Filming the Fest

The Hypergrid International Expo is a bit like a tornado - a whirlwind of cultures, languages, with different styles of presentation, and wildly different subjects, all needing to be filmed so that people who can't be inworld can watch Live, but also to create an archive of videos on the HIE YouTube channel. Setting up, preparing equipment and researching the performances, filming, and editing - it's all a huge amount of work, and the team that does this is led by James Atlloud  with Sofee Supermarine and Petlove Petshop lending a hand for HIE 2025.  

First up, James - how did the new region work out this year, and can you tell us a bit about recruiting videographers? If anyone reading this wants to join the team, what should they do?

James and his Dinkie alt sitting at the Streamer's Table at HIE

James Atlloud: The var region simplified so many aspects of moving around, setting HUD, scripts and more.  Craft grid was so kind to us in the past, but it was quite the pleasure to work on a grid that is largely dedicated to the expo. As for recruiting a team, it can be hard. We are all adult volunteers with complicated demands outside of the expo.  Fortunately every person I ask to help is very considerate, which is consistent with the larger open simulator community.  I value the different styles and aesthetics of the video team members. Filming is a creative expression of our enthusiasm for living and working on the hypergrid. If people are interested in participating the best way to reach me is a direct message to ' jamesatlloud ' in Discord.

Booth News!

 The next Expo is in April 2025 but we're gearing up already to create the Expo park full of publicity booths where you can let the community know about your grid, your region, your projects. As always there is no charge to participate, and all are welcome. 

This year we have an innovation - Petlove Petshop has prepared a series of how-to videos - in seven languages! Congrats to her for all her hard work, and for the seven narrators - Rosa Alekseev for Portuguese, Minord Loup for French, the German one is narrated by Loru Destiny, and we have Akasha Kokuu for Japanese, Karima Hoisan for Spanish , Lux Tergeste for Italian and James Atlloud for English - thank you all so much for participating!

While it's true that AI makes translations easier these days, authentic language speakers can't be beaten especially when you've got specific jargon like the kind of specialized terms which we use on our virtual platform. Plus it's fun to emphasize the beauty of our multi-language society.

Just to give you a flavor, here's the Japanese one, you'll see the others on our Youtube Channel.

The idea is to make it as easy as possible for people of all languages to participate, and to answer the frequent questions about what's needed when making a booth - where to get one, who to give it to when finished, what limits there are on the way you can mod it. Please, share these videos with anyone you think ought to be represented at HIE, and with all your friends. Liking and commenting on the videos also helps us to get the message out there by 'feeding the algorithm' so if you can, do your part to help us out.