The Revolution and You(tube)

[Dogface]

Hmmh, on second thoughts pr3sario, your footage should still be useable -- thought of a couple of tricks I can use so the game-audio won't be as necessary. AkKind has also uploaded footage, and perhaps other folks may provide some *elbow-nudges reader insistently, winking again and again* so I'll see if I can knock something together. Otherwise, if everyone gets any recording bugs ironed out in time for Sunday, we should get some good stuff from there as well. I'm raring to go with the editing, just looking for a good mission that we can assemble a good crop of footage for.

Also if anyone needs the FTP details, send a PM to me or AkKind, or look us up on Skype/Steam! I'm miles.bg.potter and mefi_dogface, respectively.

[Dogface]

Several have posted general positive thoughts, are there any questions in particular you want answering. Super holds general dominion over the FA main channel I would think that quality videos added periodically to the channel would be a great thing with the following qualifiers;

Vids need to be branded appropriately - Unedited intro, suitable title/description on YT.
Watchable - Short, snappy, free of fluff.
Well edited - including concise commentary, clear legible annotations or titles.
Suitable content - gives the right impression of what we are about.

Hey Bodge! That's grand, and those are certainly guidelines we'd be looking to follow. I'm currently trying to gather a criticial mass of footage for a good mission so we can put together a few examples/get some practise and then hopefully Super can decide if it's something that should go on the main channel -- if not, presumably we can work out another way to release it.

About length: while I'd be happy to produce cut-down, 'highlight' type vids, I was also thinking that with several perspectives, there should be enough interesting footage to include at least most of a mission if it's a good one - ShackTac et al are not averse to doing this and I know I get decent view counts on my own full-mission videos. What's the feeling on that?

Oh, also I tend to do a dissolve from the very end of the intro to the footage, like so - is that kosher, as long as it doesn't overlap the portion with sound?

[Black Mamba]

As an interested viewer, I'd agree with Dogface: short videos can be cool, but publishing only short ones is not necessarily the best thing.

Suitable content - gives the right impression of what we are about.

Especially since what we are about is not just snappy "epic" fireworks. Some insight on how a mission develops (maybe with either a narrated commentary, the CO's POV, or some quick graphics on the map) is also content I would deem interesting.

[Bodge]

Yeah vids with relevant commentary are going to be an exception to the short vid guideline. The fade from intro to mission seems fine afaik, I think the best course of action is as you describe, make a kinda "demo tape".

With regard to the mission vids as long as it is enough to keep interest, and what is happening is relevant what i am kinda getting at is we don't want to include 10 mins of walking because something interesting happens at the beginning and end of it. A well edited mission commentary is something i would very much like to see, one other thing to be careful of though is not reducing the replay value of the mission.

[Dogface]

Yeah vids with relevant commentary are going to be an exception to the short vid guideline. The fade from intro to mission seems fine afaik, I think the best course of action is as you describe, make a kinda "demo tape".

With regard to the mission vids as long as it is enough to keep interest, and what is happening is relevant what i am kinda getting at is we don't want to include 10 mins of walking because something interesting happens at the beginning and end of it. A well edited mission commentary is something i would very much like to see, one other thing to be careful of though is not reducing the replay value of the mission.

Understood, and good points! Yes, sections of just tabbing cross-country, long helo trips or standing around and similar will generally be cut-out, or possibly fast-forwarded.

About replay value: that's an interesting point and one I hadn't thought of. I guess one thing to avoid in particular would be showing too much about enemy positions especially in COOP. Beyond that, I wonder how much it's possible to do while still making a full record of the missions... I'd hope that if anything these would give people more ideas on interesting ways to tackle missions, as well as for the work of the mission makers to be truly shown off, which would hopefully lead to more being made. However, I absolutely wouldn't want this to inadvertently 'oversaturate' a mission, so if you or anyone has any further thoughts on how to handle this issue it'd be much appreciated.

[Kefirz]

Understood, and good points! Yes, sections of just tabbing cross-country, long helo trips or standing around and similar will generally be cut-out, or possibly fast-forwarded.

Fast forwarding the long runs, chopper rides and basically all the non-interesting stuff would be better, because I often get a feeling that the whole thing is very choppy if you put episodes of firefights, that last 10 seconds..

All in all, I wish you all success and glory

[Alex]

I tend to keep the shortest clip length to about 45 seconds or a minute, basically going into the firefight and coming out.

[Thirith]

I agree with Kefirz: I also prefer fast-forwarding (rather than skipping) long stretches, since this gives me a better feel of the shape of the mission. Does this risk spoiling things? Perhaps a bit, but in my (admittedly relatively sparse) experience these missions play out very differently from one time to the next anyway.

Personally I also like videos that show me how to do stuff well, or how not to do it. I quite like Dsylecxi's videos for their educational value, and while they're extremely long, I think that you could pull off a 'light' version of that in shorter videos.

[Dogface]

Hi everyone! So, so far I haven't really been able to work on an example video, as I've been waiting for a decent mission that we got three or more perspectives for. So far AkKind and Pr3sario have been recording and uploading regularly, and IceRaiser has also contributed some great footage. However between my occasionally poor framerate, AkKind's audio issues and pr3sario's connection issues, I still don't really have three good perspectives for a whole mission.

If I had a couple more people recording regularly, I think that would be the critical mass to get some complete footage for a mission even if one or two people have problems. Therefore I've made a wiki with some guides on how to record and do everything else. With those, you (yes you!) should be able to set yourself up fairly easily to record and share video with us. The guides for Dxtory and Handbrake are the most detailed, since those are what I've used. I would really appreciate it if anyone with experience using the other software I list - Camstudio, FRAPS, Shadowplay, Virtual Audio Cable, VB Audio/Voicemeeter - was able to go through and update those guides with more details or anything that's wrong or missing. The wiki is publically editable for now. I would also love anyone who is new to this stuff, to go through and see if they're able to get set up using the guides, if there's anything that needs to be added, etc. If anyone has any problems/suggestions/etc, contact me.

Lastly I would beseech anyone who already is set up to record and/or upload to Youtube, to get involved! Even if it's just for a few sessions, having some well-made video footage would go a long way to helping me get some first videos together and get this thing moving forward. Bear in mind that all contributors will be credited and have their video/channel linked back to. Just PM me or AkKind for the server details. If you're not set up, please consider giving it a go! You will go down in legend* as the bravest of pathfinders.

[Dogface]

Also thanks for the feedback on fast-forwarding, everyone - I will make sure to use it (except for things that really just need to be cut).