Experience While Hosting a CMV

After partaking in a collaborative project known as a Cosplay Music Video (CMV, for short) for a fandom I am in, I briefly mentioned the idea of hosting a collaborative CMV for a different song. A friend/fellow cosplayer of mine exchanged some ideas for what other cosplayers should do for it (such as whether or not to lip sync the song in question) and getting a reminder that the host of the initial CMV we participated in that they edited like an amateur as well. I figured it wouldn't hurt to actually reach out to some fellow cosplayers and give it a try to put the project together.

One big thing I had to consider and mentally remind myself of is that we were all just people. No one had any high expectations or stuck-up personalities regarding participating or the knowledge that I edit like an amateur. Some of the biggest proofs of that were the sight of some fellow cosplayers cracking jokes and then some on our groupchat, some personal messages asking what the standards were for the cosplay clips that had to be sent to me, and at least one person admitting that they would just act like a dork while in costume.

Something else that I felt was also worth thinking about was the fact that, since we were all from different places and had different schedules, everyone had to record and submit their clips in different ways and at different times. Due to consideration of the latter, I reminded those participating in the project that there's no deadline except to send their videos in sooner rather than later so that I don't accidentally procrastinate on editing the clips together. Due to my iPad space on my end and the occasional email issues that others had to deal with, it took a while for some clips to be retrieved. Whenever I did get the clips however, I would update the list of participants to show who submitted their clips and remind the groupchat who has yet to submit their portions. Once all the clips were all sent to me, albeit at different times, it was time to get to work.

I had a pattern I wanted to put the clips in when putting them all together. A portion of the fellow cosplayers actually went through with lip-syncing the song in question while having fun in their costumes, so I wanted to make sure those parts were in sync with the audio. However, one trouble related to those clips is that, when importing the clips into the overall project, there was no audio from the clips themselves to use as reference points. That being said, one of the methods I used was to briefly go to the "photos" app on my iPad where the clips ended up and scroll through the clips to see which parts matched the upcoming bits of the song. Other than those, selecting which clips would fit well with certain parts really consisted of reminding myself I was the boss, cosplaying during my parts of the video, and admiring what everyone was doing when it came to dancing, acting out, and the costumes they wore. Due to how late it was when I was putting together the clips, I saved adding special effects to the clips for the following day.

Since I already edit like an amateur, I thought it would be a good idea to add unique special effects to the clips used, which was also an interesting experience since I don't often use a lot of the special effects on the Video Star app. For a few examples of effects I was able to use without needing to pay for them, there was a rainbow filter in use, plasma balls that appeared at the tap of a finger, sparkles here and there, and even a diamond filter.

In conclusion, I wouldn't mind organising another CMV at some point in the future. It was nice seeing what friends of mine were able to put together. Not taking ourselves too seriously and having fun seemed to make it enjoyable for us, and I hope you all enjoy the final product as much as we do and maybe consider trying to join one in the future.