lol at the lightsaber battle. loved that part.
Dang Reflex, you really went all out on this. Definitely takes prize for most visual effects work in a combo vid. And 28 minutes... watched this like a movie.
I'm going to critique it though for things I thought were important - I think your efforts should be reviewed. And I'll mostly focus on what I think is important. But first, some fun initial reactions.
Intro is epic. I like the swipes around the names, it's kind of reminiscent of the smash logo, or of fighting moves. A pretty 'legendary' intro, this feels like a movie.
Star Wars intro - I actually hate these, not because they're cliche, but because it takes so damn long for the words to cross the screen (come on people, this is the media era, we read things faster than the words finish rendering). This intro seemed somewhat redundant in terms of what was being said (couldn't this have just been squeezed into the intro before this?), but I suppose it made a nice lead into the... lightsaber scene, which I thought was hilarious.
Cool Google-earth-type geo-change swoop, I like the Transformers? music. Also the Scorponok theme that comes in later (nice choice). Some cool transitions with the gameplay clips overall. Liked the fireworks scene ('shufflin') and highlight combo with punch sfx and blood splatter, thought that was a nice touch and combination of elements altogether. I saw a subtle warping-in/heat-wave/melting effect on the video borders and title at one point, thought that was neat. The news ticker you had at one point was kinda lulzy. Mind Heist for Genesis 2 was a nice choice. Mang0 Team America... lol silly. I personally don't care for the song, but it makes it funnier knowing you're not from America haha
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Film reel credits seemed nice, and I liked the ending pictures and theme and stuff and piano music... kind of cool, nice feeling to it.
__________The Details
There are some 'semi-macro' and many micro problems I see with your organization and execution. We know, this isn't just a combo video; you're telling a story here that spans multiple tournaments. And I'm not saying it's easy to figure this all out, but your video is overproduced. It's not that I get a "look at me!" vibe from you or your video, but perhaps relying on your tools might have gotten in the way of things. No matter the reason why, it is what it is, and though it's pretty cool in some ways, it is pretty distracting and unnecessary in others.
For example, presentation. First goal: organize clips by tournament, give viewer match info (players, bracket), and show alternate camera feed of crowd to we can see them as well. In the end, you went with a 'dvd menu' style of presentation, and this had some subsequent hang ups that ultimately interfered with the video. Of course a 'dvd menu' style of presentation isn't bad in itself - we get to anticipate the matches ahead with chapter titles, and you can create different menu styles and themes to distinguish between the different tournaments. This is important, as you pointed out, because you wouldn't want the viewer to see the same menu theme every time, and for other reasons.
Second goal: separate the tournaments (and perhaps create some 'breathing room') by highlighting clips from elsewhere in Armada's journey (or wherever), because it's cool and it showcases more of Armada's abilities and style. Your sports- or news-themed 'action of the moment!' type of presentation was kind of cool: it gives a lighter feeling, and produces some comedic instances (the fireworks scene, or the bloody punch-sfx one), and it adds in some sweet clips that otherwise wouldn't be showcased in the tournament sections.
This execution had several problems though. Overall, the menus and highlight reels are a mostly impractical, the styles and clip placement can be distracting, and the disconnected themes between each menu subtract from the video rather than add.
They're impractical because the menus and the highlight reels were too slow: you give us the date and the title of the tournament, but our time to read it has finished already, and we are left waiting to see the clips. It's also very straightforward and plain (the clips are here, we're going to watch them, we have to wait for it to be selected and load, etc.), which distracts and brings down the level of excitement and pacing that you provide in the actual clip editing. The same goes for the themes: there really is no theme overall for your video, other than it's a series of movies we're watching in a very disconnected manner. You use a different effect or style for every single section of the video; very quickly, we stop caring about any of the effects that are used because none of them link or connect to each other in any way - and so we're left to focus on the clips themselves, while letting off an occasional 'ooh cool' if we see something worth noting. The point is that the presentation and styles themselves are superfluous to the actual point of the video because they are unnecessary and actually distract , and that we are unable to really appreciate the effort put into the effects, because you provide us with no reason to appreciate them within the presentation of your video.
