How to edit a Frag-Vid (Montage)

[Ephrum]

Kindred sent me a link to a thread he made on H2F a little bit ago, he posted this up in the 'Project Mayhem' section of Shatter Studios as well (but that was only able viewed by us 'special' kids (aka retarded) Anyway, I thought I'd drop what was written here, there's a lot of really good information to be gone through by anyone who is making montages, or who's looking into making a montage...

Properly Editing a Fragmovie
By KINDRED

Prologue:
This guide will talk about the intro, the gameplay effects, the music and the outro. Keep in mind; I am merely scratching the surface of a subject that has a lot more detail. These are the basics that the very successful frag movies have. One very important thing to remember is

Originally Posted by Fei--Director & Lead Editor of Get Quaked 3

The best editors are the ones that are not afraid to scrap everything they have done and start over.

Editing The Intro:
The main purpose of the intro is to captivate you. It has to be original and preferably not repetitive. The intro is usually the part that will have you thinking for a while until you get a good theme and idea for it.
The only needed information that appears in the intro is the title of the movie. The other parts are just for the ego of the couple of people who are included in the "players, editing company, etc". The other hundreds of viewers that watch it don’t care.

Editing The Gameplay Sync:
Assuming you have all the gameplay needed that shows clutch plays based on the conformities, editing the gameplay section of the fragvid can begin.
Its synching must fit with the audio and must have the proper effects if needed. Many fragvids that come out as bad or boring is due to the reason that there is literally less time put into the gameplay section. It’s great to have an intro that grabs your attention but the gameplay needs to keep you interested. There is currently 4 different types of sync: micro, mini, macro, and mood.

MICRO
Micro synching is when the editor puts 1 fast clip or picture per beat. This technique is often used when an editor wants to show to the audience what is about to happen.
MINI
This is your common synching technique. It requires the editor to adjust the speed in order to have many beats synched with one clip. Contrary to micro, with mini, the audience sees the entire clip. However, if the speeds are drastically changed to go from very fast to very slow or whatever combination, the flow of the video will suffer.
MACRO
Unlike other forms of synching which relies on a kill or a quick picture, Macro synching is a kind of synching that uses something as simple as a movement to synch; for example changing guns, landing from a jump, getting shot, etc. It isn’t obvious to spot.
MOOD
Mood syncing is when a scene has some sort of suspense, and the music also has a thrilling sound to it only at that part of the scene. The event is not one kill and is not expressed through one beat. Doing this with individual scenes is not very difficult, but doing macro syncing inside of a long scene is very impressive and powerful.

Other forms of synching exist but they require you to edit the clip. These are the ones that just require the speed to be altered. Some videos have done a mix of these 4 types which is acceptable and can give interesting results. Visit the link "Editing Theory: A Study of Syncing" to see examples and have a more detailed explanation.

Weak Sync/Missed Beats
When you watch an unexperienced editor's fragvid work you notice a lot of "missed beats" where a song goes "un-used" or not used to its fullest potential. That’s Weak Sync. You may have a song that is easy to sync like techno, which contains many beats. The content will always be synced, because of the millions of beats but it will feel wrong because most likely the content isn’t fast enough for the audio. That’s what makes sure that your video and audio go hand in hand together.

Make sure you have a goal for your movie and know your audience. 99% of fragvids have a goal of pumping you up to play the game. Some are more to entertain you like trick movies, some are informative, some to show off editing technique, etc.

The Music:
Music tracks needs to seem as if they were meant for the video. That’s the point of sync; for the audio and video to become one. The less beats your song has, the more important it becomes to sync all beats. If your song contains many beats like Techno for example, you are more flexible with the synching and you have more beats to work with when it comes to highlights or eye candy which will spark a creative effect to synch with it. Music also decides the speed of your fragvid. Techno music has a tendency to be repetitive, that’s why if you want to use techno, make sure it has instrumental variety.

