, sells a copy of the film to Asian DVD pirates.
I recently stumbled upon this series on a rutracker, thinking that it was translated with subtitles or voice like many other shows. But everything turned out to be much more interesting: The user under the nickname ID-Daemon, at the cost of incredible efforts for six months, managed to draw the first series almost manually. Currently 12 out of 20 episodes of the first of two seasons are fully Russified.
The Russian version of the show is provided as a complete replacement for animation and synchronization of chat conversations, text of letters, and some key parts of the Windows XP interface. The speech was also fully voiced.
Under the cut, links to distributions, Review, Soundtrack, as well as the full history of ID-Daemonassociated with this series, with which he accompanies his releases, in attempts to popularize this show, which is not standard for ordinary people, and to obtain the right to publish the series in the Series section . At the moment, the show is located in the Rutracker.org branch »Miscellaneous» Miscellaneous »Video
As I found out about the series
In the fall of 2010, I was going to translate an article about Shane Pitman, the leader of the release group Razor1911, one of the most famous groups of pirated games that released Quake before the official release. This is a rather long and interesting article about how he was on stage, how he was arrested, and how his life turned out after that.
In this regard, I read various articles on Wikipedia, about the warez scene, about groups, about the FBI operations that were carried out against them in different years, and also came across an article about the operation “Site Down”:
ru.wikipedia.org /wiki/%D0%9E%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%...%D1%8F_Site_Down
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Site_Down
The Russian version does not have this, but the English mentions a strange similarity between the real events of 2005 and the TV series “Scene”. That's how I found out about him. I downloaded it, started to look and was simply mesmerized by it.
Unusual format
In Russia, only a few could see the “scene”, who not only by some miracle learned about the series, but also knew enough English and slang to understand the incredibly twisted detective story.
The atmosphere makes a lasting impression. I watched what was happening on the computer screen, listened to the knock of keys, the music that the character was listening to. I saw what we are used to doing every day today, and no longer notice how it looks. I seemed to be in the place of the heroes of the film. Sometimes instinctively I wanted to move a window with the mouse or close it. A particularly unusual feeling is when I myself wrote while watching someone in ICQ or had to watch something on the Internet. My virtual life was mixed with the events of the film, and from this the events became even more mysterious. For a week, I slowly watched all 20 episodes.
I immediately thought it would be nice to translate this so that those who do not know English could also watch, the series was clearly worth it. But how to do that? The fact is that in this first of its kind film, the action takes place on the computer screen of his heroes, where we see how they communicate in a chat. Subtitles would only confuse the viewer, the screen is already overloaded with text, sometimes simultaneously changing in different windows. An off-screen translation would also not work, even if it was polyphonic, it would be difficult to understand which line someone was speaking. It seems that the only option was to redraw the English letters into Russian, that is, actually completely redo the video. But I did not know how to do this.
Long 1.5 years of searching
About a week later, I told a friend about the “scene”, and it turned out that there is a person who can try to draw letters, as I already did this before, sometimes inserting text into the video, Russifying individual texts or words for the song. The volumes of work were certainly not comparable, but we decided to try.
At the price of incredible efforts, for half a year it was possible to draw 1 series almost manually and it was laid out on the root tracker. The distribution was immediately closed due to non-standard technical parameters.
After negotiations with the moderators, the series was still allowed to be distributed, but not in the series section, but in the “miscellaneous” section, which I had not even heard of before. I don’t know how, but if I want to watch a movie, I’m looking for it in the “movies” section, the series in the “series” section, and the music in the “music” section. I thought that in the "miscellaneous" section of the series hardly anyone would notice. But since it’s still difficult to evaluate the whole picture from 1 episode, I decided that later, when more episodes will be ready, I can ask for the distribution to be returned to the series.
We started making 2 episodes. Time passed, and it soon became clear that we’ll translate the entire series in 10 years ... For half a year, only a few units downloaded it, it still remained in complete obscurity. It seemed that everything was lost, we will never finish the translation, and even if we finish, no one will see it anyway.
So it took almost 10 months. In the spring of 2012, again by chance, I met several more people who remembered this series, and they also wanted to help in the translation. Maybe we were lucky, or maybe it was a pattern, but suddenly a few great ideas came up, a special program was written that partially automated the process of drawing letters, and as a result, series 2 was completed in almost a week!
Review (Zoë Blade)
Remember the 1995 film Hackers? I am one of those people who have watched it a dozen times and yet I do not like it. I think the reason is that I do not particularly like metaphors, especially in such literal form of content as a movie. Although most viewers may not be against mathematical symbols flying around someone’s head, as representations of how they idealize computer code, I would prefer it to be shown how the character, say, exploited the vulnerability in the SSH version that is installed on server (as the Wachowski brothers did in 2003 in The Matrix - Reboot). No matter how you try to make hacking look glamorous, the fact remains that hackers spend most of their time staring at lines of text on a flat screen.
For better or worse, the “scene” is the first film that is not just shot about internet pirates, it actually looks like it was made for people from the computer community. Almost all dialogs are in the form of text on a computer screen, namely in IRC channels and fast messaging clients, with the exception of rare phone calls and face-to-face conversations. Live video itself is shown in a window that takes up less than a quarter of the screen. In fact, you are not so much watching the show as you are reading it.
Despite how boring this may sound, The Scene is an interesting idea that is surprisingly well implemented. Yes, he has a budget, in comparison with which the “Clerks” look epic, but this only gives a sharpness of realism comparable to the “Blair Witch” or Cloverfield. However, unlike The Witches of Blair, the script is written skillfully enough to get involved in a story full of intrigue that forces you to launch a torrent client and download each new episode. The lack of budget makes up for the characters, plot, and novelty of both the format and use of the Creative Commons license.
The story itself is quite attractive. It is about a group of people who have never met in real life, but nevertheless are in constant contact in order to release illegal copies of Hollywood films on the Internet. These dubious characters obviously have plenty of room for conflict, and the creator of the show, Mitchell Reichgut, certainly uses this fact. They are self-confident, full of lies and paranoia, and at the same time true friends. And of course there are reasons for paranoia - some of them may turn out to be completely different from who they say they are.
The “scene” proves (at least to those who like it, including me) that a good script is much more important than a big budget. And most importantly, it gives hope to anyone who would like to create, or simply find an exciting show licensed through Creative Commons. I must admit, while this of course does not make any TV channel afraid of competition, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.
This is what Internet TV should be like: try new ideas. I think it is safe to say that this idea was a success. I would recommend the “scene” to people who know how to download it, that makes sense. It was specially made for this new distribution channel, not only as a way of distribution, but also in content. If you have ever watched a movie or series that you downloaded from the Internet, this movie is a must watch for you.
Articles and discussions on foreign forums and sites
Detailed article in the large German online publication Heise
General discussion of the series, which began at the beginning of its release
Discussions on the connection with the real arrests of the FBI on stage, which began in the summer of 2005
www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=12404
www. vcdq.com/forum/topic64311.html
References
Official website and mirror in Germany.
OST:
Maylynne-Catch Me
The Scene on Rutracker
600p rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3600572
720p rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4064846
The Scene Vkontakte
vk.com/the.scene
PS: I also contacted ID-Daemon with a desire to invite him to our community so that he could write good and fascinating articles, since he is so passionate about this topic.
UPD: ID Daemon also voiced the humorous series about Photoshop
Fucking Photoshop / You Suck at Photoshop
Fucking Photoshop
Vk.com/yousuckatphotoshop
Have a nice weekend watching The Scene.
