Monday 12 January 2015

London Gamecraft 2014 : Part Deux - The Movie

OK, that's probably a little grandiose, but at 23 mins long, it sure felt like I was editing an epic. I feel that I know how Peter Jackson must feel. 1 day to shoot, many many hours to edit.

Cards on the table: This was my first attempt at making a video production, so it's a little rough around the edges and it's probably a little too long and could use some cutting - But I didn't want to lose any of the interview footage, some of it is golden. It's also taught me a lot. After Effects is an incredible piece of software, I could probably dedicate months of training time and still only barely scratch the surface.



We arrived early, after getting up incredibly early to get the train to London. We arrived before any of the developers to give us time to set up the greenscreen rig.


After that, and after coffee and breakfast, we set about capturing footage for a potential game. We took a load of props with us, from Nerf guns to teddy bears. The teddy bears would be animated with the assistance of the chroma-key suit.



Unfortunately, we didn't make a game with this footage, but it was a good test to see if we'd got everything set up properly - and we were hoping to inspire the developers in some way.

So instead, we made images of clouds using cotton wool. This worked well and they were useful in one of the games.

We also filmed planes for use as sprites. If you can't draw it, film a real one (or a model)

We filmed a bunch of planes, even recorded rotations for a game which I think Dean will make as soon as I get the processed footage to him.



On the day we were mostly expecting to capture footage for the game developers to use. We did that, and provide special effects for those who needed them. We also introduced a few people to the amazing BFXR online sound generator.

As the hours passed and the developers had gotten used to the idea that they could call upon us for assistance - They're typically a self sufficient lot, and demonstrated amazing skills in their craft.

The special effects (mostly explosions) were created as assets for the developers using the amazing TimelineFx.

At the end of the day, those developers who'd completed their games got an interview against the greenscreen where their game would be played in the background.



Thanks to Global Game Craft for organising the event, SkillsMatter for hosting it and providing sodas,beer and pizza and to .mpegasus and _ensnare_ for the music for the video. Go check out their stuff. It's brilliant programming music.

A good time was had by all and Games we born.

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