Denxi's Movie Tutorial / Compendium Of Top-Tier CrossFire Movies

Contrast is involved in everything. Literally. There is nothing that is not affected by contrast. Whether it it over-contrasted or under-contrasted, contrast is the biggest factor in defining ANYTHING. You doubt this? Here are some examples of how contrast affects our senses,

You're staring at a piece of paper with a small black dot on it. Where do your eyes go? The black dot.

You're chilling in the lotus position, trying to get some meditating done, when a car outside honks its horn.

You're looking for your very dark green wallet, but you only find it in that dark back corner of your desk after the third time looking for it.

Contrast is the basis for determining attention, no matter what sense you're using.


- Contrast in Visuals -

Colours:

Contrast can (and should) be used both on a large and subtle scale in your colours. By this, I mean that not only should a contrast in colours be used to emphasis specific points in footage, but it should also be used on a much smaller, subtler scale throughout the entire movie.

One thing you want to stay away from in your base colours' contrast is OVER contrasting. If your colours are over contrasted, then they will take away attention from the other parts of the video. A good example of over contrasted colours is any video where all the lights look the same, all the darks look the same, and there is a large gap between the two. A good example of this is this video. This mistake can be seen a LOT in videos where the editor tries to use grungy colours to get an epic feeling. The majority of the time it fails, however, because clashing colours just don't look good.

On a larger scale, colour changes can be used to emphasis moments in your frag movie. Whether it be the environment getting brighter or darker, a general colour shift, or any other changes, a sudden colour change will provide contrast to the norm, and therefore emphasis on that point. These colour changes can be seen in practically every frag movie, although they are seen less in movies of the "clean edit" genre. A good example is blood red by epicl. Every kill there is a short burst of green colour, in contrast to the pale colouring used as his base. Not only does the fact that there is a colour shift provide emphasis, but because he used a very pale base colour pallet, epicl is able to provide even MORE emphasis on the kills with a colour like stand-out green, which is not only a different colour but also has a different theme to it.


Effects and Overlays (I will refer to both these as just "Effects"):

Just like colours, effects (or a lack thereof) can be used to emphasis specific points. Like colours, they CAN still be used on a more subtle level through the entire movie, however this is a) harder to pull off, and b) doesn't always fit the flow/theme the editor is aiming for, so having a constant effect is a much rarer thing.

Instead, what usually happens is a constant THEME of effects. The editor will get a pattern set up, wherein every X scenario, Y effect happens. A GREAT example of this is ENDLESS MILE by neof. Why is this such a great example? Take a look at neof's transitions. Every time there is a fast transition, he uses the twitch effect to accent the fact that it's quickly changing, and every time there is a slow transition, he uses a fiery black fade-in, which accents the slow change. By combining these with the appropriate sections of audio, he does an excellent job in accenting both quick and slow transitions. This is so impressive and important because, if you watch the video, you'll notice that the transitions that I am referring to as "slow" aren't actually slow at all. They're very fast transitions. But, in contrast to the quick transitions, they are slow.

This act of using subtle contrast in effects to further provide contrast in the video is a perfect example of how to use contrast in your effects.


Framing:

Framing is going to be hard to explain, simply because there are very few examples of people using contrast in their framing to emphasis things. This isn't because it's that hard to do, but it's a much more prevalent concept in mainstream film just because their objective differs so much from that of a frag movie.

Obviously, contrast in framing only takes place in your smooths. The only, rare exception to this would be a change in pan/crop, however this clumped in under effects. No, by framing I mean the positioning of the focal point, and how that effects the movie.

I have never truly seen framing contrast used to its full effect. Ever. Even though contrast in framing is most effective at determining and changing flow, I felt the need to mention it in the visuals section just because it really is visual based. Although I cannot provide any example links to CONTRAST in framing, I will attempt to explain it as best as I can by using examples of framing used to create a theme, without necessarily contrasting throughout the movie.

