RITC Interview with Some of the Crew from This One is On Us. Producers of the NIN fan-release of "Another Verion of The Truth":

Here is the interview with some of the crew of This One is On Us. I would like to say thank you to all of them for taking the time to be interviewed here. They all gave some very thought out answers to the questions and I hope to see more out of TOIOU's staff.

The TOIOU Staff:

Alex G. (Torgo) - Producer
Shreena S. - Producer
ASH512 - Video Editor
Clive H. - Website Design
Aaron S. - Audio Editor

Main Website: http://thisoneisonus.org

Questions

1. First off I would like to congratulate your team of editors and creative minds that worked on this project. It certainly was a difficult challenge throughout the whole process of making the film itself. There has been world wide publicity on the project (From Rolling Stones, The Band, Hundreds of music sites, and local radio stations) thats got to feel awesome after the year of work that was put into the project. How does it feel to be done?

ASH512:
It's always great to know people are enjoying it and to see some mainstream medias covering it is just surreal. Also, having the band covering the release on Twitter is, needless to say, an honor. To be honest, making AVOTT was a long, hard, often frustating process but to read people's comments makes it all worthwhile.

Shreena:
A difficult challenge is perhaps the right phrase to use. The whole process was a huge learning curve for all of us, and looking back a very fulfilling one. There have been times when each one of us has felt like giving up, but some kind of group momentum has kept us going, which I am as proud of as the finished film. The kind of media attention we're receiving is completely unexpected, but welcome icing on top of the positive reaction from our peers in the community. It's also great that this is reflecting well on the band.

Clive:
I won't feel that we're "done" until the end of February. And even then, we might see how far we can push things. On the one hand, it would be interesting to see how far we can take this project in terms of trying to do things that haven't been done before but, on the other hand, there would be a lot of legal crap to deal with if we did. The legal gray area is one that needs attacking, but maybe not by us.

Alex:
I still feel a bit numb from release - like it hasn't happened. Right now, the google group is still processing information about Vegas and Blu-Ray and the Bonus DVD... it still feels like a never ending process of running up a hill. I don't think I'll feel less stressed or more elated until the rest of this sucker is out. FEBRUARY WHERE ARE YOU?

From TOIOU's Twitter.

2. What was the most difficult part about getting this whole thing organized? Was it the fact that everyone who was working on the project was not a very local group and scattered all across the world. What were some of the things the group had to go through during the whole editing process?

ASH512:
Without a doubt the most difficult thing was dealing with so many people scattered all across the globe and having to cope with everybody's personal lives getting in the way or technical problems and whatnot. On TDS:Live for example, the team was much smaller (three people really, one for editing and DVD production, one for sound and one for color correction) and it came out much faster even though the amount of work for each individual was much bigger. As a result though, I think The Gift is definitely coming off as a better product, more thought out and perfected.

The biggest problem we had to deal originally was shipping the HDD to all six editors from USA to Quebec, to Europe, to Australia and back to the US. This alone took a few months. Than when working on Vegas, Alex who edited the first half, had to deal with constant computer problems which slowed things down a lot. We also had many issues with Color Correction, most of which we've discussed throughly on message boards.

The actual editing process was quite tedious in itself. Every editor had to submit a first draft, which were invariably torn to pieces by Sa_nick and I, both head editors. We commented back and forth each successive drafts until they reached a point where every possibilities had been tried and it could only work in that specific way. Some people wouldn't even believe how much thought went into perfecting every single cut down to exact timecodes, making sure every song were edited according to the music's rhythm whilst making all visuals clearly visible at all times... We manipulated images quite a lot to make sure everything flowed as best as possible, including flipping shots vertically, re-creating shots with compositing and a bunch of other tricks you can't even imagine. Needless to say, The Gift is the most thought out NIN editing project ever.

Shreena:
From a management persective, the toughest thing was getting people to communicate effectively. The fact that we were all working remotely didn't help that, as we only had emails to rely on (although on the positive side, this meant that every decision was well-documented, and there were several concrete reference points). Also, the files we were dealing with were huge - transfers of up to 75GB could take days to get on and off of FTP servers, and shipping HDDs across the world weren't any more efficient. Add that to exploding computers, temperamental programs, work and family commitments, and the fact that none of us had quite done something like this before - we were running on love rather than expertise - and even the most detailed project timeline (I think I have 5 or 6 different versions now?) can't be set in stone. People like Ash, Nick, and Matt were fantastic at keeping tabs on the technical criteria for all the files, which meant I could focus on moving the process forward, by continually checking up on all the teams and spying on our directors over at ETS and nin.com

Clive:
Definitely the transporting of Gb of data around the globe, and people pushing their hardware to breaking point. Many a frustrating week was spent waiting for X to get delivered to Y - whether by mail or FTP. The sheer size of the files concerned was mind boggling.

