Hello,
First of all it's worth mentioning that I consider 2 phases in the progress of making the montage TIME:
- the democall period: a period of time where demos get collected and selected for the montage.
- the editing period: where the selected demos for the montage are getting edited into one video.
I have been thinking about the following for over a month, since it's a pretty hard choice, but I made a descision.
Yet I am saying this with a giant gutfeeling in my stumic and throat:
I gonna have to extend the democall period of the montageproject TIME.
Due to personal real life things I am currently not able to start the phase of editing it.
The democall has been running since April the 11th and normally a democall period shouldn't be that long:
It extends the total period of time where a montage is in progress, and because meanwhile most of the other potential montagemakers are waiting for it's release, there are barely any (big) montages getting released.
In my experience of playing codjump for 3,5 years I notice that big montages provide some sort of motivationboost keeping codjumpers play the game, thus keeping the cj-community alive.
The reason why most of the potential montagemakers often wait until another montagemaker is done with his montageproject is mainly to prevent having identical demos being in 2 montages which could reduce the entertainment of either one or both montages and might also reduce the motivationboost coming from those montages.
Meanwhile montagejumpers, who provide the demos for those montages, often send their demos to several videoprojects of montagemakers just to increase the odds of getting into a video since montagejumpers have to deal with the 'pressure' from fellow montagejumpers who soon or late might perform one of their nice jumps too.
And personally I can confirm that, because I know how it feels to see a jump in a montage performed by someone else who also found that jump while you were really proud of your demo including that exact same jump.
To deal with that problem as fair as possible most of the montagemakers often wait for 'their turns' to make a montage; when only one montagemaker is making a montage, it's easier to justify that problem; mostly the first person to send in a specific demo gets to be the one in the montage.
With that said, the fact of me saying that I gonna have to extend the democall period of the montageproject TIME due to personal real life things, creates some problems.
The 1st problem is it causes an irregularity of motivationboost to help keeping the community alive.
The 2nd problem is that it's a well known fenomenon that montagejumpers sometimes steal montagejumpideas they see from others on servers and that montagemakers sometimes don't even care about other montagemakers in a way I described previously and sometimes don't publically announce that they are making a montage (I guess to supprise the cj-community even more), so as a montagemaker you can never be sure who is also making a montage.
Both of those effects put even more pressure on montagejumpers and montagemakers.
The 3rd problem is because of that, the patience of montagemakers is getting less and less.
The 4th problem is because of that again, the urge from the motivation of editors to make a (montage)video to entertain themselves and others (or to provide that motivationboost) is increasing more and more due to just described 2nd problem.
The 5th problem is that, meanwhile the 4th problem is happening, some montagemakers don't want to take away the entertainmentfactor of montages which are currently in progress thus they don't include the most insane demos, yet this causes the 1st problem and is also a bit responsible for the 2nd problem.
And now the circle of those problems is complete, and me saying that I gonna have to extend the democall period of the montageproject TIME due to personal real life things is making those problems even bigger.
That's why it took me more than a month to weigh out the consequences of the choice I had to make; Can I still work on the montage while dealing with those personal real life things?
As said above, I made a choice by delaying the phase of editing, meanwhile increasing the phase of asking ('calling') for demos which has been going on for so long...
So, how does this continue?
This is what I suggest:
I have sent every participant who sent demos for the montage a message via Steam letting them know which of the demos they sent are selected for the montage and which not.
Some of them have already replied.
The way I selected the demos per participant was to pick out the montagejumps which are worthful enough for the montage and do which I feel like do not have much potential to get found compared to the kind of montagejumps people are trying to perform right now.
Please consider for yourself per demo how much you would like to see that demo into TIME, what do you think the odds are of your demo getting performed by someone else?
It's a question I don't like to ask, because I realise I might lose extremely valuable demos in this way, but I do realise that I have to face the consequences of the choise I had to make.
Still if you want to support the project what I would extremely appreciate, you could send the demos which I selected as not approved to other current videoprojects instead.
I would like to emphasise that the democall is still running and will be still running for some time: you can still send demos for TIME, and the better the demos are, the higher the odds are that you will be in the montage when I will start the editing part.
For potential montagemakers who waited for the release of TIME I would say: don't wait for the release;
I am not able to estimate how long it's gonna take before I am able to start the editing phase.
For the final words I would like to apologize to everyone who is affected by the problemstructure I described which I feel like I made bigger due to the choice I made.
I would also like to apologize for the fact that I can't make the promise come true that the montage would be released this year.
Anf as being a montagemaker I realise that that is irresponsble behaviour; I truely want to apologize for that too.
inb4 until Tuesday I won't be able to reply due to christmas things with family etc.
For so far the clarification about the montage TIME.
sincerely,
FrisbeeSky
