DS Chat & International Viewing Party on JULY 8th! Details HERE!!

[sage]

DS Chat & International Viewing Party will be held JULY 8th! \o/

July 8th wins the run-off poll for holding the next DS fandom-wide chat! It was very close, but hopefully many, many people will be able to come play! :D


1. How it Works

DS Fandom covers 21 time zones from New Zealand to Vancouver. I've divided the world into thirds, so our benchmark Screening Times are 4PM SYDNEY, PARIS, and CHICAGO time. This way, there should be at least one available time where everyone is likely to be awake.

When the chat starts, it will keep going for the ENTIRE weekend until the last person logs off. SOMETHING will be going on the entire time, and EVERYONE is welcome to spend as much of the duration as they care to stay awake for!

The Schedule

The chatroom will open around 3PM Sydney Time!! (That's 12 midnight Chicago.) A day and a half before start-time, I'll post a flyer with all the details on how to get into the chatroom to ds_noticeboard.

July 8th

3pm SYDNEY (7am PARIS, 12midnight CHICAGO):
Chatroom OPENS!

4pm SYDNEY (8am PARIS, 1am CHICAGO):
Screening #1! Begin deciding what to watch!

4pm PARIS (9am CHICAGO, 12 midnight SYDNEY):
Screening #2! Begin deciding what to watch!

4pm CHICAGO (11pm PARIS, 7am Sunday SYDNEY):
Screening #3! Begin deciding what to watch!

8PM CHICAGO (3am PARIS, 11am Sunday SYDNEY):
HARD CORE LOGO Special Double Feature! First, we'll watch HCL, and then we'll watch HCL again with Bruce, Hugh, and Noel's commentary running!!


2. OW! Time Zones Hurt!!

If you don't have a time zone map handy, here's a Time Zone Converter, so you can figure out if you'll be near a computer at any (or all!) of these times. Again, ANYONE can come to any screening or pop into the chat at ANY time. (We'll tell you what we're watching and give you a time check on where we're at so you can join in.) For instance: 4pm Saturday in Sydney is the same as 11pm Friday night in Vancouver, so if you're awake in Vancouver, come to the Sydney screening! :D


3. What to Watch

Starting at 4pm SYDNEY, PARIS, and CHICAGO time, the people in the chatroom will figure out what they want to watch together first. It doesn't have to be DS, just something that we all are likely to have. At the beginning of Screenings #2 & #3, everyone who was NOT present for the prior screenings will get to choose what to watch first.

The way this works is:
1. Everyone, start your DVDs/AVIs!
2. PAUSE at timestamp 00:00 (because different copies have different lead-time, and we all want to start together).
3. One person in the chat does the countdown: THREE, TWO, ONE, PLAY!
4. And everyone presses PLAY at the same time and watches together and squees all over chat and it is good. :D


4. Getting Media

Please see the Locked Post immediately following this one! If you don't see it, you need to JOIN the ds_noticeboard community. Thanks!


5. The Chatroom

The chat will take place in an AIM chatroom managed through Trillian, which is a single program that manages AIM, Y!M, ICQ, MSN, etc. You do NOT need AOL Instant Messenger itself, but you WILL need an AIM username (which you can get when you set up Trillian). Trillian is easy, user-friendly, ad-free, and auto-logs every chat. (Yes, I'm totally biased toward it.) EASY = GOOD. :D

Again, I will post to ds_noticeboard on July 6th (SYDNEY time) with instructions for getting to the chatroom.


6. Chat Mods

A handful of people have generously offered to spend as much of the duration as possible in the chatroom. However, this chat may last for a really long time, so if anyone wants to step in and help keep an eye on things while some of us take a quick nap, we would all love you forever! :D


7. Fraser-ish Jury-Rigging

When we did this for out_of_con_txt, some people with desktops used conveniently placed mirrors to watch eps on their televisions while still being able to type in the chat window (and not wrench their necks with all the twisting). Remember you need a DVD drive to play DVDs on your computer, but you can play AVI files off any basic media player. Just keep the media player in windowed mode so you can see the chat window at the same time. Yay multitasking!! :D


Okay! I think that's all the essential info. Any questions?

Comments

[nyn17.livejournal.com]

That's great!:)) I have one queston-I don't have trillian,but I do have AIM.I don't need to install trillian then,do I?

[sage]

Nope! AIM-proper works fine for the chat -- it just screws up when you try to invite yourself in.

When I post the Chatroom Instructions on the 6th/7th, you'll need to comment, and then when chat starts, we'll send out Invites to the room. :D

(The annoying tech issue, if you're curious, is that AIM-proper is stupid and creates a duplicate chatroom when you attempt to invite yourself in from any other program than Trillian. This is why the Chat starts an hour before the first screening -- so we can get everyone invited in and iron any bugs out. :D)

YAY CHAT!! out_of_con_txt went swimmingly, and I really really hope it'll work again.

[nyn17.livejournal.com]

Erm...and one more :P -does the media list from the first poll stand?I mean from the movies there,I only have to get Men With Brooms,but there are other things on SC that I don't have...