Watch clementine by denxi. Throughout the whole movie, the smooths are framed and plotted in such a way that they capture a large portion of the environment. This framing, combined with the slow speed, combined with the music theme, creates the "lonely" theme that the editor was shooting for. The framing in clementine was done in such a way that it consistently drew attention to the surrounding environment, which made the character seem small and insignificant. This is a great example of using framing to help capture a theme.

Now, how can contrast in framing be used like this? One DIFFICULT way is to use a change in framing to capture "development". The reason I say that this is difficult is because you are performing the equivalent of character development, only in a medium where the only real development has been the flow of the video. It would be difficult to do, because you would have to come up with a VERY original way to incorporate development into your video. Something like Alive by MixeP containing elements of a story, or a movie based off of a team's life and success are two good theme that would be able to incorporate development very well.

A more subtle way to do this might be changing the framing of your smooths as the frags got better and better. This would be interesting.


- Contrast in Audio -

I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day about why he doesn't like certain songs. Something that not many people seem to understand, is that a good song is like a story. You know the term "story-arch"? That's a term for a reason. A good story, if plotted out on a graph, will look like an arch. It will start small, grow over time, peaking near the end and dropping down to the conclusion. If you had a story that was filled with the "final battle" moments throughout the entire thing, IT WOULD BE BORING. To quote The Incredibles, "And when everyone's special, no one will be." This is the basis for contrast.

So of course, a song that is entirely made up of peaks will be a TERRIBLE song to use. Your entire video will be trying to be the "epic" moment, which will just cause it to be mundane and annoying. You need a soundtrack that not only captures your theme in genre, but also that can provide a contrast and story-arch that fits your theme.

Now, when editing to the song, although you probably won't be editing the song itself above basic cutting, you can still apply contrast to the way your video interacts with the song. The most common way of doing this is what I like to call off-beat syncing. If you watch chubrub by denxi, you'll notice that throughout the intro (and the rest of the movie) all the colours and effects are on sync with the beats of the song. However, at 0:17, if you watch closely you'll see that the visuals are not actually on beat. The clip fades in, the best happens, and the clip fades out. Why go to this trouble?

Those two clips are the only times when the movie performs a quick transition. By using off-beat fade-ins, not only has denxi separated the quick transitions from the slow ones, something which helps prevent a stagnant sense of Flow, but by changing up the syncing, even briefly, the contrast allows you to put even more emphasis on when the sync ON-beat, making it that much more effective.

Keep in mind, there are many other ways to do this. Another common use is slowly increasing the amount of consecutive beats that are synced with the visuals. The syncing of audio and visuals offers a surprisingly large amount of options. Make sure to explore them all to find out what fits your movie best.


- Contrast in Flow -

I spoke about a portion of this early, that being the story-arch. Like I said, a good story will have a major peak to finish it off. Now, I should specify, that doesn't mean you can't have multiple peaks elsewhere in your movie. However, for every peak you have, you must have enough of a valley for your peaks to retain the "epicness" that defines them as peaks. There is no real set number I can give you to tell you how many peaks to have. Generally, I'm a one peak kinda guy. I like a very long build-up, with a single, awesome peak to finish it off. However, that's just my preference, and I have deviated from this when the situation required me to. It is 100% up to what your movie needs to do well.

One important thing to remember is that the peak of your video doesn't have to be "fast-paced" to be a peak. You can have a fast pace throughout your entire video, and then have your peak(s) be emphasized through slow motion and a calming of the audio. A peak is only defined as being that epic moment, as long as it fits that description then it doesn't matter how you got there. A good example of this is at the end ofclementine by denxi. The peak is that one moment when the player leaps off the roof, and just as the player is falling, so is the intensity.

Just as denxi uses that release of tension at the MAJOR peak in his movie, you can use that release in any minor peaks as well. This is why the more epic kills are regularly followed by slow motion in frag movies.

