eXtreme Battlefield: DPV Racing [Archive]

John Edmo

06-04-2006, 03:46 PM

Not too bad at all.
Good to see something a little different from the normal stunts and stuff. Quality not that good but not bad for only a week without any help. I reckon we are going to see some awsome stuff from you in the future.
Check out this guys thread for a few good tips.
Don't mind his age because the info is spot on and he seems to know what he is talking about.

Guide to Creating a Succesful BF2 Video
After watching a few videos on here, I have noticed that so many videos repeat the same mistakes and all have room for huge improvement. I've decided to write a short guide to help anyone wanting to make a bf2 video.

I happen to have a few years in the industry, I'm 16 now but made my first commercial production when I was 13. Anyway, I hope my age doesn't reflect your opinions on my knowledge and what's written below.

Choose Music Before Editing
Quality over Quantity
Show Less Not More
No Content, No Movie
Camera Angles

Planning

To make a succesful video, it ussually helps if you plan it before hand. Know exactly what you want to get out of the video, but more importantly, makesure you know atleast roughly what the end result will look like.

If you're creating a story based movie, this is ofcourse even more important. If you have a rough storyboard but no details on the in between, then whats going to happen is, you'll find your story will be inconsistant.

Also, before you start to create a movie, makesure you are well prepared and have everything set properly. You don't want to do all these hard stunts and find out the server wasn't recording demos or your demo quality was low or something like that. Makesure you do a test run first to makesure everything is setup properly.

Also, this applies to all types of movies. Before you make the movie, ask yourself, would I want to watch this movie. If people asked answered that question honestly, we should have 50% less videos on these forums and much better videos with the other 50%.

Quality over Quantity

It seems some people think if they make a long movie, it will automatically be considered a good one. If you think that, then you're totally wrong. Who wants to spend more time watching a boring movie when they could be spending less time watching a more entertaining and satisfying movie.

Quality content is a must, even if you are a uber editor, fancy **** want cover up crappy content. Also, makesure your movie has a unique touch to it, people don't want to watch something that they think they've already seen.

Also, if you make a shorter movie rather than a longer one, you can then distribute a higher resolution movie.

Show Less, Not More

I use to love an australian comedian called carl barren, I use to only see him rarely on a few shows a month. When he released a DVD, I couldn't help but hire it out. After watching that DVD, I got totally sick of him. Thats a perfect example of why you should show less and not more.

I see stunt movies which pause on every stunt or show a thousand different angles. Thats almost like watching a movie sitting on the left side of the cinema, then watching the same movie sitting on the other side.

You may say, yeah but thats different, which it is, but in many ways its the same. The movie is going to be alot more boring the second time even though your now sitting on the other side of the cinema.

So, maybe choose two of the best angles and play them at no less than 50% of their normal speed. Also, its good to keep the audience asking "How did he do that" or "what just happened then becuase that looked sweet".

Music Music Music

Every BF2 movie to date has music (as far as I know). Not that this is a bad thing becuase its actually a good thing, but you need the right music/sound in the right places with the right mood.

Choosing any old song isn't going to do justice in most cases, especially if you are making a storyline movie where music needs to tell the audience the mood of a scene. Another thing, if you've done the planning correctly, you should know what your aim is with the movie you're planning to make, so you should have a fairly good idea of what type of music you will need.

Look at the BF2 intro music, watch it a few times and listen to how the moods of the music change and how well it is blended in with the editing. Although most of you dont have the resources to get your very own soundtrack made up, this is still a really good example.

So, I suggest you select the music you want before you even start recording the demo within bf2. This way you can match your scenes with your music much better and will give the overall movie a much more intergrated feel if done correctly.

Camera Flexiblity (withing BF2)

Sadly, bf2 lacks camera feature, there is no zoom, no smooth panning and not even adjustable freecam speeds. Curruntly, the camera features are really abd in bf2 like you all know. This is a big problem, but there are ways you can improve all this during the editing process and during the capturing process. I'll focus on the capturing process in this chapter

When you're recording your camera movements, you want to be able to adjust freecam speeds and smooth out pans. Here's how to give you a little more flexibility with both of those things.

The only way you can adjust freecam speeds (that I know of) is by adjusting playback speeds. If you want to chase a jet in freecam, at normal speed you will find freecam isn't fast enough to keep up, well, make playback speed 50% and you'll be able to keep up just fine. Then, when you watch the cerma back at normal speed, the camera will be going twice as fast and will be keeping up with the jet.

Now, what if you want to slow down speeds, well, do the opposite. Make playback speed 200% or whatever and then your camera will roughly travel at the same speed infantry travel. Then when you playback your recorded camera at normal speed, it will appear as if the camera is moving alot slower.

To smooth out panning, do the exact same thing, increase playback speed while recording your camera movements, then when you play it back at normal speed, the panning will have a much smoother feel to it.

Camera Flexiblity (during editing)

Now, if you've done everything you can within bf2 to steady your shots and adjust your speeds, then you'll prolly find its not enough. Well, plenty more can be done during the editing process.

Its a good thing to always capture your footage at the highest possible resolution. Then you have so much more flexibility while editing. You can now zoom, steady shots, create shaky cam effects and do small digital pans.

Most you would use programs downloaded from torrents. The most commonly used would be premiere pro. Although downloading from torrents isn't the right thing to do, there isn't really any harm being done in this case as you are not making videos commercially.

So, I recommend premiere pro combined with after effects. With these two programs you can make a very professional production, its all up to you.

Outro

I've prolly left out a ****load of details, but you should get the drift of what I'm trying to say

I hope you all have gotten something out of this guide and I hope to see better bf2 movies in the future.

Cheers!
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Also check out my 'Video Creation Guide'
Last edited by Sloth_Boy