So you want to make a montage...eh?

[Ephrum]

Well, this is my guide to making a montage... I've seen a lot of stuff recently, that is so-so, with the potential of being extremely awesome... I'm bored as hell and rendering a sequence out of AFX right now, so I figured I'd take this next 15 minutes and write my own personal guide for making uber t3h pwnz0rz0r montages (not that mine are pwnz0r... I'm just a strict critique(sp?)

Ok... so you've got your brand new capture card installed and working wonderful, you've spent the last 5 hours playing a countless number of rumble and team training games, and everything you do impresses the hell out of you, because well... now you're able to capture it and you can watch it over and over and over again! zOMG! Take a breath, step back, count to 10... and settle down, because not everything you do is montage worthy.

Basic rules for footage that is 'montage acceptable' by today's standard:

Lockout FFA Snipers: While everyone loves playing Lockout FFA snipers to 1 million, because it's a fantastic way to get great montage footage, no one wants to see you 8 shot a triple kill with your sniper, it's not impressive. If you're going to use FFA Snipers clips in your montage, stick with frenzies and above, killtacs are ok if they're 4 shot killtacs... but limit yourself to how many you use.

Cross-map sticks: Everyone's seen a stick from shortcut to top BR, everyone's seen a stick from top BR to shortcut, no one wants to see those again...and again...and again... do something origional, bounce sticks, sticks from places people don't usually throw stickies. There are obviously exceptions, such as tagging a double kill off of a sticky from one of the 'usual places'... or whatever. Unless you set up your 'every day cross mapper' by seeing the person, and leading the person (which will give the illusion of skill being involved...) just don't use them...

Midship FFA footage: There seems to be an abundance of midship FFA triples floating around people's montages that consist of MAYBE 1 legitiment kill, with 2 1 or 2 shot jacked kills, that's not skillful, or entertaining, it's retarded... if you're gunna use Middy FFA footage, killtac or higher, and if you're gunna use killtacs, at least legitimently kill 2 or 3 of the people in your line-up...

Doubleshots: Who can't double shot now? Single double shots... booooooooring. And quad shots (rrxyyrrx)... maybe I'm the only person who feels this way, but the only time they're impressive is when the person you're shooting at is shooting at you... or if they're part of a multi kill... single kill double shots now days are almost as bad as putting single BxR's in your montage... unless they're just absolutly insane, or serve a greater purpose (like syncing fillers... or whatever) just don't use them...

Sloppy Footage: I'm nit-picky as SHIIIT when it comes to sloppy footage, if you throw a sticky, and you happen to catch someone cross map, and then you throw another one that doesn't hit anything on the map before the first one explodes giving you the medal... why would you even use it? It looks soooo bad, so sloppy. And if you huck a sticky, and then immediatly start shooting the guy you're about to stick... even after the sticky blows up... please stop playing Halo, because you have no sense of awareness as to what the hell is going on around you... I don't care if you threw a sticky from Beaver Creek to Zanzibar, and hit a superjumper while he was in mid air... if you emptied a full clip into him while the sticky was on his face... I don't want to see it, it makes you look absolutly retard.

Training footage and guests: Some people care, IIII really don't... if the footage is sick enough, it doesn't really matter who it's on, if you blind sighted some guest with a sticky off 3 walls... who cares, it's still nasty as hell... however, if you double shot 3 guests in a row for a triple while they're all fighting eachother with SMG's... then I'm going to come to your house and break your capture card...

Editing and effects: We all have that 'OMG!!!!!!' moment in Premiere or After Effects (or most likely Vegas)... where you find an effect that just drops your jaw, I know I have those moments every time I open up a project to edit and I'm shifting through my effects... but don't freak out, and use it 9 million times, instead of thinking 'OMG I'M GUNNA USE THIS EFFECT!!!' chill the fvck out, sit back, and think to yourself 'HOW AM I GOING TO USE THIS EFFECT'... I've seen FAAAAAARRRR too many montages with really cool effects, that just don't make ANY sense WHAT SO EVER... it drives me absolutly insane... like... why the hell did you turn the screen 9 million different colors? Why did the screen start flickering in the middle of a killtac when the music was mellow and calm? If you're going to use a new effect, or any effect, make sure it makes some damn sense and works with what you're doing... I don't care how cool it is, if it doesn't make sense, I'm going to beat you.

