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Bracketology: Imagineer Edition
- Thread starter LittleGiants16
- Start date
And now it's time for our final matchup, the 4/5 match between @Voxel and @MonorailRed
@Voxel - He's the high seed in this matchup, and probably (maybe) rightfully so. He made it to the final four of this summer's season of SA and has somewhat of a hot hand coming into the elite eight. For the past year he's run around these boards he's been somewhat of our resident techie. He, along with @englanddg, are the technical wizards of the boards, but in this department I give the edge to @Voxel. He's in grad school right now for something to do with technology, so I give him a slight edge in this regard over the field. I might be blowing smoke, but I think this is his real strength. He's a techie, and he's a realist. He's among the most realistic members of these boards, and that gets points with some judges (myself included).
I like @Voxel, I really do. He's a good friend to me on these boards. But, with that in mind, I think he has the most holes in his game of the four high seeds. He's not a particularly great writer when it comes to prose, nor is he a superb idea guy. He's a doer, not as much on the thinker side. He's great in team competitions because, in most cases, he can be paired with someone who's a thinker, and they can flat out dominate. That's what he and @MonorailRed were able to do this summer, until they ran into the buzzsaw that was the squad of @Zweiland and @englanddg. I want little more than for @Voxel to come out and prove to me that he can do it in a solo challenge, but I think the format may cause some issues for him.
@MonorailRed - I've always been bullish on @MonorailRed. For my money, she's the best artist on these boards. Bar none. No contest. You want something done that's visual, go to Red. End of story. And you can't overstate the importance of being able to do artwork in challenges like these. You have to not only be able to write extensively about your ideas, you have to be able to show people realized versions. Speaking of writing, I think this is one of the most underrated parts of @MonorailRed's game. If you ask me, I think she's one of the better writers in the field. Plus, she's the original Sorcerer's Apprentice, so she's got that on her resume. She also has an age advantage over a lot of the competitors, but that's negated in this matchup against a similarly aged @Voxel.
Again, like everyone else in the field, @MonorailRed has her flaws. Minus her artwork, I don't think there's any one area of Red's game that's truly stellar. She's a good writer, but not great. She's a good idea person, but not great there either. She's a good detail girl, but, again, not great. In other words, @MonorailRed might as well rounded as anyone in the field, but that doesn't bode well in this type of format. In long competitions, she can have the time to flesh out ideas and work through them, but the one-and-done format with short turn-arounds means that there are more "wrong challenges" for Red than there may be for others and she won't have the time to work through them. Again, I love @MonorailRed in things like SA, but not as much in this.
The Matchup - This is a tough one for me to call. I think we have two pretty evenly matched imagineers going head to head. In my estimation, this will be the closest of the round one matches. You've got two competitors who have similar levels of success recently and have been competing for similar amounts of time. Again, this is a tough one. But, ultimately, I have to go with the competitor who has proven themselves most. Like I said in my post about the @jdmdisney99/@tcool match, the best bring it on the big show. I genuinely think @MonorailRed is one of the best I've ever seen, and I expect her to show up this winter and pull the lone upset of the first round.
Prediction - @MonorailRed
@Voxel - He's the high seed in this matchup, and probably (maybe) rightfully so. He made it to the final four of this summer's season of SA and has somewhat of a hot hand coming into the elite eight. For the past year he's run around these boards he's been somewhat of our resident techie. He, along with @englanddg, are the technical wizards of the boards, but in this department I give the edge to @Voxel. He's in grad school right now for something to do with technology, so I give him a slight edge in this regard over the field. I might be blowing smoke, but I think this is his real strength. He's a techie, and he's a realist. He's among the most realistic members of these boards, and that gets points with some judges (myself included).
I like @Voxel, I really do. He's a good friend to me on these boards. But, with that in mind, I think he has the most holes in his game of the four high seeds. He's not a particularly great writer when it comes to prose, nor is he a superb idea guy. He's a doer, not as much on the thinker side. He's great in team competitions because, in most cases, he can be paired with someone who's a thinker, and they can flat out dominate. That's what he and @MonorailRed were able to do this summer, until they ran into the buzzsaw that was the squad of @Zweiland and @englanddg. I want little more than for @Voxel to come out and prove to me that he can do it in a solo challenge, but I think the format may cause some issues for him.
