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What should a fragmovie contain, from a viewers perspective?
Created 5th May 2009 @ 18:27
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Allright, I am in the making of a movie, so I want some tips, but also got some views myself. Will probably forget everything about it when I am making it though..
Lenght: 5 Minutes is pretty much max for my taste, any longer will be boring, either 2 short songs or one medium / long song should do it.
Intro : It’s great to have a intro, but having a 1minute intro is getting boring already.
Music: Even though I can’t stand techno, it seem to fit well into fragmovies. Not that hardstyle ontz ontz techno, but the softer songs wich still have a pulsing beat throught the song. Rock is also very good for songs, because it ain’t too heavy to be annoying or distracting, and you still have the more hardcore theme over your movie.
Picking a fast heavy metal song is probably a bad idea. I am a metalhead myself, and love metal for all it’s worth, but most of the time, the more heavier songs tend to be distracting and just seemed to ble slapped on. Ofcourse there are expections, but having a doublebass gitarpowered metall song on a sneaky scout video just ain’t good in my eyes.
Editing : Suddenly eveyone found out they should get more contrast in the videos, and most of the time it ends in disaster. Adding alittle more contrast and crisper colour is one good thing, but having everything dark with blue and red blobs running around is an error many people do theese days.
Transitions are usually a small, but very noticable part. It’s easy to see if you just rushed it, or even overdid it. There should be an smooth bridge between the clips, but they should also be noticable independent clips.
Editing2 : When slapping together clips, it’s good to be aware of what team you were on in the specific clips. It’s very confusing and messy to first see a clip of a red demoman on granary mid, and then there is a fast clip showing a blu demoman killing 3 people in a stickytrap on granary.
Often people also tend to have 10 badlands clips, 6 granary clips, 4 well clips, 2 freight clips and 2 gravelpit clips put together in that order. That makes the video very stale. Mix the maps between in the video. Same goes with same style of clips. Having a airshot compilation at the start, and then a killingspree round right after is also a bad idea.
Slowmo : Unless it’s something super spectacular, let the slowmo be. Ofcourse it’s a great effect to help syncing the music, and an amazing effect if you airshotted a soldier from the other side of the map. But most of the time, a airshot on a jumping soldier ain’t worth a 30 second slowmo sequence.
Well, that some of my views, would love to hear from other pro fragmovie watchers.
cant agree with you more, well written
music choice is really hard, there are plenty songs out there that are used over a million times, but is still a perfect choice for a movie, prodigy for example.
its hard to get a fair share of different clips from different maps, j for an example, was playing 50% badlands for a week in almost every pcw, which is kinda lols :P
gl mate, expecting some kickass stuff :D
Ye we’re playing bad and gran like 5 times a week, hard to mix it up sometimes…
Anyway, wanted to add, I want to see a healthdisplay.
I can understand if someone disables the HUD except killmessages for STV scenes with the freaking nameplate in the middle of the screen, but otherwise no HUD is a no-go imo.
Also, anything but sourcerecorder is obviously fail. As are the “cameradrives” through parts of maps. It was cool the 3 times Jh did it, now move on.
P.S.: We all know the sticky-spot on gran second, a quad+ kill there isnt as impressive after seeing it 11 times in different videos.
What i think you need
Intro, yes some people over do it but i think having it a little to epic is ALOT better than not making it epic enough.
Outro, I am a MAJOR fan of the lol scenes some frag movies have at the end be it Pandemics jumping on the enemys head to stop them rocket jumping or be it a little offclass killing spree that you couldnt fit in, either way its a good way to make people watch the credits ;)
Editing, i like well edited movies but there are a few that are over edited and i do think it ruined it at times but a little to much editing seems to be better than not enough, but try to keep it simple and subtle
Transitions, i really think they should be kept simple OR very complex, theres no real inbetween. Ive seen frag movies where after every scene it goes to third person and through a doorway or a a window etc, it worked well tbh but felt a lil overdone (and most of been HELL to do, ive also seen frag movies where the transition is just like a wind screen wiper and i hated it… I think the transitions should be VERY subtly but well done.
