The Tyrant - Season 1

[LtAdams2247]

For Marie, who missed out on the  LiveVideo (LV) history many of us share, here's a quick recap of the show that I am making fake trailers for.

The Tyrant was a roleplay type thing that started as a harmless video challenge and got picked up by a lot of people. The first two seasons were highly interactive with many people playing off of each other and reacting to videos spontaneously.  There was no master plan, we came up with it as we went. Season 3 was then more of a scripted event with the story planned in advance as more people took to just watching from the side lines instead of participating.

This series of blog posts recaps most of my entries. I'm leaving out the ones that were setting up other people's stories and thusly weren't completed on my end. These episodes were created between early 2007 and late 2008 and show how I went from not knowing the first this about visual FX to about half way of where I am now. So don't be surprised by the "windows movie maker quality" you get in seasons one and two.

So it all started with a random video challenge by LVer AskTheTyrant (ATT) to show your inner tyrant in video form. I figured it sounded like fun and thought I'd make a vid and that would be the end of it.

The Tyrant S01E01 - Q & A from Peter Adams on Vimeo.

But to my surprise ATT began to respond to people's entries and asked me to initiate what he called "Plan X". So I figured why not, let's make a vid and that'll be the end of it.

The Tyrant S01E02 - Plan X from Peter Adams on Vimeo.

This was pretty much when things started to get out of hand. Dozens of "tyrants" joined the "National Tyrant Organization" (NTO) with the allied goal to take control over LV. And naturally a resistance movement formed. A group of freedom fighters who called themselves LiveVideo Resistance (LVR) led by a white knight named Sylar (not the villain from Heroes but actually a good guy).

I figued I could get the guy to kill me with just a couple of still frames taken from his LVR vids. That would up the ante in the role play conflict and also my character would be dead and that'll be the end of it.

The Tyrant S01E03 - Showdown from Peter Adams on Vimeo.

Yeah, that wasn't the end of it. Immediately after this defeat two seperate plans were set in motion to bring back the character. I wanted to go with the straight up mystical resurrection but lima (you know lima) approached me with the idea of cloning the Tyrant. That wasn't only fascinating to realize but also would set up a possible second season quite nicely. So we did both.

The Tyrant S01E05 - The Mad Scientist from Peter Adams on Vimeo.

This one was made quickly. The mystical resurrection was made in collaboration with FX guru Baron Dixon (you know Dix) so it took about a week to get done. By the time we were there, we had to reshoot a couple of scenes because the NTO vs. LVR conflict had already been resolved with Sylar getting killed and the LVR pretty much vanishing from the map. So we shot new lines about Sylars death (cuz naturally my character would have had a couple of questions about the guy who killed him) and made this the final entry into the show's first season.

The Tyrant S01E06 - Resurrection from Peter Adams on Vimeo.

I have a free Vimeo account meaning I can only upload 500 MB per week. So I will post Seasons 2 and 3 in a timely fashion. To those of you who were there, enjoy the trip down memory lane. To those who weren't, enjoy the trip down amateur video making lane.

[Geoff]

All this time I thought the Tyrant was just a product of your warped imagination...

[SydTheSkeptic]

Wow, I never knew the Tyrant history.  For some reason, I thought Sylar had started it!

[LtAdams2247]

@Geoff: Believe it or not, I do play well with others occasionally. Provided there's others to play with of course ;-)

@Syd: Nope, ATT lit the candle on this one. You're gonna have to redirect your hate mail there from now on ;-)

[Marie]

Oh WOW Peter, this is ~fantastic! Thank you so much!

It's all starting to make a warped kinda sense. ;-) Delighted that Lima and others refused to let you kill 'The Tyrant.' The progress from S01E01 to S01E05 is huge, but the style is there from the beginning. *chuckles* And the humour.

I wish I could 'Favorite' this, but due to browser issues cannot. *sigh*

I'm totally greedy: really looking forward to seeing the next seasons unfold! And on that note, does this mean that other Arkians have 'Inner Tyrant' videos? Yes? Yes?

[Marie]

Whoops, S01E01 to S01E06...

[LtAdams2247]

I don't think much survived from the time. Keep in mind, that these are 6 years old. It is only due to my german sence of order and my data backup paranoia that I still have mine and know where they are ;-)

[ThatGirl]

@Adams - thou dost assume too much. I have all of mine, a bunch of other people's and know several people who have theirs too--that's despite losing both backup drives for a while. Now I go with my own brand of 3 copies and I'm not even "genetically" German.  

[BlancheNoE]

I'm so glad you're anal retentive about video files.

[Chig]

Hmmm.... You would be surprised at what Q-pid had to stash away to make a just one Q-pid video.

[LtAdams2247]

@Blanch: you said anal *giggle*

@Chig: You're saying there was a time when you finished vids? Those where the days, man ;-)