@MonorailRed - I've always been bullish on @MonorailRed. For my money, she's the best artist on these boards. Bar none. No contest. You want something done that's visual, go to Red. End of story. And you can't overstate the importance of being able to do artwork in challenges like these. You have to not only be able to write extensively about your ideas, you have to be able to show people realized versions. Speaking of writing, I think this is one of the most underrated parts of @MonorailRed's game. If you ask me, I think she's one of the better writers in the field. Plus, she's the original Sorcerer's Apprentice, so she's got that on her resume. She also has an age advantage over a lot of the competitors, but that's negated in this matchup against a similarly aged @Voxel.
Again, like everyone else in the field, @MonorailRed has her flaws. Minus her artwork, I don't think there's any one area of Red's game that's truly stellar. She's a good writer, but not great. She's a good idea person, but not great there either. She's a good detail girl, but, again, not great. In other words, @MonorailRed might as well rounded as anyone in the field, but that doesn't bode well in this type of format. In long competitions, she can have the time to flesh out ideas and work through them, but the one-and-done format with short turn-arounds means that there are more "wrong challenges" for Red than there may be for others and she won't have the time to work through them. Again, I love @MonorailRed in things like SA, but not as much in this.
The Matchup - This is a tough one for me to call. I think we have two pretty evenly matched imagineers going head to head. In my estimation, this will be the closest of the round one matches. You've got two competitors who have similar levels of success recently and have been competing for similar amounts of time. Again, this is a tough one. But, ultimately, I have to go with the competitor who has proven themselves most. Like I said in my post about the @jdmdisney99/@tcool match, the best bring it on the big show. I genuinely think @MonorailRed is one of the best I've ever seen, and I expect her to show up this winter and pull the lone upset of the first round.
Prediction - @MonorailRed
Power rankings -
This is my overall power rankings of those who are actually in the field. Keep in mind, the field is still fluid and we may see things change between now and the first challenge. If you have questions as to why someone was slotted where they are, just ask!
1 - @jdmdisney99
2 - @MonorailRed
3 - @englanddg
4 - @RMichael21
5 - @Voxel
6 - @Matt7187
7 - @IDInstitute
8 - @tcool
Thanks for reading guys! I'll keep providing commentary in the coming weeks. As always, if you have something you'd like me to write about, I'd be happy to do so.
This is my overall power rankings of those who are actually in the field. Keep in mind, the field is still fluid and we may see things change between now and the first challenge. If you have questions as to why someone was slotted where they are, just ask!
1 - @jdmdisney99
2 - @MonorailRed
3 - @englanddg
4 - @RMichael21
5 - @Voxel
6 - @Matt7187
7 - @IDInstitute
8 - @tcool
Thanks for reading guys! I'll keep providing commentary in the coming weeks. As always, if you have something you'd like me to write about, I'd be happy to do so.
Zweiland
Well-Known Member
My power rankings (though I've seen less of some of you than LG has, so his will probably be more accurate)
1 @MonorailRed
2 @englanddg
3 @jdmdisney99
4 @RMichael21
5 @Voxel
6 @IDInstitute
7 @Matt7187
8 @tcool
You all made it into the top 8, so you should be proud regardless of where I placed you, and regardless of how you actually end up doing! This is our elite class of Imagineers.
1 @MonorailRed
2 @englanddg
3 @jdmdisney99
4 @RMichael21
5 @Voxel
6 @IDInstitute
7 @Matt7187
8 @tcool
You all made it into the top 8, so you should be proud regardless of where I placed you, and regardless of how you actually end up doing! This is our elite class of Imagineers.
I completely get what you're saying. We have the same top-three, middle-two, and bottom-three. There's not a whole of discrepancy here. I think the biggest difference, however, is that you're looking more at the hotter hands right now than I am. You're looking at what they've done lately, I'm looking more at the long run track record. Neither is right, neither is wrong. We'll see who was closer to actuality to at the end of all of this!
DinoInstitute
Well-Known Member
Our pleasure reading, it really was interesting!
Nothing really comes to mind on something to write about, except maybe after round one your predictions about the next round
DinoInstitute
Well-Known Member
10 short days! It's been slow here on the threads for a little bit, but we are almost there!
Well, boys and girls, it looks like Z's power rankings were a little closer to accurate than mine were.
If I may provide a little bit of commentary on the last challenge, Z threw everyone (myself included) a major curveball. When you saw that there was a required video, you had to say that was probably the end for RM. Nothing against the kid, but he just doesn't have the experience with video that England has. I understand it's a technical upset, but after seeing the prompt the outcome wasn't really in doubt in my mind.