Not only that, but just as it's important to have a proper let down, it is just as important to have a proper build up. The more natural your build up, the less the viewer is aware it's happening, and the less distracting it is. This is why it is common to see videos starting off with slow smooths, and work their way up tot he fragpart. Something interesting to consider is the use of a minor peak to start the movie off. A widely used technique is to ease the viewer into the video with slow, environmental based smooths, then have a moment of tension with a sudden release into the fast-paced movie. In ENDLESS MILE by neof, the moment of tension is the short time as the player jumps onto the window boxes, and in Portuguese Community 2 By Fr0st that moment is when the player is looking around after the title disappears.

Something interesting to note about those two examples is how they differ. Both examples build the tension, but they both do it with slightly different methods. neof build his tension and anticipation with a more forward approach. If you listen to the sound in that moment, you'll the sound is slowly building towards the explosion. However in Fr0st's movie, he does the opposite. Yes, the sound builds up, but at the end it cuts to a brief moment of silence. The silence, although brief, provides even more contrast to the initial burst of sound, which in turn applies more emphasis on the peak. Both ways are completely viable, as well as any others you may find/use, so long as they adequately build the tension.

A good way to look at this moment of anticipation is that moment between getting kicked in the balls, and the pain setting in. It's that wait, that anticipation, that allows the initial drop to be so much more.



Examples:
Sick Bubblegum by Dashkill (The movie wasn't on his channel for whatever reason)
KickStart by MagicalPower
This S%?! is crazy. by PikaLuvzYa
DECEPTION by Kick2Face

Why it doesn't work:
This is a terrible effect to use because it DESTROYS any flow you had with your colours. Any kind of feeling or environment that had been built up is gone.

Basically, the effect takes all your lights, and all your darks, and swaps them to colours that make 0 sense (E.G. hard red lights and sky blue darks). There are practically no situations that this effect doesn't look terrible (Seriously, I've only seen one or two of these that aren't completely terrible.), and that, combined with the fact that it is such a hard change from the theme, just ruins the environment of the movie.

"But Denxi, it's contrast, and didn't you say that contrast was good?" Yea, SOME contrast. Incredibly hard contrast, especially when it isn't visually appealing, just removes you from the environment, just like when you apply too much contrast to your lights and darks in your base colours.

When it works:
The only time that this works is in a situation like this one. It works here because of a couple reasons.

a) It uses a colour pallet that compliments the base colours.
b) It is quick, and the f******ing helps it flow better.
c) It is a proper invert. By this, I mean that the dark colours become light, and the light colours become dark. It is not like the typical usage, in which the colours are changed to random **** by the editor.
d) It fits the theme. The effect is placed during a death animation, in a movie which uses music that has a bit of a creepy feeling to it. Think of that cliche of a white skull on a black background, and then the colours inverting.


Examples:
Partyyyy Boiii 5 by PikaLuzYa
Aggression 2 by AfroCF

Why it doesn't work:
The reason people try to do this is because they think it's cool and some how integrates you with your environment. Guess what? It doesn't.

See, here's the thing. Would you expect the an incredibly abrupt, strong colour change to integrate you with your environment? No. Why? Because anything that is used to integrate you HAS TO BE SUBTLE. With this, you're just screaming at them. "HEY LISTEN, HE'S LIKE RIGHT BESIDE YOU, OH NOW HE'S ON YOUR LEFT WHEN THE SCREEN TURNED, ISN'T THAT COOL?"

This doesn't integrate anyone. It's forced, and it's obvious, which means that it does the exact opposite of what you want it to do; It takes you OUT of the environment. Hard and obvious changes do nothing but remove you from the environment, and by doing so they ruin the movie.

When it works:
It's very hard to get this to work. It really is just a gimmick effect. Something that all the kids will ooooh and aaaah over, just because they've never looked at SV so they don't know how simple and obvious it is.

If you really want to try and use it effectively, then the only way to do so would be to make it incredibly subtle. Like, so quiet you can barely tell the difference. Otherwise it's going to stand out, and ruin the environment.


Examples:
FALL by Kick2FaceMan
The Fate of xfam0usx Part 2 - The Release by MadAimzor
Literally every "PartyStyle" clip ever made.