Music, i think go with your personal taste, you will find it easier to get into it and easier to express what you want to express in your frag movie. Im not a metal head at all but ive seen some very nice frag movies with louder and more heavy metal music but ive also seen some with very quiet subtle music, just dont go for another prodigy song its been done enough that unless you somehow bring a complete new level to your frag movie there will be one better with the same song and i think frag movies should be independent and someones person work rather than just a template with different scenes
Tempo, this can really really vary, most people seem to like fast paced frag movies but i think slow paced can work to, you just need to keep the viewer coming back for more, once someone can watch it without wanting to blink you know you have succeeded
I think the MOST important thing is to make the frag video your own, be it with an original interesting song or be it with a different style of editing.
Hope this is helpful but i doubt it is ^^
PS, i agree with Fluffy, dont mess with the hud to much. Keep it simple and elegant and it seems to look alot better with TF2.
I like intros but they shouldn’t be more than 20-30 seconds. Try and make it slightly different too.
I’ve heard a few decent fragmovies with metal. Generally it helps when it’s not overly heavy. I’ve heard In Flames work well, Rammstein too. Although double-bass if placed well can work. Anything other than dance or metal/rock annoys me too much and gets muted (unless there’s a point to it).
Music transitions are a must and not just fading out one and fading in another. Music transition should never be notice for a music transition. Also never fade out during a verse or chorus try and find a decent point in the song if not the end. If your decent at it music is good pre-mixed so there isn’t any transition.
Outro’s can be good no need to put that much work into it though.
The things I enjoy most is a good mix of editing and long and short clips. If it’s just a string of short random airshot clips I’m going to get bored and assume the rest of your came is shit. And if it’s three really long clips I’m going to get bored. So a mix of short and long with some subtle effects and good transitions in general is best. Also some decent teamwork ie scout or solly combos can be nice.
Oh and the number one tip of all time DON’T USE PRODIGY (unless you know it hasn’t been done before, then be prepared to find about 100 fragmovies with it after you spend hours and hours syncing it).
I think you have a really good idea and perspective tbh, just go with your instinct in this endeavour.
Oh and for god’s sake chuck some boobs in it – even if they are your own!
Or watch some epic fortress-movies that people can and has watched over and over again during the years, obviously they did something right. Kaktuz movies are KICK ASS (bloodflower for Lovely (q3f), instinct for Vexillum (etf) are two of them) and ofcourse TF Done Extreme for QWTF — I can’t put ETFX there just yet, since it’s still pretty fresh, I still find myself watching bits and pieces of it when I want some ETF nostalgia).
Also remember that fortress-movies are _not_ the same thing as Q3 DM-movies or CS-movies. Obviously they try and capture different parts of the game and would also be the reason why there has to date, not been a single “epic” tf2-movie released.
To be fair, old fortress-movies might not even be a good idea, since UT-movies are more of DOM-type gameplay. Never seen any of those tho, so can hardly say anyone of them are “epic” and “timeless”.
Great topic! Some good points so far. I’d really like to see some epic TF2 movies which can be watched over and over again, as gryzor said.
A point you missed: I think custom huds and crosshairs should also be avoided. At least remove custom colored crosshairs (white crosshairs, minimal hud always wins imho).
Another important thing might be the ingame quality (resolution, gfx details). I’m not sure if it’s best to turn on all the effects etc. but at least turn mat_picmip to something bearable ;-) The resolution should be as high as possible or even turned to widescreen. Sadly it’s hard to come up with that for me (and others) as my machine dies if I remove m0re’s config.
Maybe an official movie competition would motivate ppl to put even more effort in the movies? Might also be a nice idea of some rather low players with high+ editing skills to get in contact with very good players/clans and do a movie with their footage (this is done a lot in cs/quake etc).
Lemme give you an example (didnt even read all the posts, but…)
http://www.pldx.com/movie/212/ETF_Extreme/
I KNOW it’s a ETF movie, but it has sooooo many good features some of already mentioned here. I understand too that TF2 is “a bit” slower game than ETF ever, but half of the movie is to get hose fast paced action clips.
I can give you a personal opinion, enough with the 2nd/4th cp kills on badlands, I’ve seen any possible move and midair(with soldier), and unless it’s a triple/quad rocket kills, it’s not worth showing at all, getting pretty old ;o
d0llar the thing is there will have to be filler unless the movies made over like 1 year with only the BEST frags being left in.
I can stand 1 or 2 frags like that, but when I see it over and over again 5-6 times I just ragequit.
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