It's a bit of a long story, but there's a summary at the bottom too.

A few months before i58, the TFTV crew came up to me and ask if I will make the intro video and bumper videos for the event (the ones they play before and after breaks). I say yes - a few weeks later Dashner asks me "How confident are you in making a high quality video in 48 hours?". He suggests that if I'm able to, I should make a grand finals intro video using footage from the event earlier that weekend. I take on the task and ask for the weekend off of work.

i58 weekend comes around and the matches on Friday begin. I watch them during my classes, get home, and begin watching everything else throughout the night, keeping Twitch Clips of everything. I woke up at 8am for classes that day, and ended up staying up until 8am Saturday morning watching all the VODs and starting to record Day 1's clips.

I go to bed at ~8:30am and wake up at 3pm to a message from Dashner saying the project has been scrapped for reasons I won't disclose - however, he was not the bad guy...things just didn't line up.

That afternoon was the moment when I told myself that I'm going to finish recording everything from the weekend and see where it takes me. I mean, I've recorded a third of the tournament, have all the Twitch Clips for reference, and the weekend off of work, so why not? I had slept through all of Day 2's matches at this point, so I started watching them at about 3:30pm. I clipped and recorded every single match from Day 2 in one sitting, and got done at 3:55am... when Day 3 matches were starting at 4am. So naturally, I decided to stay up and watch Day 3's matches live and clip them with everyone else. I ended up staying up until 11pm on Sunday recording clips and gathering the STVs demos (thanks tsc/fiyahstorm/beta/etc).

I woke up on Monday morning, went to class, and then sorted through all the STVs and uploaded the pack you see on TFTV - I was really happy with how quickly I uploaded it, even if there are some small errors in there. Afterwards, I spent the next 3 weeks working on the editing, which included having to re-record a handful of clips and extra angles, re-doing a set of smooths at least 4 times, and making sure I got everyone's team name/alias right. Shoutouts to everyone in the TFTV slack who helped me there. After 3 weeks of hard work, I released the movie.

The last inspiring bit of the story was the timing of its release.

I had the news post ready to go and got the OK to put it on the frontpage. I had class in about 30 minutes at the time of the release, and I was planning to go to class expecting the thread to get a decent response, but nothing else. Sideshow was streaming and someone linked him the thread he started watching it live 5 minutes after the thread was made. I ended up tuning-in in time and watched his reactions and the reactions of his chat throughout the whole movie. They all loved it, lots of PogChamps, etc. - but the best part of it all was that I chose to be there (and be late for class, haha). Seeing Sideshow and his chat laugh at the ending funny bit with craters/self-dets, and praising me for the smooths that were made - that was what made the initial release so meaningful. Through the next few weeks, I got praise from all kinds of players from just about every region/country...includuing some of my editor idols, which was truly surreal.

The i58 movie and the amount of hours I put into was/is the highest point in my video editing career thus far - I gave it all the effort I had, and I believe it showed. My editing style fully was fleshed out, the smooths were absolutely perfect, and it motivated me to jump into real life photography/videography, which is insanely tough in my opinion. (@adverse_works on twitter/instagram if you care)

Summary:
In short, I took i58 weekend off of work, ended up staying up 24 hours straight, sleeping for 8 hours, and then staying up another 30 hours straight for the beginnings of the i58 movie. Sorted through the STVs 2 days after the event, and then spent 3 weeks straight editing. The release of the movie was huge because Sideshow watched it live with his chat and everyone loved it. I then promptly left the TF2 scene knowing that I wouldn't have the time to do anything like this ever again. :(

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for tf2 related memories it's a tough one but first is probably ESA lan (watching moof get flocked by seagulls was actually the funniest thing ever)
at a close second would be chilling with funs, mana, dreamboat & the rest of the boys at i58 (wandering around the venue at 4am like a drunken retard was quite enjoyable)
also beating saam's fat ass in s21 IM grand finals felt pretty good esp after how cocky/arrogant they had been thinking that they would win for certain

outside of tf2 probably doing sound design for the advanced theater production in my senior year of hs, put many hours of blood sweat and tears into that play and felt really proud to have made it all from scratch and have it turn out well

Grown ass men/chilluminati pugs

Playing on speedy cheetahs (deer, tooth, delpo, oobii (saelot), dr Gilbert)

For me it would have to be watching i55, i never sat down to watch all the games live so i came to regret that i missed out so much and for i58 and ESA watched everything live on and off with friends (it was great). I got into the scene at around that time too and thought it was the coolest thing ever. (still is). Hopefully there's still more memories to be made like attending my first LAN.

back in the days when i had a little bit of a grudge with mirelin this shot was super satisfying for me (sadly casters cant hype shit even in a final)

https://youtu.be/tiv4zGKjrEE?t=1238

I dont really have 1 moment that I remember being my best memory it's just so many moments that I've had in mumble with friends doing random shit (some of it is on my youtube xd selfpromotion). Also this airshot was a pretty nice moment: https://youtu.be/CTzflYRPSd0?t=56s

edit: oh yeah i49 was golden

Tf2: going to gxl. I didn't know anyone, and i didnt even have formal 6s exp at the time. I showed up and hoped i could find a team for the tourney. I met cool people (lightning command REPRESENT) and had a great time. Unfortunately my new job doesn't let me get weekends off so unless there's a lan in Houston I can't do much.

Non tf2: philmont scout ranch. This exceeded all my expectations. When the road got flooded and we had to take an extremely dangerous side route, when we had to climb across a field of jagged rocks at one of the highest points in the area during a thunderstorm, playing cards around a campfire. It was all so amazing. Our route was just over 100 miles. I was on point. The first day I had a lot of trouble with the elevation but by the end everyone has had trouble keeping up with me. It is absolutely something i will never forget.

esa was the happiest ive ever been

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any lan, closely followed by any 2015 buttnose doublemix

so many excellent memories to pick one out

Getting my dick sucked while watching bannys stream

ESA was really awesome, especially being in the crowd in the grand finals. i61 is gonna be so much fun I can't wait

Insomnia 58 Grand Finals, or more specifically the outro video.

Even though I wanted Full Tilt to win, it still made me happy that EU won, because having a single team dominating the world every time isn't fun. But the end of the stream, my god was it beautiful. It doesn't really need explanation, you can watch it here if you've haven't already. It gave me this sort of heavenly feel in my head, and I haven't had a feeling like that until a district music competition where we won every time.

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played on teams with the most fun people from s18 to 20 and i wish i could play w/ them again sry for removing u....

Watching i52 live and seeing the passion this community has is what made me fall in love with TF2.

sounds pretty gay but the one day i launched tf2 and meeting shootist and insom in a badlands lobby and instantly becoming friends was probably the greatest moment of tf2 cuz it had me playing for like 2-3 years straight...

gxl and fites lans are always great. br0nze, m0use, swifty, and boulder gang are the coolest and chillest ppl irl

either esa LAN or mvm with friends in jaguar fiends mumble. super funny times that i still enjoy thoroughly.

all of i52, specifically the iM vs Mix^ bo3

sideshow streaming portal 2 and spending nights on twitch chat was pretty neat

that one time when we had maptalk with my team and then played according to the strat we developed and won against a team that was far better than us, incredibly satisfying

good times with my first 6s team when we won nada for 2 seasons but that was crazy fun

the whole i52

The most fun I've ever had in TF2 was when I didn't have a job and I'd play Tf2Center at 2 am with drunk Carnage and Relic.

Also I had a lot of fun on a really old UGC Steel team and met some of my favorite gamers who I still play games with and talk to two years later.