The Effects:
The effects seen in the gameplay are separated in 3 categories;
Screen Motion is the method used to manipulate the screen so that it synchs with a part of the song that doesn’t have a kill synched to it. Ex. Pans, Zooms
Highlights are effects that lead the audience in an amazing kill that is about to happen. When the kill occurs, no effects must be present so that the audience can see its greatness. The most important thing about Highlights, and this is especially true for this kind of effect, it’s that it has to fit. Regardless of its complexity, it has to fit.
Eye Candy effects are effects that have only one purpose; to look cool

Over editing:
When something is over edited, it means that the effect(s) distracts the viewer from the content or it covers up the content. Over editing is a very vast topic; suffice to say that if it distracts, it’s bad.

-Stay away from Light Rays and TV Simulators. These effects are not only over used but so easy to use that any "weird" sound in the music will have many running for them. When a special sound occurs, use it as an opportunity to create an original effect.
-Recycled effects are a very bad idea unless it fits perfectly.
-The pattern for making a successful clip is: listen, think of an effect and find what scene would look good with that effect.
-Effects need to be one with the video and audio, not slapped on top.

Editing The Outro/Credits:
Credits is where you try out your most crazy editing/effects idea since there is less of a chance of 'covering up the action'. You have to make it interesting and get your credits on the screen to be readable. Credits have to be presented in an original way and if a video is available, it has to be shown originally. AVOID standard credits (white on black background), just because your movie is finished, doesn’t mean the entertainment has to be.

If you have any questions, contact me on AIM.
Happy editing and I'll leave you with these quotes:

Originally Posted by Buckminster Fuller

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

...even though you may have incredible easy to use cheap technology no it wont become redundant or outdated or done by the masses because to make high quality good images or media you need a passion for the medium and yes a meticulous attention to detail and a desire to push the limits to make something more perfect then before.and most people dont have the time or patience or desire to master this. It still all comes down to the human touch.

Sources and help:
Fei
Editing Theory: A Study of Syncing by Adamllis

[stikupkid]

what do you mean by fragvid

[Kombat Frank]

duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[xStaR]

nice read will help me with editing thanks

[QsK Global]

fragvid is a montage

[Ephrum]

Originally Posted by stikupkid

what do you mean by fragvid

(montage)... they were origionally called 'Frag-Vidz'... and were actually good lol... then H2 came along and killed them haha... check out www.own-age.com if you wanna see some reaaal editing set to a video game's game play, the Counter Strike 2 videos are my favorite, but a lot of the Quake ones have really good editing to them.

[Ephrum]

Originally Posted by FresH as FranK

duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[TH3DARKMARKET]

The vids @ own-age.com are the best of the best when it comes to editing

[Kombat Frank]

i duno..its just not news to me

intro should be captivating, gameplay should sync to properly selected music clean cut blah blah

i just kinda thought everyone knew all this...its kinda obvious if you watch montages

the quake vidz are alrite but the CS vidz are soo boring in my opinion...

[Ephrum]

Originally Posted by FresH as FranK

i duno..its just not news to me

intro should be captivating, gameplay should sync to properly selected music clean cut blah blah

i just kinda thought everyone knew all this...its kinda obvious if you watch montages

the quake vidz are alrite but the CS vidz are soo boring in my opinion...

lol, you can say that you knew a lot of it, because your intros are usually very creative and capture attention... and your syncing is very well done... but the info is still helpful for a lot of people, just because you can't (or don't want to) use it... doesn't mean that it's not going to help someone else out, so many montages these days are thrown together so quickly and so sloppily... that I've basically just given up on watching a majority of H2 montages... because they don't have any direction, the game play is sloppy... and people over-use effects they stumble upon and think 'oh em gee that's sweet!!! I'm gunna use it 94 times in 3 minutes!!' The videos at Own-age put aaaany modern day H2 montage to shaaame as far as editing goes, you don't have to like the game play, (personally, I love the CS game play, the graphics aren't great, but that's not an easy game to play)... but as far as being edited well, they blow everything else right out of the water.