Alex:
As a whole, I think the most difficult part of the process was being so far away from each other and living such different lives with intervening schedules/lifestyles. An extreme example of this was when I had to somehow give my footage to ASH, who lives in Quebec, so he could help with the Vegas edit (because my PC was - literally - shitting itself). I remember biking by my friends on the way to the tech store (who were lounging on the grass, drinking), and I got the strangest expressions from them when I told them I had to go buy a hard drive and send it to Quebec. What got even stranger looks was when I asked if they knew that there were different plugs in Quebec and if the US system for power was the same. After sending that (and finding out that Quebec DOES use the same outlets), ASH didn't get the HDD for another week and a half or so until he could finally look at the footage and make something pretty out of it. For ME - the hardest part of this whole process was working on a dying laptop to try and finish my edits. In essence, I've been dreaming of doing this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfCYzJAgwrw#t=0m35s - for a whole year (and yes, to that same exact Geto Boys song). The first time I finished a five song edit was in May (or was it March?) and guess what happened? My laptop crapped out and never turned back on until I had someone from my sorority look at it and reboot my system. I lost that edit and began it again. From that point, I slowly started editing from that laptop, receiving the blue screen of death daily and overheating my computer - which I had to build a cooling system for out of candle sticks and blankets. And just when I thought I would finish with everything, my motherboard exploded with two songs left to edit. Figures, right? I transferred my edits to my home computer and had to finish editing/correcting those files by reversing my sleep pattern to have access to the computer when other people weren't using it during the day for work. To say the least, it was a blast (as, I'm sure, you can imagine) - but it's all definitely worth it in the end.

Sending and Rendering, Sending and Rendering.

3. Besides the gift footage from nin.com, was there any other High-End footage that you used from any of the open taping shows from the Lights in the Sky shows that you used in the edit? One fan angle to mention from the Victoria/Portland/Sacramento runs is from PDX Taper who taped with a Panasonic HVX-200 in Portland. Many people have seen his angle of "Terrible Lie" on Vimeo.

ASH512:
I believe PDX-Taper and his friend's (sorry I forgot his name) footage is the only extra footage we used. Both were shot in Portland and were used to cover for specific angles we missed at specific points in the show : The Wretched, Gave Up, Hurt... I think that's all actually. We kept it to a minimum to make sure it the fan-shot stuff and the "pro-shot" (although it's not really pro-shot) stuff remained two seperate entities.

Shreena:
I've heard the editors say that the Vegas raw footage is a lot better than the nin.com footage. While the Gift tapers had their cameras evenly spread out around the areans, the Vegas tapers really knew when to shoot each member of the band, and how. I remember revising edits with the team, and asking if there was a shot where X camera was more steady, and was surprised to hear back that that camera was always zooming around like that! The Vegas sources on the other hand, while they may not have all been HD, or complete recordings, caught all of those classic moments really well - Josh going insane at the end of Wish, Justin dancing along to Only, Robin's neck-twirling guitar solos.

Alex:
Lucidfox was the other high end camera source that we had (which I think was PDX Taper's friend). PDX Taper and Lucidfox's camera footage were STELLAR and fun to edit with in between the grainier footage. I think the combination of all the different qualities is what makes the Vegas edit special and unique compared to the Gift (but I may be a bit biased)

Nine Inch Nails "Terrible Lie" Portland, OR 12-7-08 from PDX Taper on Vimeo.

4. With the Vegas edit how many sources did you go through? As the Las Vegas show was not open taping like the other previous shows on that tour because of the outrageous fees the venue had for open taping, the show went strictly to sneaking gear back in. How would you rate the success/quality of the filmers?

