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Azura
Regular User
Join Date: 6/16/2005
Posts: 811
Location: Pirating your ass
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Own-age has put in place a nice review system that helps site visitors decide if they want to download and watch a movie or not.
The purpose of this thread is to help people who want to quickly post a full review (one listed just under video details) but are hesitating because it's either too much trouble or it takes too much time.
Step 1 : Getting set up
This my personal choice but some people might want to try this because it gains you a lot of time.
Before you start, you need a headset. Any avid gamer has one to talk on Teamspeak so this shouldn't be a problem. Next, open up your favourite sound recording program. This can be fraps, ATI Tool Tray (sound recording utility) or anything else that can record what you say on the microphone. The windows sound recorder would suffice except it can only record a certain amount of time.
Also avoid forgetting to switch recording input to the microphone or else nothing will be recorded ! This is done through volume controls by going to Properties and then clicking Recording and switching Input to Stereo or another source that points to what Windows is outputting. Make sure that the drive you're recording to has sufficient space. A hundred or so megabyets should suffice to record what you're saying during a relatively long game movie.
Step 2 : Viewing the video
At this stage, you could watch a video several times but it's important to note that the first impression is the most important as most viewers will only watch a video once. If you do watch a video more than once, this will waste time and you risk being too wordy if you have problems being concise (this is what happened in my first movie review).
Here are some questions you should recall in your mind before watching a video. I advise you to write up your own list and print it out for reference. You can add to it as you become more experienced with commenting and spotting out detail in videos.
< Creativity >
This evaluates the things that really make a movie stick out from others and that have obviously taken a lot of thought and time for the author to accomplish. Your comments can mention editing, content, quality but you should keep the detail of those comments for their respective sections.
Questions :
- Does it stick out from videos of the same genre ? If so, what things make it really stick out (small list of maximum 4-5 things) ?
- Is it a frag movie or something else (try to describe it without giving away too much details) ?
- How was the movie presented ? Have you seen something similar or is this something completely new ?
- Was the movie film like ?
< Editing >
This can be about any operation carried out in a movie editor. This includes piecing a movie together but also adding music/sound, synchronizing video/audio, adding visual/sound effects, adding transition effects, etc.
Questions :
- Is the music and sound synced properly ?
- How does the music fit ? Remember that music is of personal taste so just express your opinion.
- How nicely assembled does the video come accross ?
- If organized in subsections, what do you of the order and the way they piece together as a whole ?
- Did you see any nice visuals ?
- Was the sound transformed in any way ? This can be echos, reverb or change in volume.
- Was the image transformed in any way ? This can be motion blur, flare or halo effects.
< Content >
This refers to the content itself without taking into consideration the editing and creativity.
- What is the subject of the movie ? A simple collection of frags ? Extracts from matches ? A personal or clan movie ? Or something else ?
- If a frag movie, what did you think of the frags themselves (above average, good, spectacular) ?
- If not a frag movie, did the subject entertain you ?
- If it's a video of a first person shooter, were the in game settings modified in any way (HUD or weapon graphics/models) ?
- How were events stringed up ? Did it seem natural or slightly awkward ?
< Quality >
This refers to both the sound and image quality of a video. You can add comments about the compression ratio too since higher compression inevitably has an impact on quality.
- How was the music sound ? Did it sound as clear as an mp3 or muffled like a radio ? Were there any defects in the sound that were unpleasant to hear ?
- How was the image itself ? Did it came as clear if not better than the picture you can get in game ? If it is like in game consider giving it a six or seven.
- How did you find it quality wise with respect to movies that take up more or less the same disk space ?
- Was the in game graphics tweaked to look better or left in low quality settings like some gamers use ?
- Are the details in the image smooth or jagged ? Was antialiasing used during the acquisition stage (when frames are dumped) ? This is one question I'd be tempted to put in editing but it precedes it.
- Do the graphics have nice contrast ? Is the image too bright ?
- Are there any problems in fluidity ?
< Overall >
This is where you can state other things besides the aspects covered. Stick with your first impression and say what you feel and what impression the movie left you.
- Did you enjoy it or dislike it ?
- What parts did you like ?
- To what public do you recommend it ?
- To what movie can it be compared ?