Why it doesn't work:
See, there's this incredibly important thing in a video called Flow. Flow relies on patterns and recognition in the viewer, so that when things happen, they feel natural. When you are throwing random effects with no pattern on your movie, you sacrifice any and all visual flow. Whether it be randomly lighting up parts of the map, or using every single effect you find in your editing program, all you are doing is telling the viewer that your video is a giant crapstorm of random.

If you do this, you will have no visual flow. At all.

When it works:
Never. Never ever. The idea is inherently flawed. Without pattern and association, you can't have flow. It's just impossible.


Examples:
Affliction by AfroCF (Pretty much anything by AfroCF actually)
Last time I check there was a very large selection of screamo**** editors, and VERY few good screamo editors.

Why it doesn't work:
Contrast and Flow. See, screamo as a genre is inherently flawed, just because of how easy it is to misunderstand. Yes, you do have good bands who understand musical structure and contrast. But then you're also flooded with a HUGE amount of bands that have no idea what that is. They just want to make themselves sound as epic as possible, and they think that the best way to do that is to try and be at their peak at every second of the song.

THIS DOES NOT WORK.

We went over this before. Contrast is what makes epic moments epic. Variety is the spice of life. Since the bad screamo songs have no natural contrast to them, they will not work to help your video.

Then comes the ignorance factor. So, you've got people like Enigma (CSS editor) and Fr0st (On specific movies, not all of them), who choose to edit in a screamo style. These guys do it well. They choose good songs, they fit them together properly, and they wind up with good contrast and flow. But then all the kiddies watch the videos. Now, the majority of these guys don't know two ****s about flow and contrast. They, much like the bad screamo bands, like screamo for the sole reason that there's screaming. And screaming is cool, right? My parents don't like it, and its SUPER INTENSE HARDCORE 420 QUICKSCOPE, so it must be cool!

These people then take bad screamo music, and make videos to it (Henceforth known as screamo****.). And because it's bad screamo in the first place, they have no hope of achieving any sort of audio Flow. Not only that, but because they have 0 idea of what flow and contrast are, they fail to learn any sort of flow entirely. This is why in screamo**** videos that use multiple songs always seem to have terrible and abrupt song transitions; the editors have no idea how to retain any sort of smoothness, they just want to get into the "epicness" as fast as possible.

You know how I said if you graph a story on a chart, you'll see it looks like an arch? Well screamo**** videos and songs look like a straight line, with a brief drop every time they transfer songs.

When it works:
Portuguese Community 2 By Fr0st is probably CF's best screamo edit. And it actually is great as an overall edit, not just compared to other screamo****.

Why? A few basic reasons:

a) Fr0st choose good songs to use. The songs he choose actually had some valid structure, they weren't just people trying to be epic for 5 minutes straight. Not only that, but he ordered them in such a way that they all fit together in a natural build of intensity.
b) Fr0st created good audio Flow. Any time he transitioned songs, it wasn't abruptly, it was done both over points in the songs that were natural stop/start segments, and over a long enough period of time to make it flow well and feel smooth.
c) Fr0st had peaks and valleys. Not only due to his song choices, but also in his use of the specific parts of the songs. This movie wasn't just a straight line, it actually had a valid contrast. Not just a valid one, but one that worked great. He understood that every moment couldn't be epic, and there is a blatant final peak in the movie, as well as a couple minor peaks to transition the songs.

Screamo can work, and it can work well. But you need to understand how to make it work, and why screaming for 5 minutes straight is not, in fact, epic.


Examples:
Party Time by PikaLuvzYa
PARTY DROPPER by MadAimzor

Why it doesn't work:
It does nothing. No party clip has a point. Like I said before, there are two things a frag video can strive towards. It can focus on content, or it can focus on the edit/message.

A REQUIRED part of a party clip is that there be flashes of ever colour, every where, doing on at all times. This is distracting beyond belief, and completely detracts from the content, so in that regard it fails.

