What is a "Movie"? What's an "In-Game Video" or "Game Play Video"?

[DoolittleRaider]

Hello :grin:,

I've been appointed a Moderator for the "Movie-Making and Videos" Sub-Forum. I will do my best to keep the Forum focused and friendly.

The MM&V Forum will provide the opportunity for experienced Movie-makers and Video-makers to showcase their COD creations in one location rather than scattered in floating threads in the general forum, in which comments on a movie or video content often lead to threads going off in tangential directions, sometimes ‘hijacked’ for many pages. I would hope that in this sub-forum, the focus will be on the Movies and Videos, and that discussions which drift off on matters such as damage-modeling, controls, PC hardware, Super AI vs Stupid AI, need for certain patches, Game Engine, historical accuracy, etc, etc will be minimized and moved off to the other appropriate sub-forums for such matters.

In addition to being a theater for viewing COD Movies and Videos, this sub-forum will also provide the opportunity for individuals new to Movie-making and Video-making to learn capture techniques, software tools, aspects of cinematography, post-processing editing concepts, application of Special FX and Sound FX, creation of sound and movie tracks. The basics of Composite/green-screen techniques and CGI-type animations can be explored. The Movie-Making sub-forum at UBI’s IL-2 Forum was established in October 2003, and was extremely active for many years, helping the best of the best movie-makers to tweak their skills, and helping newcomers learn the basics. I hope the same will happen here.

While there are no formal definitions or rules, I’d like to suggest that the term “Movies” be used for those ‘creations’ which tell a “Story” of some sort, and/or convey a "Message" to the viewer. These would be along the lines of a TV Show or ‘Hollywood’ movie drama, or History Channel documentary; they can be very short or of epic length; they can convey the 'story' of a poem, or song; they can convey beauty and artistry. Such "Movies" would usually incorporate considerable cinematography, and post-processing involving editing, SFX, soundtrack, and possibly Voice-Over narrative or Dialogue. These Movies will often incorporate some attempt at “character-development”, some degree of Emotion, making the viewer "care" about what happens to the pilots and crewmembers of the COD aircraft shown. For reference, I would suggest that you visit the Flight Sim Movies website (http://www.flightsimmachinima.com/), where IL-2 (and some COD) "Movies" are showcased.


The term "In-Game Videos" I would suggest should be used for what are essentially captured Tracks, with possibly some use of cinematography in view/camera selection, and some post-processing editing. Unlike "Movies", they often show the use of icons, HUD display, etc, but in others they eliminate them by post-processing/cropping or other techniques. These “Videos” usually have a musical soundtrack and/or default Game sounds; some Directors/Creators apply Text subtitles effectively. Generally speaking, these videos are usually Action-Action-Action, flying-and-fighting, and fighting-and-flying, from beginning to end; the videos may begin in flight, or often follow a combat mission from takeoff to landing (or to another conclusion, such as death or crash or bailout, etc). Another theme is the sightseeing flight over the countryside or cityscape.


A subset of the “In-Game Videos” category would be videos which are essentially “Raw” Track recordings, most often from the Cockpit Point of View, real-time, very limited or no editing, with all In-game Icons, HUD displays, text Chatter, Status text announcements, AI radio calls, etc. These are most often straight captures of On-Line experiences. They can be very valuable in showing the “Game”/“Flight-Sim”, as in “What You See is What You Get”…Wysiwyg. They can help market/sell the Game, and open discussion of on-line (and also off-line) flying experiences,techniques and skills.


In this new sub-forum, you Movie-Makers and Video-Makers will be able to start a New distinct thread for each newly released movie or video of yours to get immediate Attention and feedback/acclaim from the community. If you are inclined to do so, I would ask that you designate your creation in your thread title as either "Movie" or "In-Game Video" [alternatively "Game Play Video"], though that is not mandatory, of course. Those Movie-Makers and Video-Makers who produce several Movies or Videos of recognized superior quality and/or are especially prolific will be eligible for Sticky-Status, so that all their creations can be readily found and viewed by community members and new Site visitors. The Tinus le Roux and Barfly sticky threads are the first of these ‘compilation’ threads. EDIT, 16 Dec 2011: The Freycinet series of Gameplay videos has now also been stickied.

