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Old 11-11-2007, 03:00 PM   #2
Vandalist
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Chapter 3: Workshop: Editing the footage.


Ah, now the real work begins. After all that PvPing, you should have some ideas in mind for your movie. There is 3 main views of a movie you should understand before making one. You can use just one, or all three.

1) The Real Deal: Your footage is simple and to the point. You see a whole fight, of every fight from start to end. The music plays, and people see you play for how you really are, and how skilled you really are.

2) Deception Is Key: Your footage is edited a great deal, special effects around every corner. Deception is used in the video using editing tricks to make you appear better than you really are. Works on some viewers, not on all... Some people use this not always to deceive their audience, but to give their movie a more epic feeling. This is only recommended for advanced editing users, and experienced movie creators.

3) A Detailed Picture: The most common of the three, your footage plays out usually in full but not always. Footage can be slowed, stopped, or edited to show off your better moments, so that they over-shine the rest. This might seem deceptive, but its actually not. However, overdoing it might cause the viewer to assume you think their stupid. Use in moderation.

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A good majority of the people who watch your PvP video will have never played your class, and judge you based off past grudges of their own fights and experiences with that class. Someone who really hates warlocks with a passion, might not enjoy a movie where a warlock runs around and kills everything in a few seconds, ganking style. You need to show the audience how good you are without overdoing it.

Example: In one of my past movies, while filming I found an AFK Paladin at shadowmoon valley. I started whacking him with my sword just because I was bored (I'm a mage, so it didnt even phase him). A few moments afterwards, he came back, and we got into it. After about 45 seconds of fighting, he was low, and bubbled, healed to full. My first thoughts were "oh God, this is going to be a long fight..." We kept fighting, he finally got me low. This paladin really knew how to survive. I poped PoM Poly and went invisible. I ran behind a pillar and got some health and mana back before he found me on his flying mount, and kept at it with me. The fight lasted almost 4 Minutes before I killed him, and I was barley alive at 20% health/mana.

A fight like that example is great because it shows "hey, your not just another seriously overpowered ___insert class here___." People want to know your skilled, not over-geared. There IS a difference. Any fight where you win simply because your seriously over-geared in comparison, is one you need to not boast about, not 'show off' often in your video, and make sure it goes by quick. People will see you then as more skilled, not just over-geared and overpowered.



Okay now how does this all come into editing? You need to consider all that while putting your footage together.


Now, where does the music come in? Thats all your decision as your editing. Don't put the music in first than fit the footage to the music. Yet, don't put the footage in first and fit the music to your footage.

Music and footage go hand in hand. You'll find as your working on your footage that a song might fit in perfectly with the way a fight went down, and thats when you cut it in. You don't have to use the full songs either, sometimes using only 70% of a song just to fit in the the footage is best.


Choosing Footage To Use
Your video should go from a Good start, then decent, then great in the middle, then decent, then a great finish.......

.......Got that? Didn't think so, I'll explain;

If you put all of your best footage in the beginning of the video, the viewer will gradually get bored with the movie as the movie goes on. Especially in long videos, using the best footage first will only get people ending your movie early and heading to the page to give you a rating "I got bored, 2.0"

You need to start off great, something to catch your viewers attention, and then do a roller coaster of best and not best. Not all of your footage is your best, stop trying to think it is. Get your absolute best footage, stick some in the front, some in the middle, and some at the end. When your viewer starts to get a bit tired of one way, then suddenly BAM a new great fight, or new great footage, to re-capture their attention. You need surprises around every corner to keep them watching and enjoying the movie. Gradually better or worse isn't how you do that. If you get gradually worse, the viewer gets bored and closes out the movie. If it gets gradually better, than they don't think you were too great in the beginning of the video and don't even wait it out to see the great endings.


So follow these steps to help get you started.

Step 1) Make 4 folders. Call one "Low Rated", Call one "Okay Rated", Call one "Highly Rated", Call one "Dead"

Step 2) Look at your footage, clip by clip. I think you see where I'm going with this. Put your best clips in the folder you called Highly Rated. Put any decent ones in Okay rated, and your worst ones put in low rated. Any clips you recorded where you actually lost the fight, put it in the 'Dead' folder, DON'T DELETE!! Why? You might be able to salvage some bits and pieces of the fights of clips for little cut-scenes. Cut-Scenes are in between fights, or in the opening or ending of a movie, just a quick cut-away of some great shot or cast or something, and then a cut back into your next scene. Its something to experiment with if your interested.

Step 3) You just rated your own footage basically, now this will help sort the footage for your video. Use some footage from your highest rated for the opening of your video. Then keep fitting in your Okay and low rated mixed in together throughout the video. Spread out your highest rated footage throughout the video. Don't bunch it up, don't put all your best clips at one section of the movie or like I said, the viewers will get bored too soon or later on and it will change their opinions.

Read Chapter 4 for more information to help with this process.


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Chapter 4: Musical Decisions


Music is a very important element of the video. If your footage isn't capturing your audience like you hope it would, the music could do that for you. If someone doesn't like the music or it doesn't seem to fit in right with your pvp style, it might confuse or bore your audience. Lets see if I can think of an example.

A priest pvp video... A shadow priest fighting off a rogue and warrior on his own and winning.... to the music of some heavy rock/metal shouting song where the lyrics sound like "ARGH YA DAH MARGH BLARGH YAAAAAAAA!!!!!!" Probably is a bit, erm... too wild rock-star with flaming hair type deal. You might want to tone it down to something with a steady beat...

Music Twisting
Many people do this to make the beat of the music fit in with what's happening with a clip. An example of this would be the ever popular song by Rammstein, Bang Bang (Rammstein - Feuer Frei), where if every time he yelled "BANG BANG" a hunter got off two shots on an enemy... Or on a mage.. Pom pyroblast.... followed by a fire-blast - each being cast on the "Bang Bang" part.

How is this achieved

Of course your shots aren't going to be timed that lucky to go along with a song. This is where you actually add a Speed option to that clip.

Sony Vegas: To add speed options to a clip click on the clip you wish to edit the speed on then...
1) Click "Insert" at the top.
2) Go to "Video Envelopes"
3) Select "Event Velocity"

This has just added a green line through that clip. Thats your velocity line, default set to 100% speed. You can drag the whole line up or down to speed up or slow down a clip, or you can right click on the line, add points, and speed up specific points of the clip only. NOTE: If you do this, you might have to shorten or expand the length of the clip, as speeding it up means the clip ends faster and the length of the clip would just cause it to repeat itself.

You must use this feature carefully though, speeding up a clip too much could ruin the point of the clip or make it go by too fast for your audience to really get to see it for what it is. So see if you can slightly alter the speed of the clip in key points so that it matches the tempo and beat of the music more.

(Continued Next Post)

Last edited by Vandalist : 11-11-2007 at 03:03 PM.
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