More editing: LEARN YOUR EDITING PROGRAMS! Take a few days, sit down for a few hours each day, and learn your programs, figure out what you're doing... run some trial work, show some people who edit... ask them what they think, I know everyone (myself included) ran home and put out a montage within hours after getting my capture going, but just try and relax... the more time put into something, the more you're going to get out of it. Learn the basics first, how to sync clips, how to run smooth transitions... I'd rather watch a montage with awesome game play, and some syncing, then to watch a montage with awesome game play, no syncing, and a bunch of effects that just make me scream 'WTF?!??'

Update one - from PhaLanX:

Asking for and Getting help:
Asking for help is one thing. Like, say you want to use a certain effect, but you arent quite sure what its called or where to find it. I hope to god that before you run off an ask someone that you at least TRIED to find it and use it yourself. DO NOT go to an editor and start asking him to walk you through the entire process step by step. This had happened to me FAR too many time and I'm quite frankly sick of it. Now, if someone has actually taken the time to try and figure it out on their own and THEN asks for help. Thats fine. But dont expect me to help you when you wont even help yourself. A lot of people spent countless hours teaching themselves all the ins and outs of their editing programs so that they can do the things they wanted. These people looked up tutorials (that are plentiful AND free) online to help them learn what they wanted. But for some reason, these people get taken advantage of by people that are too f*cking lazy to figure things out for themselves or too 'rushed' that they cant take the time to go search for a tutorial. So, try to figure it out on your own first, if it doesnt look quite right the first time, spend some time playing around with it. Eventually it will all make sense.

Update 2 - AbusedGoat:

Sticks.. I think you forgot to mention the f2 to p2 stick. It's been done a billion times.

Quality (or lack of!) of players can help make a better montage. Some people are very serious about only having known players, others don't care at all. Please don't put in absolutely terrible pro kills or kills on absolutely terrible players though.

Variety.. this is more opinion than anything, but then again so is everything else. Some montage viewers, myself included have found montages to be dull and repetitive at this point because h2 is a pretty old game. There seems to be only a few molds for montages...

This is basically my opinion... it's also very negative (sorry, but we need to change... I plan on adding a lot of non MLG levels with some strange but difficult kills but mostly the usual stuff)

middy FFA + lockout and middy TS (boring as hell unless your clips are unreal. Satisfying to watch if against good players, but still not entertaning because it's been done 1000x times. This is what Luck did and few have been able to copy well. If his montage was released today though it wouldn't be nearly as impressive)
middy FFA + lockout snipes + small amount of team (ditto, but at least I can expect a few frenzies)
1v1 only (boring unless the clips are unreal. I don't have a 1v1 montage I would remotely place in my top 10 because they are all so repetitive)
80%+ middy FFA, random other stuff (a recently announced montage at H2F was like this. It was possibly the most boring and predictable montage I have ever seen. Walshy's montage was here, but he all pros and impressive (but not necessarily good) editing)

Good tutorial sites for just about anything video/GFX related:
www.tutorialized.com
www.pixel2life.com


I'll update this as I think of more... feel free anyone to contribute to the do's and dont's of today's montage standards... but don't be stupid about it, there are always exceptions to certain clip types and situations... this guide isn't written in stone, it's just sort of a basic guideline to go by...

[Dual Predator17]

Thanks Ephrum, glad you took the time to write all this out. I will be sure to go over it and make sure i use most of this info and i am sure that for those making their first tage will look at this and it will help them out greatly

[PhaLanX]

Editing and effects: We all have that 'OMG!!!!!!' moment in Premiere or After Effects (or most likely Vegas)... where you find an effect that just drops your jaw, I know I have those moments every time I open up a project to edit and I'm shifting through my effects... but don't freak out, and use it 9 million times, instead of thinking 'OMG I'M GUNNA USE THIS EFFECT!!!' chill the fvck out, sit back, and think to yourself 'HOW AM I GOING TO USE THIS EFFECT'...

