CageMatch 3-22-07

Another night, another CageMatch. I was really happy with the video concept for this one; it was in the vein of the "story" videos like SUMO, CCCP, or Children of the Atom. Go check it out here, and then come back and we'll discuss it.

Watched the video? Good. The challenger this week was Mother Goose Project, so I decided to got with a storybook format. I plucked some fantasy paintings from my usual sources, and modified them to fit the theme. I thought it turned out well. The overarching dragon menacing the castle worked as a funny symbol for IO's team holding the CageMatch title in DSI's own house. I looked at a lot of pictures of fantasy-style armies before I selected the one to make into Southern Cross. I had taken a few new pictures of Jeremy, but of course couldn't find them when I needed them, so that's the same damn face shot I've used over and over again. I was quite pleased with the DSI logo on the shield, the way it was perspective-ized and shaded. There's an adjustment layer for brightness over the logo, which is controlled with a gradient mask to make it smooth. I also loved the way the CageMatch Champion badge turned out in the bitter king picture; it perspective-ized quite nicely. The identity screen for Mother Goose Project, as well as some of the other amusing screens from the video, can be found in the CageMatch set on my Flickr page.

Then there's the music. I always try to make the music thematically appropriate for the videos, but also try to give it a little hidden meaning as well. PT Scarborough was the coach for Mother Goose Project, so I was quite happy to find an appropriate song from one of his favourite artists to use--Mark Knopfler starts us off with a tune entitled "Once Upon A Time." The dramatic music that kicks in at the turn of Southern Cross is the "Save The Oracle" music from God of War, the best videogame ever made. It all builds to a remix I made of "Mama" by Genesis. (Oh, and this isn't in the video, but the entrance theme I chose for Mother Goose Project was "Hey Mama" by The Blackeyed Peas. Get it? Mama, Mother Goose? I know nobody notices the entrance music, but I always try to make those appropriate as well.)

Frequent viewers of CageMatch may note that there is always a different, apparently random sound that plays during the DSI id flash at the top of the video. Actually, this is always carefully selected (sometimes painstakingly so) and has some reference to the rest of the video. Last week's was fairly obvious, but this week's amused me. Can you figure out the reference for this week? First person to correctly identify it and leave a comment on this post gets a $10 Amazon gift certificate! No, really! IT'S A CAGEMATCH CONTEST! BEEYOWWWW!