How Did I Make The Swing Show Episode One?
The first episode of TheM_O_S_234's Swing Show premiered on the 16th of July 2021. However, the idea of doing minecraft concerts/performances has been a thought in the back of my mind for many years at this point, but I've never managed to find a decent set of mods to make it work.
Until now...
In mid June I stumbled upon the "Theatrical" mod by @MrRushmead which allows real, professional lighting software to communicate with stage lights in Minecraft! Of course I thought I had to make something, and so The "Swing Show" was born!
Why Swing Music? I hear you ask. Well... to be honest I can't entirely remember but it was most likely because I really enjoy that genre and thought it would be interesting to do a light show to (not very insightful I know).
Anyway let's get into it...
Step One - Find The Song
Step Two - Find a Venue
So, next I had to find somewhere to shoot the video and whilst searching through Planet Minecraft I found this theatre by Proto_Byte which seemed to fit the bill perfectly. But of course it wasn't quite finished so I had go in and furnish the lobby, replace the stage/set, build the backstage areas (including the mechanical and technical areas which control the lighting and set) install controllable house lighting, and of course, most importantly, install a lift.
Step Three - Install and Setup the Mods
Next, I needed to install the mods necessary to make the whole thing work. First things first, of course we needed Theatrical to be able to do the light show, after that we needed the "Create" mod by simibubi to make the sets/podium move and power the redstone lamps remotely, and finally a lot of cosmetic mods to make the place look nice.
Step Four - Program The Lights
Now of course the most important part of this whole thing (to me) was the lighting. So, dutifully, I spent an entire day and a half programming the entirety of the light show in time to the music. In order to make it I used the free software Dot2 onPC made by the well-known lighting company MA lighting and of course Theatrical by Rushmead.
Step Five - Record The Video
In order to record the show I used the mod "CMD Cam" by CreativeMD. I used CMD Cam because unfortunately my normal mod (Replay Mod) isn't ported to forge (The modloader I was using) so I had to find an alternative. But, as well made as CMD Cam was, it meant that every camera move had to be performed live rather than as a replay, which presented its own set of issues. Luckily CMD Cam has the ability for "outside" recording which meant that I still only needed to control one Minecraft account, but because I wanted multiple camera angles and movements I had to do the exact same body movements multiple times so that they would line up in the end video. I think that I did an alright job of this, however, I'll let you be the judge.
Step Six - Post-Production
Finally it was time to jump into the editing suite. The editing process was probably one of the easiest parts of this video-making experience. It was mainly just a case of bringing in all of the individual clips, syncing them all up, trimming and adding pre-roll title sequences, end credits and post-roll title sequences.
The hardest part of the post production step was the thumbnail, description and subtitles/closed captions. The thumbnail comprises of a 3d rendered model of the skin created by TonyFoxyOne, which took quite a while to get just right; the description required credits to everyone/everything that helped make the video, which took a very long time to aggregate and finally the subtitles took forever to write even with the song lyrics.
Step Seven - Release
Release and relax, then move on to working on the next one...