EDIT, 19 Jan 2012: Please identify in your thread Title whether your post is a "Movie" or "Gameplay Video". Also, if you are posting a non-COD video or movie clip, such as real world footage, please identify as "[real world footage]". Finally, if you are posting a Game or FlightSim video or movie from another Flight sim other than COD, please so identify...such as "[FSX video]" or "[WOP video]" or "[DCS-AC10 video]"



I would welcome any comments on the above, and any suggestions on how to make the sub-forum more useful and well organized.



Now…Lights, Camera, Action!

[Freycinet]

Dear DR,

Thanks for your posting! - Great to have a "movie" guy with a real interest in movies running this place...

As for your suggestion of categories, I guess I am a bit of a problematical "falling-between-the-chairs" case. I do totally unedited captures of my flights but THEN make an overlay of annotations which involve character development, emotional involvement with the actors and - in general - "telling a story". So what does that make my movies? :)

- I don't think the answer really matters. It can be satisfying to categorize things, but sometimes it isn't strictly necessary.

Re: your PM - Yes, sounds good for the next in-game video I put up!

[DoolittleRaider]

@Freycinet. Thanks for your comments/perspective. I agree that it may not be feasible or necessary to strictly categorize, but for discussion purposes, maybe just distinguishing between Two types of "productions" would work. I have edited my first post accordingly, and expand a bit below on the nature of the two types:

"Movies": Productions involving significant cinematography (camera/view selection; subjective, objective, POV angles and perspectives, etc), and incorporation of significant editing and other post-processing techniques. The best movies have a screenplay, however simple, conveying a "Story", which has a Beginning (setup), Middle (crisis) and End (resolution). Outstanding IL-2 and Rise of Flight Movies have been as short as 2 minutes, and as long as One full hour.

"In-Game Videos": Productions which consist primarily of Raw game-captured 'footage' [WYSIWYG], usually with only a limited degree of cinematography/editing and no other post-processing beyond the addition of a musical soundtrack and/or narration and/or subtitling. These may show in-game Icons, text, hud displays etc, or they may be abesnt/removed to increase immersion. In-Game Videos usually are "action-focused' with a relatively simple purpose/story, or no story at all. Videos can also be of widely varying duration, of course.


Post-processing defined as:
Editing, as in selection of shots and clips from recorded Trks, and compiling them into scenes and sequences to best convey the 'story' of the movie.

Adding Special Effects (SFX), such as 3d CGI animations; Green Screen compositing of human actor sequences; In-camera Effects such as zooming, slow-motion, shaky cam, etc; video effects such as color desaturation, film grain, motion blur, etc; use of a variety of optical filters.

Adding a Soundtrack including other than In-Game sounds and music. For example, addition of Voice-over narration or radio chatter dialogue, aircaft engine or weapons sounds, Sound effects such as explosions, air raid sirens, etc.

Adding/inserting other media, such as photos, documentary film footage, etc.


I would consider that 98% of the hundreds upon hundreds of IL-2 and COD youtube "movies' would fall into the "In-Game Videos" category. They serve many purposes, are interesting from a variety of perspectives, are fun to make, and can be 'engaging' to the audience; they are comparatively easier to make than..."movies".

Movies, on the other hand, when done well are works of art, and immensely time-consuming projects, as any experienced IL-2 Movie-maker/Director will confirm. As a result, and unfortunately, many of the best IL-2 movie-makers got burned out after a couple of projects...others have found it necessary to take Leaves of Absence for extended periods of time.

Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

S!

[DoolittleRaider]

It has been suggested that "In-Game Videos" might be better named as "Game Play Videos". I think they can be used interchangeably, as both convey the same "focus"...which is that the 'Purpose' of the Video is to depict some aspect of the Flight Sim 'game', whether it be visuals, graphics, sound, FM or DM, controls, or Game 'action" (on-line or off-line).

"Movies", on the other hand, 'employ' flight sim game Features as the core 'resource' in presenting a message or story. As noted in the previous posts about Movies, the "game" is just one resource, enhanced by other resources such as post-processing tools/techniques and/or other non-COD game visuals or sounds, and/or other real-world footage or sounds.

[White Owl]

Thanks for the clarification. I produced a few Let's Plays a few months back, and am working now on continuing the series. This is raw gameplay video capture with a vocal commentary track added. In your original system of classification, my videos fell between a couple of different categories without exactly matching either. But now it's clear I'm making Gameplay Videos. So the new system is much better from my point of view.

[DoolittleRaider]

@ White owl.. Thanks for your input.

Also, it is much appreciated that you titled your new Post/Thread accordingly, as Gameplay videos.

[fireflyerz]

Oh no , I want a retrial.

[DoolittleRaider]

.