[sage]

I'm leaving that open because I've no idea what people are going to want to watch at any given time, and last time, there was never any real difficulty in reaching a consensus based on what the vast majority of people had available.

The first poll was really just to see if there was sufficient interest in any of the biggest 6 Degrees movies to hold a special screening, and HCL won that, so that's the only *organized* film screening. Everything else is totally fairgame for if/when the people in the chatroom decide they want to watch it. :D

[nyn17.livejournal.com]

Oh,okay then,I'll just stack up with a few more things from the closet :)
I missed out of contxt completely because of RL (:P) and I'm so excited about that :D!

[riadsala.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm pretty sure you're the Queen of Everything. I'm so psyched. And hopefully this time I'll even have my own computer, yay!

[sage]

Thanks! I'm really hopeful that we'll be able to pull it off again. :D

[soundslikej.livejournal.com]

Yaaaaay! Oh, I'm excited. ^_^

Thanks so much for setting this up! You = awesomeness.

[sage]

Yay!! I'm so glad we had out_of_con_txt as a trial run to work the kinks out. :D

[aswanargent.livejournal.com]

This sounds like a lot of fun, and since I have a brand-new, shiny laptop I definitely intend to drop by. But since July 8th also is the next-to-last day of World Cup play, I'll be watching that first.

[sage]

I don't think you'll miss much! The out_of_con_txt chat lasted 28 hours with people coming and going as they were able, and it only had 3 set screening times. I expect this one to last much longer since we have the HCL double feature tacked onto the end! :D

[aswanargent.livejournal.com]

Yes, and after I posted it suddenly occurred to me that 3 pm July 8th Sydney time (midnight Chicago time) is 10 pm July 7th in Los Angeles. That means I'll have hours and hours to soak myself in DS before the World Cup match even begins. :-)

[sage]

Time zones hurt my brain SO MUCH. I just edited the post to highlight that bit in #2. Hopefully it will make sense to people. :)

[missapocalyptic.livejournal.com]

I will have a lot of free time these days, so here's my offer to take my part as chat mod. The only time I certainly won't be available is during the finals of the world cup (July 8th, 9 p.m to 12 p.m and July 9th, 8 p.m to 11 p.m - these times are all GMT+1). So if you need someone, just tell me.

*wheeeee* I'm so very excited about all this! Thank you so much for organizing *smooches*

[sage]

Woohoo! Thank you!! :D

Essentially this just means being in the chat for the times you're able to, so that there's someone that people can send private IMs to to request chatroom invites and generally keep things running smoothly. shihadchick is planning to stick around in the chat for as long as she can -- but she's in New Zealand and I'm in Texas, so knowing someone will be around who's in the middle is wonderful! :D

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

YAY! I'm so glad this is happening when I can participate! *dances*

And thank you SO MUCH for all your efforts to pull it all together! :-)

[sage]

Yay!! I'm so glad you can make it!! :D

[llassah.livejournal.com]

Cool, I'll see if I can get away with staying up until 2 a.m (Darn British timezone!) 'Yes ma, it's an online community, and we're watching a film. About a band. And talking. At stupid o'clock'... Thank you so much for setting this up, it must be a logistical nightmare! And it'll be cool to talk to other fans, they're a bit thin on the ground in deepest darkest Wales. Hoping to be there,

Llassah
x

[sage]

Starting at 3pm Sydney time, people will be around and watching various episodes and movies for the ENTIRE duration, so come and go as you can! :D

What we might do is have another HCL screening sometime in August or September, but do it on Paris time? I'll put up a poll later on to see if there's interest. :D

[nyn17.livejournal.com]

have another HCL screening sometime in August or September, but do it on Paris time
I'd vote for that,too ;]

[nyn17.livejournal.com]

'Yes ma, it's an online community, and we're watching a film. About a band. And talking. At stupid o'clock'...
*lol*Yeah I was thinking I'd have to give an explanation along these lines too!:@)Although the HCL'd be at 4am for me so mine'll be "yes,Due South again!"*g*

[laylee.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm so excited! I missed that last one but I'm planning on being around for at least some of this next one. Oh my, I can almost taste the fanish squee!

[sage]

I'm excited about it, too! Hopefully the second time will work just as well as the first. :D

[ultra-chrome.livejournal.com]

I really want to join in on this. I'll have to go and do the Trillian thing.
My big problem is that I don't have much of anything Callum yet, and am waiting on HCL to arrive. I don't expect it in time for this.

Have a fair bit of PG, though, and Wilby,and all of DS, so I'm sure there will be something showing that I can join in on.

[sage]

It sounds like you'll be fine as far as media! For the chat program, you'll need either AIM itself or a program like Trillian that manages AIM. Either way, it only takes a few minutes to set up. :D

[sp4ztard.livejournal.com]

Sounds like super sweet fun. I'm hoping I can join in for at least one of the viewings! Yay for International Viewing!

[sage]

The last time we did this was a blast -- I love this fandom so much! :D