So how does it fair edit wise? Like I said, a party clip is defined by the ridiculous amount of flashing, multicoloured lights and effects. So much so, that they over-power the content entirely. This means 2 things.

a) A party clip is incapable of creating an environment. I mean, maybe for a moth or some other bug attracted to light, but other than that a party clip can't do it.

b) A party clip is incapable of having visual flow. Like I said, a party clip is designed around intense, random, flashing, multicoloured lights. They are completely counter-productive to visual flow. Not only this, but the vast majority of the time (If not ALL the time) editors will throw in as many effects as possible, just to try and keep you interested. Heads up party editors; not everyone has the attention span of a toddler.

The only thing close to redemption that a party clip can try to attain is in the smooths. That's literally the only part that isn't by default terrible. "Oh, but Denxi, what about the sync? It's SOOO GOOOOOOOOD!!!!!"

No, no it isn't. If all you're doing is syncing something to every single beat in a song, a song that puts its ENTIRE EMPHASIS on pointing out where exactly its beats are, then it's as easy as your girlfriend.

Syncing becomes hard when you skip sync points. It becomes hard when you have a crap ton of different options, and there's room for creativity. When this happens, true SKILL in regards syncing and flow emerges. Not when you have one option, and said option is SYNC ALL THE POINTS.

When this works:
It doesn't. party clips are, by nature, the worst. The defining factor of a party clip is the reason it sucks.


Examples:
emotionless by Fr0st

Why it doesn't work
Haruju was the one to really make this thing popular, after he used it in Vanquert. However, everyone keeps making the same mistake.

They make it stand out too much.

This effect should be subtle. The whole point is the make it seem like "old footage", but you need to do it in a way that it doesn't take your attention away from everything else.

When it works:
VANQUERT by haruju
ideline by popzz

Although ideline is pushing the limits just a tad, it still is able to pull this effect off. This effect is 100% about subtly, using it any other way is just distracting. Be wary of whether or no putting it in your video will really enhance it or not.

Although editing clean is a completely valid and effective style of editing, it's also a very good way to improve. A common issue among editors is a lack of subtlety. When a person first starts editing, it's very common that they'll try to emulate another person that they consider to be good. And because clean editing is only one of many styles of editing, chances are the person they're going to emulate is using a large amount of effects in their movie.

Naturally, the new editor, in their attempt to emulate the experienced editor, will also use effects. However, because they have little experience in editing, chances are they won't be able to notice the subtlety behind the effects used by the good editor. The new editor won't know WHY specific effects are being used at specific places. This means that the new editor will be using effects in an ineffective (hah) way, and when the vast majority of the viewer-based community doesn't really know what they're doing either, they'll get praise for their folly.

If you aren't being criticized for something you're doing wrong, there's a higher chance that you won't change it. Especially if you don't know that what you're doing is wrong. This new editor may get better in other areas, but what I commonly see among all "skill levels" is a lack of subtlety in their effects, and really in their entire edit as well. It's a lack of ability to use things other than effects to emphasis points.

How can you change this? Force yourself to not use effects. Instead of making a movie/clip in your usual way, try making it with 0 emphasis effects. Now, by this I mean don't use colours and lighting, I mean don't use any effects to emphasis specific points (e.g. frags) in your video. Instead, focus on things like smooth style, smooth placement, lighting choices, pacing, proper syncing, etc.

By doing this, you do a couple of things. First, you force yourself to learn how to apply emphasis without using effects. Second, because of this, your reliance on effects in your edits goes down. No longer do you NEED to use effects, you CHOOSE to use effects. This means that you'll have more freedom when it comes to creativity, as you'll just straight up have more options. And finally, this forces you to understand subtlety a bit better.

See, in a movie where the only things that're really being used for emphasis are effects, everything is pretty much on the same "level" when it comes to audience awareness. Nothing is done behind the scenes, everything is in your face. But when you learn how to use effects properly, and more importantly how to NOT use effects properly, this changes. You're now able to use effects as a tool that stands out, as you were before, but you can also combine that with a tool that, when used with effects, sits behind the scenes in comparison.