ASH512:
If The Gift was the most thought out project, Vegas turned out to be the biggest mess ever in terms of sorting out footage. We seriously had over 40 sources in all... and that's A LOT. Not all of it was from Vegas (we're using I'd say 1/6th of footage from elsewhere, although all fanshot) but all of it had to be converted to all the same format first... We ran into major headaches trying to convert countless PC file types that couldn't be read on Mac and vice versa... It took pretty much a month to figure it all out and find the right softwares to convert everything to the same Final Cut Pro ready. Then we had to manually synch each and every clips... Some people think it's all done automatically, but remember : this is a fan-shot release. We aren't using timecodes or anything like that. So every piece of video had to be fit exactly on time and this itself probably took another week or more. 40 sources, most of which were divided into as many clips as there were songs in the setlist, some even split apart in the middle of songs... Well you get the point.

The footage has been mindblowing in some cases. People like PDX-Taper, Chaonatic, Jam007 or Moment Factory supplied footage that far surpassed The Gift's HDV files in terms of quality. Some people like GregThePilot knew how to shoot much better than NIN's roadies who taped the official footage. And of course, some of it was just downright terrible. A lot of it is from low-end Mini-DV cams, Some of it is from really cheap consumer cameras... In the end though, the result is surprisingly cohesive and very much enjoyable. That said we decided it was better to keep Vegas a standard definition release only. But people will be surprised, when compared to The Gift, at how great some of the fan-shot stuff is.

Alex:
I think we had somewhere around 40 sources. We sort of cheated (sorry?) and some of those are from other shows because there were so many gaps in songs where filmers couldn't tape. For instance, AREA51 (who also happens to be our DVD Authorer) had to stop taping after 'Closer' because he was being harassed by a venue staffer and had to film the other songs with his crappier HD Flip camera. There were so many holes in people footage because they were either hiding the camera or were told to put it away. If I were to have to guess the success rate, I would venture to say that we got 60-70% of what would have come out of an "open film" show. But don't get me wrong! Vegas is a GREAT edit with everything that we received and missing out on those few angles that could have been used aren't really noticeable at all.

Some of the Vegas Fan Footage.

5. I was blown away by how many people downloaded the audio torrent of the Gift/Vegas [over 80,000] thinking it was an official release which both shows were mastered by Aaron Short. Was this this first indication that you might have something special with AVOTT?

ASH512:
I guess so, but it took sooo long between that and any actual release that we didn't know what to expect. I think TDS Live was really the one that made use realise how unique and innovative TOIOU was. With media picking up the story, the band posting about it on nin.com and over a quarter million downloads (when adding up YouTube, DVD and iPod formats) we then knew people were going to care about AVOTT for sure.

Shreena:
I think the fact that the audio release was such a small file size contributed to the number of downloads, and at that point people were curious as to whether or not AVOTT was worth the excitement. I think it worked to maintain interest - if I recall correctly, the release came about because audio masters had been made for editors and we thought we may as well do something useful with it. I'd agree with Ash that TDS: Live is a better barometer for the success of AVOTT, and it was the first time I really realised that this was more than filling the disappointment of not getting a professional release. I've mentioned the project in passing to a few colleagues, and they've always been quite surprised at the effort, but to me it seems perfectly inkeeping with the ethos of our community. Of course someone would try to do something like this, just as it felt natural for Brandon to set up NINwiki in 2007 or you to create RITC. I couldn't imagine the 405GB being released and then nobody doing anything with it.

Clive:
I think we knew when Trent dropped the videos that we had an amazing opportunity. By the time the audio came out, we had great momentum. Of course, as people's expectations began to rise, we found ourselves getting increasingly self-critical about what we were doing, and why. And I think that's definitely paid off in the quality of the final release.

Alex:
I was surprised that this many people listened to Nine Inch Nails. (JOKES!) But in all seriousness - it was great news to hear that we were able to create a product that THAT many people would be interested in. If any of our other releases even comes near that, I'll pee my pants with glee. But all in all - numbers mean little to me. I just hope that someone, somewhere really enjoys the release enough to pass it on.

Head Down Screenshot from "The Gift Footage".

6. As mentioned Aaron did a fantastic job editing these shows. Can you tell us what was done in the studio with the audio?

Aaron:
The processes involved were a little different between The Gift and Las Vegas. Because The Gift had soundboard audio already supplied by NIN camp, it was more a matter of selecting the best audio to use from the 3 shows, and then of course being able to master and upmix it to 5.1 surround sound (challenging but had great results). With Las Vegas audio it was a completely different game. I was supplied with about 5 stereo recordings of the one concert (all DIY style from fans with recording equipment), which then slowly got dissected and focused on certain elements. Some worked great for over-all stage/environment pickup, and others for more specific stuff like enhancing mid range for vocals, or sub thud etc. Once all the sweet spots were found, all the recordings then went through a fairly long process of being mastered and bounced down to one stereo file, which gave us our final audio track. I should really post up somewhere and elaborate on the mastering process cos people have been asking out there, and it really is the part where the magic happens.