The other reason I mentioned there is because I thought the actual display and such of the clips is poor: the styles, which serve no real meaning or purpose, end up being ignored or cluttered distractions to the actual clips. Specifically, the 'artwork' used to display the match info below the clips is fancier than the clips themselves, and becomes hard to read at times. Some of them have constantly moving portions to them, of which with the added motion-tracking the eye can do, these make the screen cluttered, and a distraction. Essentially, the artwork and styles do not serve to make the user more engaged in the combat and more easily informed of the information of the match that's going on.
As well, the actual clips themselves are slightly too small on the screen. This is important, not only because we want to be able to see them, but because - and most people probably don't think of this - since the surrounding area of the clip is so unnaturally large and empty, and yet we're expected to be able to take it all in at once, you're actually separating our attention to both be looking at this relatively small portion of action on the screen while simultaenously expecting us to be aware of anything happening in the large surrounding space around it. There is a problem of trust here, between the viewer and the presenter, mostly due to everything being 'erratic' in that it doesn't spring from some foundational element you've shown, but rather, it because it exists 'just because.' And these are the reasons why I think your video is enormously 'overproduced': because you've added way too much stuff to be able to handle it well, rendering most of it as unecessary and superfluous, or worse, as a distraction.
What I think you did right: Your clips are edited well. The fade and other simple transitions are perfect. The title and match info (though not the styles surrounding them) are a good addition, and having them close to the video border is a great idea (though the pound 4(?) symbol, which was off to the side, was nice, I thought). Together, these can suck you into the gameplay nicely. The alt-camera function is a really nice and welcomed addition as well. Perhaps the background noise or commentary can be distracting for some, but overall, I think they're really fun to have. For someone like me, who hasn't really seen these clips before, I thought it was great to see the cool things Armada has done, and the cool things that have been done against him (and side note, clips have been recycled before in other videos, and it's been fine). My only minor complaints are that I think you cut the clips off a little too soon at times (just a few times), and that I think the final matches could have been longer, with more clips, and more action (talk about anticlimactic in terms of proportion), but I otherwise welcome your fast-paced editing.
__________The Bigger Picture
As I've made my point with the smaller parts of the video, this reasoning now naturally extends to this larger point: on the whole, I think your video is highly stylized (cool), yet highly disorganized (not as cool).
There's not too much else to say here. At times, this video felt like quite the video-skills showcase that wasn't handled as well as it could have been. I think the styles and themes and sections of your video, though cool individually, perhaps, make somewhat of a bumpy and slightly dull ride when put together. I thought the hype sections and epic announcer transitions were ineffective and largely too cheesy to really be worth it, given their context in the video. And it just ends, I guess? Your video ends fairly abruptly, and without real close. With such effort put into the captivating intro, the ending felt like an optional afterthought.
I have no real complaints about your music choice: though slightly cliched at times, I overall enjoyed it and felt it pretty engaging into the video.
There are a few other points I could point out (like another thing about the Star Wars intro), but the big picture here is how the video plays out in the end, and I think I've covered everything I want to say about that.
__________Closing Thoughts
In the end, I think your transitions and themes could have worked together and more effectively overall, by cutting back on their superfluousness and having them tie-in and connect to each other in better ways. The same goes for the presentation of the match info, as I thought these could have been simpler and easier to read. I think the entire video could have been reduced by several minutes just by having faster and more effective transitions. I think your presentation idea can be different next time, and better.
If I were to take a guess, it seems like you included so many effects not because you wanted to impress, necessarily, but because you thought it would make the video better. In the end though, this seemed to turn out more to be a showcasing of video skills and less of a video about smash and Armada. Which is fine, in its own regard, but I don't think that's what you were trying to do. I could be wrong about all of this, of course, but it seems good to think about.
...but this was my first melee movie...
I say these all as critiques, not to say you're a bad videographer, or that you can't make good videos, but in hopes these will help. I still think your video is good, but it's definitely not as enjoyable as it could be. There are a lot of bad videos out there, and the good ones come with their own problems too.
This thread is so silly now.