This ties in with the whole contrast thing. Your effects mean more when used properly, and when used properly, can allow for a contrast both from effect to effect, and well as from effect to non-effect.


One of the best examples of someone never learning proper use of effects is an editor called PikaLuvzYa. Pika had a very large success with his party style clips. However, like I pointed out previously, party clips are utter trash. When he started editing videos with a different format than party style, he kept the same crappy elements of party style clips. See, party style is based around 0 subtlety. It is defined by being an in-your-face, cluster**** of effects. And this is a BAD THING. You have no contrast OR consistency with this. So, naturally, it promotes a lack of understanding of how effects affect the video as a whole.

Take a look at some of his recent clips. See anything in common? They all have a terrible use of effects.

vnCookie wrote: »

Nice, but long read.

00Jafar wrote: »

Long is a bit of an understatement.. Ehh brb 1 hour.

I wanted to make sure I covered enough for this to a valuable resource.

[MOD]9 wrote: »

This. Will. Be. AWESOME!

Maybe finally I can get an idea how to get around to creating a good CF clip.

Good job!

wR_GameR wrote: »

Can I ask how long this took you to make? I've seen atleast 1/2 those videos, and I love em
I remember watching your Jump Movie on VirtualMedia and me and some friends tried some out. I didn't know like half those 'jumps' existed in game. I'm an editor too, and working on getting better

Thanks much. It's always nice to see more people editing, try to find your own style.

It took me 2-3 hours including watching the videos enough to properly critique them, and including formatting. It isn't done however.

00Jafar wrote: »

Just read it guys. Only took me 36 minutes.

ElseHD wrote: »

I'm sure I will read it later.

I'd encourage it if you have any interest in CF frag movies.

freehat20 wrote: »

I feel you got most of the really good cf movies in there

yPoonsWEK wrote: »

Good job denxi !

Thanks.

LobsterMts wrote: »

imo project awesome 2 > project awesome 1.

I didn't like legends 2 because of the coloring, etc, but yeah.

Anyone who has a conclusion different than mine, I encourage posting or xFiring me. I only ask that it be done in a way that stimulates conversation.

I'm quoting all these posts because they may have to get deleted so I can have more posts to get passed the character limit, sorry

Bac0nStrips wrote: »

You forgot to mention duck. I think he is one of the best movie makers because he is so creative when he makes CF movies like how he makes the music sync in with every shot he fires. Watch this video and you would see why he is one of the best movie makers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uBZQyg4Sz4

Alrighty, here's my take on Duck.

Going back to the first part of my video, I said that there are two main things a frag video can base itself around; content and editing. If you look at Duck's videos, one thing is common throughout the vast majority of them.

99% of the time, his frags are from public matches or clan wars.

Because of the environment that his frags were taken from, they can't even hope to compete with movies like Fragtastic in regards to quality. This means that all of his "Can't Stop Duck?" videos can't be judge for content if they hope to be included.

So look at the editing. Syncing shots and visuals to music is not creative. In fact, it is one of the most important building blocks when it comes to making a frag video. None of the videos already included on the list LACK sync, they got on the list because they did something exceptional. Do any of Duck's CSD? videos have and smooths? No. Do they have a consistent flow throughout? No. Do they have colours that blow your mind? No. None of his CSD? videos are anything more than entertaining montages.

So lets look through some of his other videos. I've pulled one that breaks this montage feel the CSD? videos have, if you have any other suggestions then let me know.

rofl clan movie

Ok, a clan movie. All of the frags seem to be 5v5's, and although there are ZP items galore, I'll give it a break to judge it both content wise and editing wise.

His intro smooths aren't great, but they do the job. His colours have the same issue that Dren used to have with his colours, they're way too over-contrasted. It doesn't look good when your whites are stupid bright and your darks all stand out.

If his colours are trying to accent the content, they don't do a good job. There are many cases where the colours make it hard to see/unpleasant, and the over-use of the blue streaks (forget the name of the effect) don't make it look super intense, they just make it look like he slapped on effects.