7. Can you give us a little insight to how people can obtain copies? When everything is releasing, as everything is not coming out all at once.

Shreena:
Threads have already sprung up on ETS and nin.com for blu ray copies, and I'm sure if there is any overspill from what Clive has organised, people on twitter and the forums will be more than happy to oblige. I must stress one thing, though - DO NOT PAY FOR THIS RELEASE. Fans will make you a copy for cost.

Clive:
The release goals have changed so much as different challenges have come up. Originally, we were aiming to drop both shows on the same day, and start the DVD distribution at the same time. The aim now is to start physical distribution with the release of the bonus disc, and to include the ability for people to request/distribute the 3rd disc when it becomes available. BluRay distribution is pretty organic right now, with Goldy taking a lead on that. I'm still architecting the code for this, but should have it ready by Jan 25th release. Ideally, I'd like it to be really simple for both disc creators and recipients. The initial sign up was getting rather complicated, so I'm cleaning up that approach to keep stresses with this to a minimum.

And, when we do start the distribution, we'll be doing a massive push for volunteer creators - initial signup covered about 1,100 completed sets for 7,000 DVD requests. People are lazy (not in a bad way), so making it easy for people to contribute will be my priority over the coming weeks.

Some of the "extra features" that will be coming soon in a torrent.

8. With the first week of the gift footage out, how many people have already downloaded all of the different versions total?

Clive:
Hard to tell exactly, with people dropping off the torrents a lot. My guesstimate is around 10,000-15,000. What I can tell you though is that we've had over 50,000 unique visitors since release.

"In This Twilight" Last song performed on the LITS Tour in Las Vegas.

9. Now that AVOTT is complete will there be any more projects out of the TOIOU camp?

Shreena:
Nothing's being planned with this specific group of people, but I've always maintained that TOIOU is not just the people you see at the end of the AVOTT credits, it's anyone with the impetus to start a project like this. We are already supporting several projects outside of AVOTT, including After All is Said and Done by synthetikz's team, and I am certainly happy to write about and retweet any projects that come to my attention. There is a huge database of editors and designers as a result of this project, and huge potential for many more projects to come.

Clive:
I've briefly discussed with Shreena and Alex about what we could do with the site. We've made a LOT of mistakes throughout the lifetime of this project, and it would be a shame for that experience to go to waste.

Personally, I'd like to write up a guide to running a project such as this, taking input from everyone who's contributed, detailing what we did right (finding the right people, promotion, project management - with HUGE thanks to Shreena on that one), and also exploring what we tried that failed (pure democracy in the original votes was a big mistake - the original artwork winner was basically a "Ghosts" cover, and the original title winner was something incredibly predictable). Much as we wanted to allow as many people to contribute as possible, none of us wanted to be associated with output that we didn't feel represented what we were trying to achieve. In the end though, we worked it out. When Brent's cover won, it was a great focusing point for us. Branding is important, and I think that we made the right decision in censoring the votes to create a feel that we felt represented our work well. And besides, it really lent itself to really cool DVD menus :)

I think it would be great to template the website setup for other bands to use - and maybe even work with record companies so that this can be done with no legal issues for the fans concerned. In my head I have ideas on how we could bridge the gap between torrenters and the rights holders, but I'm not optimistic that any of the record companies have the vision to take this to the next level. I'd love to be wrong about that one though! A record company asking fans to film a show, helping them edit it to a final product, releasing a free torrent and "limited edition" DVD/Blu Ray sets would be a real win for moving the industry forward. Heh, yeah right...

Alex:
Well, around release - we're hoping to help people set up their own screenings of the DVD in their area. Right now, I'm working on helping to set up a BIG screening in Los Angeles, with the possibility of a Q&A with two of the TOIOU crew and maybe a party afterward. However - after that - I think that TOIOU will become a vessel for other enterprising NIN fans who want to create something or share something with the community. We're definitely looking forward to just sitting back and helping other people get out the word for their creations - like how we've been advertising the Wiltern Project (which I've been a bit involved with and might be editing for in the long run - but that's a different story). And as Clive has mentioned, if there are any other crazy/nerdy music fanbases out there, we can definitely offer to help as a learning tool for artists and fan groups who want to approach this kind of fan product/rapport.