Guidelines for Making Frag Videos

[MOD]BlindRob
[MOD]BlindRob
in CrossFire Guides
TLDR Version:Use windows movie maker.

I'd like to start this off by saying there are no rules for making frag videos, however there are things that are commonly agreed on. The following is a general set of guidelines that if followed, will help your video out in the long run. So take the following with a gain of salt, if you don't agree with it so be it, but it's what I think/do.
Music
Music is where I always like to start with when making a video. Music is also one of the top things that keeps people interested in watching a video.

A lot of people ask what kind of music to use in their video and that is totally up to you. However, let me strongly suggest a few things.
  1. NO LinkinPark.
  2. NO Evanescence.
  3. NO Drowning Pool
  4. Be wary of using Disturbed.
  5. Stop using the Terminators theme, please.
Using songs that have already been played to death is one of the quickest ways to make someone stop watching your video before they even get into it.

If you are at a loss for what music to use, try using free music services like Slacker or Pandora that suggest music for you based on what you like. I have found many good bands like this and it's a good way to find music that has not been used in other videos 100+ times.

So what music should you use? That's up to you.
If you are looking to do some easy syncing in your video I would stick to techno or anything with a hard bass Using Hip-hop/Rap is a double edged sword. Lots of people love it, and lots of people hate it. Again, it's your call, but keep it in mind. If you are going to use it, make sure it has a strong beat to back it up.

What ever songs you end up picking, make sure you listen to them often, while playing or when ever you are listening to music on your MP3 player. Get very use to the song and you will start to get ideas of what clips you have should go where.
Recording
How to record
You have a few ways you can record your footage for the video. Most common way is to use a screen capture program. The most popular ones are Fraps and Growler.
  • Fraps has near perfect quality and saves directly to AVI, making editing and working with the clips easy. However, it comes with the down side that it takes a much stronger computer to record with a good frame rate, The file size for the videos will also be very large. You will need a good chuck of hard drive space if you plan on using all of the raw footage without compressing.
  • Growler has the upside of being easier on your computer when it comes to recording, however you will take a hit on the quality end of things as a trade off. Growler also saves recordings as a .gcf, that will then need to be exported to an .AVI or similar video format to use for video editing.
What ever you decide on using for recording, It's important that you record with at least 30-35 FPS. (I recorded at 60-65 for my past videos) Anything lower and your video will appear choppy. The higher FPS you record at, the smoother the video will look, especially when you slow it down.

What to record
The footage you record will ultimately be what makes up your video. So, what should you use in your video?

If you are going to use TD clips
  • Don't use single kills
  • Try and keep most all of it multi kills
  • Don't make the person watch you run around while you go to kill the next person, speed it up or just cut it out all together.
If you are using SnD/GM/EM clips
  • Try to just use Match, Scrim, or Pug clips.
  • Clutches are nice, but make sure they are fun to watch Don't make the viewer sit and watch you camp and walk around for 30 seconds.
  • Single kills can be used if they are something impressive or to fill a small space, but use them sparingly.
FFA clips are not recommended unless it is something amazing.

With all of them, take off the SPOP and armor if you don't want people to make fun of you.
Editing
Sometimes not done at all, sometimes over done, and hard to do right, editing can make or break a potential video. Editing is a board term so I'm going to break it down a bit. First lets start with...

Syncing
A very important part of making your movie is to sync up the video with the music. However don't think the only thing you can do this with is kills.
Try syncing the music to..
  • Kills
  • Transitions
  • Gun switching
  • Reloading
  • Visual effects
If done well the effect is impressive, and makes the video much more enjoyable to watch.

Placing clips
How you set up your clips on your time line is almost as importance as syncing them. A good idea is to take your most impressive clips, and scatter them evenly throughout your video. The idea behind this is to maintain viewer interest. The longer someone watches your video the more likely they are to stop doing so. Better to have a 6 minute video full of nice clips than a 10 minute video with uninteresting filler clips.

Effects
Some effects should always be used in a video, such as color corrections. (contact, brightness,ect) These make the movie look more like a movie. However, I could write a whole page on this alone I'll just list a few key points
  • Do not use effects that occlude going on when you are trying to show someone. I see this often with people doing blurs and such as they get kills
  • Careful with over using the same effect throughout the video. If you have an effect that you think looks real cool save it for your best clips in the video to make them leave a bigger impression
  • Not every clip needs effects all over it. There is a fine line between good effects and too many.
Length
This is something I always get asked time to time. "How long should my video be?". The answer to this is simply as long as it needs to be. As I said above, a shorter video with good clips is better than a longer video with ok clips.

However, my advice on this would be if you are new to making frag videos start off small, 3-4 minutes is a good time frame. Smaller videos are faster to finish, result in you getting more feedback, and allow you to apply what you have learned from the start of your next video.

Revision
This is a big one. Don't be afraid to go and change what you have already done. Watch your video over and over, note things that could look better if you just did "this". Take out clips that you're no longer impressed by, and replace them with better ones. Do this even if it means losing overall progress on your video, but it will make it that much better.

While it can be hard to do so, do not rush to upload your video. Many times I see people upload a video only to say "don't mind 'this'" or "You tube messed up my audio/video". This ruins the first impression of your movie, and this is when it's going to get the largest amount of views at once.
When you are done with the video, consider sending it to people to review and give you feedback. Force them to pick out clips they would remove if they could and take what they say into consideration.
Upload the video to another YouTube where you can see how it will turn out without anyone else seeing it. From there you make changes and when it turns out good, upload the final product.



That's about it as far as what I wanted to cover here. However there is much more that could be said on the matter. Making a video can be a lot of work but in the end it's worth it. The more time you put into it the better the video will come out and over time you will get better at making them.

PS:I'm sure this has typos, I'll fix them later.
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