When people just randomly use effects is one of the most annoying things ever when watching a montage (from an editors standpoint at least).

Great TuT Ephrum. I'll add more if I think of it.


This is probably by BIGGEST pet peeve...

Getting help:
Asking for help is one thing. Like, say you want to use a certain effect, but you arent quite sure what its called or where to find it. I hope to god that before you run off an ask someone that you at least TRIED to find it and use it yourself. DO NOT go to an editor and start asking him to walk you through the entire process step by step. This had happened to me FAR too many time and I'm quite frankly sick of it. Now, if someone has actually taken the time to try and figure it out on their own and THEN asks for help. Thats fine. But dont expect me to help you when you wont even help yourself. A lot of people spent countless hours teaching themselves all the ins and outs of their editing programs so that they can do the things they wanted. These people looked up tutorials (that are plentiful AND free) online to help them learn what they wanted. But for some reason, these people get taken advantage of by people that are too f*cking lazy to figure things out for themselves or too 'rushed' that they cant take the time to go search for a tutorial. So, try to figure it out on your own first, if it doesnt look quite right the first time, spend some time playing around with it. Eventually it will all make sense.

[QUINN]

Thanks ephrum, now I can be a pro editor as well.


Honestly, that was a good tut and should be stickied because it seems that far to many people have still not cought on to the things you said.

[Ephrum]

Originally Posted by PhaLanX

When people just randomly use effects is one of the most annoying things ever when watching a montage (from an editors standpoint at least).

Great TuT Ephrum. I'll add more if I think of it.


This is probably by BIGGEST pet peeve...

Getting help:
Asking for help is one thing. Like, say you want to use a certain effect, but you arent quite sure what its called or where to find it. I hope to god that before you run off an ask someone that you at least TRIED to find it and use it yourself. DO NOT go to an editor and start asking him to walk you through the entire process step by step. This had happened to me FAR too many time and I'm quite frankly sick of it. Now, if someone has actually taken the time to try and figure it out on their own and THEN asks for help. Thats fine. But dont expect me to help you when you wont even help yourself. A lot of people spent countless hours teaching themselves all the ins and outs of their editing programs so that they can do the things they wanted. These people looked up tutorials (that are plentiful AND free) online to help them learn what they wanted. But for some reason, these people get taken advantage of by people that are too f*cking lazy to figure things out for themselves or too 'rushed' that they cant take the time to go search for a tutorial. So, try to figure it out on your own first, if it doesnt look quite right the first time, spend some time playing around with it. Eventually it will all make sense.

VERRRY true, one of my pet pieves as well, I get tons of IMs daily like this, I've learned nearly everything on my own, by expirimenting and taking the time and having the patience to learn it all... everything anyone REALLY needs is out there on a tutorial site somewhere... I guess I should put links to 2 that are decent for Premiere and AFX (probably Vegas but I haven't looked)

[SpyKi]

I agree with pretty much everyword you said. Good tut man.

[fattony69]

I barely asked you guys for any help and that is after I searched tutorial sites...*wait...I hope this isn't referring to me* Well great list...although I can't agree with the dubshots because I can't do it...yet...I do agree with every other one. LOVE the list!

[QsK Mozer]

maybe this is spam but ephrum, i was wondering if you got my pm about a week ago and if so your response is ....?
technically its not off topic cause it has to do with montages

[Ephrum]

Umm, haha, I haven't checked my PMs in forever... hang on, let me look...

*edit* ohh I remember that PM, haha, unfortunatly I also remember (a little) being really drunk... sorry...

Yeah, I can do that for you, just hit me up on AIM or MSN some time today, but right now I gotta bounce out and go up to my rheumatoligist(sp??) so they can tell me I still have arthritis... I'll be back in a few hours.

[.aMp.]

Sticky? really nice write up Phalanx and Ephrum, i can agree with every statement said