The JDM/Red matchup was a little closer in my book. Red is great with stills, but I've never been super impressed with any video work she's been attached to. Combine this with JDM's rustiness (which did show in the first challenge) and I thought we had a good one on our hands. Ultimately, I think Tip Top got this one right. JDM wasn't entirely able to shake off the rust and Red kept the juices flowing just enough to squeak by. Not a decisive win, in my book, but enough.
So, here we are with the final. I think the prompt will go a long way to deciding this one. If it's anything, and I mean anything, to do with food, england wins. If it's anything where visuals play a massive role, Red wins. I think we've got two very good imagineers with very different skill sets. Personally, I'm kind of rooting for Red. She's leaving us at the end of this competition, and I'd love to have her go out on top. But, with that said, England is one of my favorite people around here and I can't rightly root against my buddy. This'll be interesting.
I'll post again when we see the prompt from Z. Until then, I'll see if any of you have comments to make about my analysis.
englanddg
One Little Spark...
To be fair to RM, he did great considering he hasn't been making videos as long as I, and also isn't sitting on professional level software, as I am. Professional grade studio software, creative suite, and access to AE templates and stock footage .
That always gives me a bit of an edge with videos.
IMovie can only take you so far, and I don't even think he has that. Windows Movie Maker was ok...until Windows 7. Now it's mostly unusable unless you are doing predictable family slide shows or something...
He used a public website video builder, and I think he used it quite well. I found his video enjoyable to watch, and did so a few times. What that shows me is that he's got the most important parts of video creation down. That's timing and flow. Those are the hard things to teach, not the actual content creation per se.
Toss this guy some access to more robust software, and I can see him killing it in the future!
That always gives me a bit of an edge with videos.
IMovie can only take you so far, and I don't even think he has that. Windows Movie Maker was ok...until Windows 7. Now it's mostly unusable unless you are doing predictable family slide shows or something...
He used a public website video builder, and I think he used it quite well. I found his video enjoyable to watch, and did so a few times. What that shows me is that he's got the most important parts of video creation down. That's timing and flow. Those are the hard things to teach, not the actual content creation per se.
Toss this guy some access to more robust software, and I can see him killing it in the future!
Voxel
President of Progress City
If I was a millionaire I would say Merry Christmas to you all and give you all editing software (except Eng because he has some). I need to break down and buy mine eventually (my fund ended up going to legos)
Zweiland
Well-Known Member
¿Por qué no los dos?
MonorailRed
Applebees
Totally agree with you there. There's a big difference between professional level software and what one can find on the internet. But, that being said, the resources at hand have to be taken into account. You have that advantage over him and, because of that, I thought RM was behind the eight-ball from the start. I really, really like RM and the work he's done (he's one heck of a talent), but sometimes you're just snookered from the start.
That, my friend, would make for a fun matchup. In that case, it'll all come down to that the judge is looking for. We'll see two posts that largely go in different directions; all that matters is what Martin is wanting.¿Por qué no los dos?
englanddg
One Little Spark...
A student subscription to Creative Suite on a monthly basis isn't that unreachable.
Final Cut Pro is boss, and goes on sale from time to time as well.
I use Pinnacle Studio because I was able to pick it up with a massive Library of extensions (most of which I've not ever used...there are so many) for an upgrade price / steal when they merged with Avid and got rid of Videospin.
If I was shopping now, I'd either do Adobe Creative and Final Cut Pro.
Voxel
President of Progress City
I don't have time to learn a new system at the moment, I was very pleased with Final Cut Pro so far because it really handles all my needs.
JokersWild
Well-Known Member
Final Cut Pro is wonderful, but I've recently found that Adobe Premiere is so much easier to use.
englanddg
One Little Spark...
Since I have Pinnacle I've not played around with it...but some reading I've done suggests that, as I learn AE more, I should...simply for integrated features.
JokersWild
Well-Known Member
It's a really great program. I still use Final Cut more often, but if I want to edit something quickly and easily, I'll use Premiere. The only thing that I'm not a huge fan of is the way clips snap together. It doesn't snap clips together automatically so I end up with a flash frame or two that I didn't notice and have to fix. It's not a huge deal, but it's a minor annoyance. It's a great program, though. It doesn't have a lot of the stupid interface problems that Final Cut has. You should totally look into it.
Voxel
President of Progress City
I don't mine the Final Cut Interface, but then again I live in the Mac World most of the time so I am accustomed to the Apple love of certain layout structure. (It's a blessing and a curse)