Blog Posts from "Hvk's Movies, Mayhem, & More" - Gameriot.com

I'm Back, @Twitter, & More~

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kneekicker) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:48:52 -0400

Well lets see, I haven't posted here in almost a year..
Guess a lots changed since then.

Just for an update on myself:

I got a new roomate.
Decided to go back to film school.
Found me one of those girlfriend things.
Promised I'd never play wow again..
then of course.. played wow again.

However, I'm back playing again actively. With that, comes back my video game editing fetish. So here I am to review the good, the bad, and the fugly of your e-sports extravaganza, gank, festival, laptop breaking, hardon making, uber-pwnage gaming movies.

Oh yeah, plus I have a twitter now.

But yeah, I've decided since I'll be coming back to do reviews I'd like to see what you all have been watching. I haven't kept up much with WCM in awhile, especially now that the site is all diff. I was debating on tossing up a review and critiquing of the "anti-editing" movies; (EX: Pookz, Hydra's, Billian2, etc.) Since the movies really are good, and they didnt need anymore editing that they had. But apparently it's the new fad to get some sick arena clips(no matter how many) and toss a movie out. Which to me, isn't what a pvp movie should be. While the clips really are good games, I wish Pookz & Billian had waited just a little longer and made an ACTUAL attempt at a full length movie of games. Even Hoodrych's/Hydra's movies that were really plain had a lot of length to them. Not to mention the clips were all sick as well.

Just as a heads up by the way, I'm not taking anything away from the clips these players put out. Pookz's especially were really sick clips, but I wish he'd really waited and gathered more and put out something of meaningful length. Im not bashing the players or their clips at all. Just a faithful movie watcher longing for moar!

Anyway, what movies are good?, which ones sucked and would you like to see me tear apart? Also, I'll be setting up editing sessions once my u-stream gets fixed. Which means not only will I be able to give tutorials. But actually do them live with people via chat asking questions.

Links to Movies:

Warcraft Movies

pz out yo!

This lilshocker guy must be goshdarn amazing

no.spam@gameriot.com (Gumbot) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:06:41 -0500

no wait, he just plays with dks/hunters, this games mad stupid i think shamans are worse off than warlocksÂ http://eu.wowarmory/com/character-sheet.xml?r=dunemaul&n=lilshocker

Bloodlusted hunter dps 7k, bloodlusted healing persecond with ms 4k. Strangulate 7s. Hex - ****. Holyshock > healingwave in hp/s. If ns had 0 cooldown, could still be dropped in 2s. Highest Resil player in game, 14kmana die in intimidate, BOM > WF. Purge non-existant 60% resist rate on anything good.

Zyz's Movie Review, Tutorials, and Cake

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kneekicker) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:55:50 -0400

Well seeing as how my first review went over with a good deal of success I thought I'd put out another one today. I'll be shooting for 3 or 4 a week depending on the amount of quality movies released on a weekly basis. I took all of your comments to heart and set out on trying to start working on some tutorials. The software I started using however, isn't full at my standards of quality in the audio/visual department yet so I decided I'll post up some of the tutorials some of the awesome people at Style-Productions already have set up for our convenience. They have tutorials on Adobe After-Effects, Vegas, and Photoshop. They even had a userguides section for some guides that their loyal fanbase and other movie company sites have willingly put out to help you and I keep adding new tricks to our movies. But, I too will keep trying to tweak my capturing software until I get it where I want it, and then I too will start putting out tutorials aswell.

Style-Productions

( Yes you have to register, but honestly it's worth it. )

NOTE: Yes I know the guides say for Vegas 6, but they are the key basics to the entire Vegas user interface. There are a few upgrades with each version of the new Vegas but by and by, these are the starting tools you will need to start producing movies.

The movie starts out with a very simple but VERY clean intro. It starts the song that most people that have viewed more than 5 gaming movies have heard. The track ( Refused â€“ New Noise ) starts off with a long build up, which Zyz takes full advantage of, a long build up of the awesome new scenery, right into a 1v1 with a shaman, with a long build up before the song finally pounces on you ( much like he does his enemy in the clip with a string of crits ). Zyz takes us on a tour of the world and new battlegrounds. You get to see some of the Stormwind Harbor boats, right before he completely annihilates an enemy with a devastating ambush crit for 6k.

This movie really hit my expectations when it comes to movie making. His quality was absolutely superb, which is something really hard to find in WoW movies. For the most part, that was probably the closest to ingame quality I have seen next Ondall's movies. He also featured a very diverse mix of pvp clips. Ranging from World PvP, to Arena & battlegrounds, which is something I really wished a lot of other movie makers would do. After all, we see you in your arena gear out world pvping, show us how you got it! Even if it's just landing a nice focus CC to ensure a victory or something. Diversity is a huge thing WoW videos are lacking. Zyz in my eyes set a standard for it. Not only are his World PvP clips good, but his arena ones are aswell. Fighting against Affix and others you get to see just how much harder a rogue can make target switch now, and Zyz does it flawlessly in the first 3v3 clip. He also manages to do this with broken Infectious Poisons, and Escape Artist being completely useless. You also get to see gnomes with Night-Elf hair. Which I personally thought was a Sombrero or some weird helm when I first watched it ( I was tired, give me a break ;[ ). The overall length of the movie was good for most, however I wouldn't of minded a few more minutes of the World PvP, the only other gripe I had were that some of enemys were lower level's than he was, but it's beta World PvP, so I'm letting the " You take what you can get " principle in here. Besides, some of the big numbers made it very entertaining.