If his colours are trying to create an environment, it's the same issue with the blue streaks and the contrast. They just flat out aren't pleasant to look at.

In regards to his flow, it's the same issues that CSD? has. Although the intro got a good start, the song transition and ending were incredibly abrupt, and ruined any flow the video had. The same can be said for a large amount of clip transitions. An extended fade to black does NOT hold the intense pace that a song like these two need in order to work properly.

This movie was not above average.

iWerty wrote: »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sBJfO2AUE0&feature=plcp

This video got flow up to 100%. The sync and editing is fantastic, just as all his others videos.

Side note;
Denxi you're an amazing editor. The way you put these calm, beautiful songs together with the gameplay is just outstanding! You certainly bring out the good side of crossfire. I'd lie if I said I haven't cried to any of your videos.

I appreciate the compliments.

Although I've been told by a lot of people that they like aWcS, in my opinion it's on of the worst videos I've done post-clementine. The song didn't have the contrast in intensity or peaks and valleys that are so important in any frag video, and in a lot of places it's pretty obvious that the content is just filler. Right before the end it starts to get good, but aWcS in general isn't much better than average, if that.

IzConcept wrote: »

Please tell me what you think before I release the whole movie. I can still make changes in terms of effects. I've already reduced the whole "brightass CCing".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK4cV7gn_cc

I'm assuming that your focus is more on the feeling than the content, just because it's pub footage, however I'm still seeing a harder emphasis on the content than a lot of edit based movies, so that's the way I'm going to approach this.

Unfortunately the colours and contrast sections of my OP aren't done yet, so I can reference them as a resource, they'll be done soon.

Your colours are based around blues and oranges, a common and good choice for this atmosphere. The main issue you're having is the contrast between the two, and the brightness of the oranges.

If you didn't know, blue is oranges "compliment" (you can find out a colour's compliment by thinking about what secondary colours it makes (if it's a primary colour), or what colours it is made up of (if it's a secondary colour). Whichever colour in the opposite grouping is NOT included, it is it's compliment. Blue is orange's compliment, red is green's, and yellow is purple's.). What this means is that, like black and white, orange will make blue stand out, and vice versa. These colours fit very nicely into many frag videos due to individual reasons, so when you combine the two you get a great result.

However, using a colour pallet of complimenting colours means that you have to be more careful when it comes to contrast. Because the blues already make the oranges stand out, you need to use less emphasis on the oranges than you would with other colour pallets, otherwise doesn't look very good and draws attention away from everything else. This is especially prevalent on the initial ship clips. Those boxes stand out like CRAZY, I can barely take my eyes off of them.

I'd love to see this clip with lower oranges, right now it's hard for me to really go over anything else because of how much the colours affect a movie of this style.

I'd love for you to xFire me, I'm interested in seeing how this develops.

IzConcept wrote: »

Yea I noticed that highlight orange and dark blues are a popular colour correction. It works for almost every clip :P I already reduced the highlights in the montage (not shown in this version). Actually, in terms of content, I'm quite unsatisfied with what I have, it's very difficult and sometimes frustrating for me to record in-game content so you'll have to excuse all the "filler" frags.

Yeah, that was the impression I got in regards to the content, but from what I can see right now you're doing a good job making them seem like higher quality than they are. That's what's great about a quick editing style, because all the footage is brief, pretty much everything seems to feel more intense (forever 2 and ENDLESS MILE are great examples of this).

faazeee wrote: »

Very good read Denxi. Allowed me to understand more about what makes a good movie specifically. Also got a chance to watch some of the best movies again. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Hopefully you'll keep editing as well.

'Danny wrote:

[;3240723']Nice Guide, would be real helpful if I were to make a frag movie.

Thanks, good to know that part is working.

[GM]Saidin wrote: »

This is a mandatory read for anyone interested in competing in the CFFA's 2013!

Thanks, for the sticky as well.

IzConcept wrote: »

At what time are the next CFFA's going to be taking place?

IIRC they're at the same-ish times as the oscars or some other actual award show. March-April maybe.