FFX and TMB remix videos

stakyl

These were my 2 final projects for my Post-Production 3 class at IPR. The assignment was to redo the sound for two 2 minute clips of our choosing. I wanted to do a little more than that and decided to capture some clips from some games and put them together. The project ended up being a little larger than I expected but I think they turned out fairly decent.

I plan on using them on my demo reel so any criticism is welcome!

Final Fantasy X
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTWgEi2rJYY

Twisted Metal Black
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUlX7Bu_YWY

(ohms)Crunchy

Final Fantasy X:

Wall of blue text = bad.

It'd be better to make it "float" in, then fade away, and bring on the next set of text.

EDIT: It'd match the overall feel, and suit the sound of the water.

stakyl

Yeah, after watching it a few times I see what you mean. Thanks.

Edit: Some are saying that the song doesn't really work. What do you think?

Kuro Hou

The songs both don't really fit as well as they could. The TMB music fits best, but as soon as the "...doesn't that make you feel beeter..." break comes in, the whole feel falls apart. Also, having each vehicle exit the gounds one after the other after another...repetitive.

As for the FFX mix, the music is ok, but horribly overplayed. Overall the whole thing moves way too slow for my taste. I can see what you were going for there, but I just don't think most people will get it. If you have to expain every major point along the way, it loses some of its life.

Munacra

In the FFX you're retelling the storyline, which would be all fine and dandy for your resume, yes, if it wasn't that it is copyrighted, and most people will frown on that. If you're talking about submitting the audio part for your demo reel, then I don't know much about that. But about the video, especially since it looks more like a fan video, you won't be raising any eyebrows.

The first minute or so of your FFX video is just letters, letters over blue. This is a cinematic device that DOES not work in there. No one wants to read more than a minute of text.
If by the first ten minutes of a film, you don't hook them, you lost them.
By that definition, if in the first minute of your short video you lost them, you won't get them back.

Lose the beginning; start in media res. everyone does that anyway, and for a reason.

Also, the music to me felt very bland and really did not fit the moments of the film. The beginning again, took forever to get started, and does not build any anticipation, which is the main reason why you would ever delay the beginning.

Scosglen

While I like Hallelujah as a song, it doesn't really seem to fit here. Also, given that the song becomes recognizable right as Yuna's forced wedding comes on, it seems like you subconsciously ripped off shrek. Too much exposition with text, would have been far, far more effective to try telling a story using only the FMV portions in a logical string. First minute or so is a total snore. Haven't watched the twisted metal one yet.

Inzigna

The twisted metal one was.... bland.

The introduction of the film was done pretty decently, the selective blanking of words was pretty cool, although I would think fading would feel bettter.

But then there was no car mayhem. Not much violence. Nothing. Just slideshow after slideshow of the drivers, and their cars.

Though you brought out the 'demented' side of them pretty okay.

Given the lack of resources from TM:B, and their heavy reliance on static pictures to tell stories, I think it was okay, but to judge on the vid as a vid, I'm not giving you any kudos.

The One 52

There is waaaay too much text in your FFX montage. I kept listening to the video because I like Final Fantasy cutscenes, but I almost gave up halfway through because I was expecting some sort of more fluid montage.

Instead, the white screen with the text just breaks the rythmn, and the end product as no sort of fluidity when it's playing. I knew that it served a purpose: explain the story of the world of Final Fantasy X to people who never played the game. But I'm sure there's a better way to do so than cut your video every 30 seconds with a white screen and blue text.

In short, the blue text is like some sort of weak tape trying to hold together a teared up map: sure it can hold it, but it could tear up again at any second... unless you had a better material to hold it together.
(Sorry for the crappy metaphor, but that's the image I had in mind when I watched the video. )

stakyl

Thanks for all of the comments.

I wanted to do so much more with the video but since these were for an audio post-production class I decided to just whip something up really quick so I could spend enough time on the audio.

Both of these were done in less than 2 weeks. That time includes pre-production time. I overload on credits every quarter so finding the time to do these was almost impossible.

The beginning definitely needs something more, but I was finishing that part up and I still had to mix it in 5.1 and I only had a 2 hours of studio time left to do that. It's sparse

The text is...yeah the more and more I watch it the more I don't like it.

About the usage of Hallelujah...
Oddly enough, most of the people that I have showed it to that haven't played FFX like the way the song works with the video, and most that have played FFX don't. I like it. In fact, it's my personal favorite part of the video.


I didn't really want to do the Twisted Metal Black one, I wanted to do a different game instead, but a long time ago I captured all of the cinemas from the game so I had the assets sitting right there. Getting footage from another game would have meant sucking up time that I didn't have. Halfway through the project I was getting pissed because there were so many still images and very few parts where I could actually use my own sound fx. This being an audio post class I tried to work a few in. They came out pretty terrible and the most noticeable one is the midway point with sweet tooth getting electrocuted.

That whole break just bothers the hell out of me. It seemed cool at 5:00 A.M. but when I saw it the next day, I couldn't help but wonder what the hell I was thinking. At that point it was too late.

With that being said, this next quarter is my last one and I will have MUCH more time for these types of things, so I'll either be going back to the drawing board with these two or start working on something completely new.



What do you think of the scene where they are shooting sin with the laser? The original fmv was pretty sparse, so I wanted to take it in a different direction and bring the lazer up to the front.

As always, any comments are appreciated.

Oh and if anyone wants to work on one of these with me send me a message. I'd love to work with someone that can do video editing much better than me so I can concentrate on the sound design.

dirtynbl

Where are you in school?

I don't think Hallelujah does much for these. The wind sound is a bit repetitive, its always the same length as far as I can tell. Might want to vary that.


What are you doing this in?

stakyl

I go to school at The Institute of Production and Recording in Minneapolis.

I edited the video in Final Cut, the text in Motion, and all of the audio in Pro Tools.