IN SHORT: If more players focused on diversity in their movies, aswell as making their songs fit their clips I'm sure a lot more movies would hit high marks on Warcraft Movies and with the WoW community. This movie is a keeper in my book, not only because it's an introduction to Wrath PvP, but it's a good one. Zyz did a down right amazing job on this movie and I couldn't be more pleased with it. Awesome clips, Clutch get-a-ways, Good Video and Audio content, and not to mention arena clips with some of the best North American players in competitive scene. Zyz nailed what a video should be and showcased the rogue-to-be in Wrath, I just wished it was longer.

Audio/Visual Syncing: Good
Video/Audio Quality: Excellent
Song Track Selection: Wide Variety
RUNTIME: 14:49
Link to Download: WarcraftMovies
Intro: Good
Body: Excellent
Outro: Excellent

There now you have some tutorials and some pointers on what I think a good WoW movie should be. Now get out there get frapsing and maybe I'll be reviewing your movie on here sometime in the future.

www.myeg.net
www.warcraftmovies.com
www.style-producitions.net

Also, I made an IRC channel on GameSurge Entitled #hvk for anybody that has an questions, comments, or wants to e-thug me or whatever. I'll be happy to answer all questions or comments to the fullest extent of my knowledge of video editing or what not.

Oh, and for the cake...

Yes, it's a rubik's cube cake.

EDIT: More tutorials
http://www.videocopilot.net
http://forums.creativecow.net

WoW Movie Review: DrakeDog8

no.spam@gameriot.com (Kneekicker) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:21:32 -0400

Well first off I'd like to say "hai". I watch way too many gaming movies, so I decided I'd start putting out my 2 cents on some of the newest releases. A little back info on me: I'm 20 years old and been doing movie editing for 4 years now. I've worked with companies like United5, zEx, Check-Six, and most recently Meet Your Makers. I am currently in talks with EG to possibly start doing constant video work with them.

Now onward with the review..

RECAP:
Audio/Visual Syncing: Good
Video/Audio Quality: Decent
Song Track Selection: Rock/Metal
RUNTIME: 19:51
Link to Download: http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=88863
Intro: Decent
Body: Decent/Good - Very repetitive at some points
Outro: Excellent

First off I'll say I was personally let down by DD8 just a bit, I really hoped it would have more destro arena like DrakeDog7 did, and apparently a lot of people wanted to see that too but being DrakeDog is the more so " World PvP Type " of moviemaker I let it slide a bit. He did have one clip however, of double Destro lock vs Warrior Druid, and I found that clip awesomely enjoyable. No amount of los and hots could of saved that warrior when spell reflect went on cooldown. For the most part the movie was a lot like all of DD's movies, Shakes on Shadowfury's and Crits, Rock Music, and Big Numbers. The editing in DD8 didn't really advance at all from his previous movie, infact he used the same star sparkle effect when he'd cast his soul-fires like we've seen time and time again. Normally I'd say if it aint broke don't fix it, but it just got really really repetitive here. He had a few scenes that were new breath's of air for DD films however. The demon in the Isle, and his use of its thunderclap ensuing a pretty much flawless victory vs a ret paladin. One of the new things he didÂ implement was his " OH SHI- " Button. A macro that uses his battlemasters trinket, healthone, and NighÂ Invulnerability Belt all at once. Not going to lie, I personally stole the idea from him. So he got high marks for that on my end.

Honestly, I love to watch DrakeDogs playstyle and have been a fan of his movies for a long time, the only thing that bugs me is that A LOT of his opponents can be clueless at times. A lot of those opponents are found in his world pvp clips, which since BC has dropped I've seen world pvp become a " You take what you can get " Type of ordeal, but still it would be nice to see more clips like the ones vs the glaive rogues.

IN SHORT:
It's a good movie, but it really let me down. It's not his best, but it's not his worst in my eyes. I liked it, but the same effects time and time again get really repetitive. Sure it's nostalgic in a way because it's DrakeDog, but you could bring in something a bit new. Editing wise, the highlight was the outro ( and no that's not meant to be an insult ) it was clean, and was very fluid through and through. As for the intro, we know your proficient in WoW Model Viewer, but it didn't pack the punch I'd hoped it would with a hard hitting intro song like Dark Age, You could of Easily highlighted some of the crits with some syncing here. The most memorable clips for me were the complete obliteration of the flag carriers in EOTS near the end.

SoÂ thats my first blog/review here and I hope you enjoyed it ( even just a little bit). I'll be doing one for Emo's new movie aswell a lot of other upcoming WoW movie releases. If you have a movie you'd like me to review or have any questions about Vegas/Movie Editing in general go ahead and shoot me a message or email me at Nickhvk@gmail.com.

www.drakedog.tv
www.warcraftmovies.com