Step 3 : Viewing the video
Now that you have your list of questions ready, put the headset on and set the movie to full screen (unless the quality isn't good enough).
Here is what you can say for example while the movie gets started:
"Intro starting...
Nice sound quality, image is a bit muddy and blurred but still good quality...
Black fadeout and chage of perspective...
Slow motion scenes of character...
Nice ripple effect on title...
Nice style of characters in font used...
Fish eye effect...
Opening...
Intro is not too long...
Trick stunts...
Orchestral music used with some odd phrases being said..."
This is an example based on Dwarftoss 2 and is already a bit wordy. You should really make comments on what you find important as you are in fact representing part of the public in that you will like some movies and not others.
Keep this up until the video is finished. If you haven't watched the video until the end then you aren't doing a good job of reviewing as you'll only have an impression of only part of the movie. Just imagine if a video was made to look rubbish with absolutely horrid content on purpose and then suddenly turns into a masterpiece !
Step 4 : Write the review
Time to write that review ! Listen to the wav file of your recording quickly and then start categorizing the comments you've made. Keywords like effects are probably to do with editing while comments about impressions are more on the creative side. As for comments that are about frags or other events, these are usually to do with contents.
You can start writing these down by either making bullet style lists or writing in clean sentences. The comments don't necessarily have to be linear and following the sequence in the movie. Once you've written the comments down, see if you can think of others you hadn't thought of mentionning. And then develop on these comments to include things that were truly good and those that could have been improved on.
These comments are very valuable to the author of the movie as it's structured feedback and could help him/her make better movies in future so please make friendly comments and avoid anything that may come accross as aggresive.
Finally, you get to the overall section and this is the one potential viewers will pay the most attention to. Give your personal opinion and then develop it. Keep a friendly tone as you're there to encourage viewers to continue watching and the author to continue making movies. State why you've given such and such marks and whether you'd like to see movies of the same genre. You can also mention a particular detail that caught your attention.
And, btw, there's no problem with using one liners if they truly reflect what you're trying to express. However, four or five lines per section should be the norm.
Conclusion
This guide is far from exhaustive and any suggestions to be added are welcome. I really hope this will encourage the more casual movie watchers to write their own reviews as movie makers cannot be totally objective and pay more attention to detail than a normal user would. In fact, the opinions of casual viewer should be more valued as they will speak more of the movie as a whole and why they did/didn't like it.
P.S: The recording stage can be dropped as soon as you get the habit of making mental notes of everything you perceive. It is not as easy as one would think as only someone who has a particular job (inspector in police force ?) can really make mental notes like this while gathering as much information as possible.
"Some people like to bitch and whine. Me ? I just smile and say cheese :D ."
* Clan Smiley iCTF movie by Ausbrecher
* Running games at insanely high resolutions
* The Clan Smiley Movie II (in progress)
* Azazel's Movie Making Wiki (submit your own tips and info)
Smiley and the Smiling Eradicators - http://www.clansmiley.com/
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Posted: 1.6.06 @ 6:42 PM
Last modified: 1.7.06 @ 4:11 AM |
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bacchus
Site Admin
Join Date: 11/12/2002
Posts: 4322
Location: France
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_c3rb
Regular User
Join Date: 2/8/2005
Posts: 948
Location: France
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[PT] TANIA
![[PT] TANIA](/avatars/useruploaded/[PT] TANIA604164proclamation_avatar.jpg)
Site Admin
Join Date: 12/11/2003
Posts: 4327
Location: FOREVER3
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smokeweed
New User
Join Date: 12/30/2005
Posts: 11
Location: belgium
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hm second time i hear about reviews but where are they? :X i didn't find till now:X
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Posted: 1.7.06 @ 7:17 AM
Last modified: 1.7.06 @ 7:18 AM |
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nhsb
Regular User
Join Date: 1/21/2005
Posts: 199
Location:
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smokeweed click on bacchus's sig (dwarftoss2) then they are just under the movie profile.
there are 3 reviews.
Nice thread btw.
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Posted: 1.7.06 @ 10:18 AM
Last modified: 1.7.06 @ 10:19 AM |
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bacchus
Site Admin
Join Date: 11/12/2002
Posts: 4322
Location: France
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