Best Montages in the past 5 years?
Part 1 : Music
- This is hard for most people. Everyone has favorite songs they love to use, but we mustn’t use them every time. Don't fall into the trap of thinking “i love this song, it would be great in a montage.” It's always tricky to mend songs together that are completely different. The first and final songs can be different, but the song(s) between them need to be similar to both of the other songs in order to mend them together, or this is where the editing comes in, find a way to mend two different sounding songs. When I’m watching a montage that uses multiple songs- I don't even want to notice that the song changed. Thus, the flow is held perfectly together. The music is crucial to the pace and in turn, is crucial to the flow. We sync our clips to the music. In a way, the music is the foundation to the montage that we build on. If our music isn't on point with where the flow should be, our montage could fall apart. Don't build your house on the sand; let it be rock solid. Here is how i envision the music being related to the flow of the montage. Side note: here is a song transition i did in one of my montages that i thought i mended really well. (Ignore the rest of the montage)
So, i was going through and watching some of my old favorites a day ago. I don't mean to name drop, but Zola had really strong song transitions here, and here. I'm trying to justify the song transition here. I don't want to blaspheme, but did it work well because we needed a brief dull moment? Does it work? Why/why not? Trying to understand it.
I was trying to remember where i had seen these transitions before. I know this is a CoD montage and doesn't really belong here, but it's by one of my favorite editors of all time. Joehands0me was so far ahead of his time, these mini edits were some of the first to even sync up gameplay to a song. He made these back in 2008-9 when CoD montages mostly consisted of someone just slapping gameplay over a rock song. He was probably the biggest editing inspiration for me around that time. Anyway, you can see the transitions similar to what zhestaL used in Dlongo starting at 1:02 in the video below. Joe deleted all of his edits he did about 3 years ago so it's hard to find good quality ones on youtube.
So, i was going through and watching some of my old favorites a day ago. I don't mean to name drop, but Zola had really strong song transitions here, and here. I'm trying to justify the song transition here. I don't want to blaspheme, but did it work well because we needed a brief dull moment? Does it work? Why/why not? Trying to understand it.
I've decided it works quite well. This part of the montage. Acting as almost a separate part, acts as the main crescendo of the montage. Leading up to our climax it does a good job building it up. "Alright, here we go. Give it to me." is what i remember thinking the first time i watched it. So, i think it serves the climax well.
How i feel after that final song transition building up to the climax: MFW Crescendo.
I don't mean to interrupt the current drama this forum has graciously created, but i thought it was time for another critique.
If you want, you could always critique Drive 4 on it's flow and syncing.
Drive 4, flow and syncs.
- I like what you did at the start. The video starts with the sounds of the game, and you let us see whats about to happen, but you don't miss your sync; which is nice. The music starts in time to get that first hard beat to line up with our first sniper shot. Halo 3 has great sound design, so sometimes letting the sounds BE the music to the montage is the perfect choice. This enhances the flow of the montage and really lets the montage seem like it's being orchestrated by the editor; and the editor is in complete control. In .exe, here, you can see where pTw let the sounds of the game actually enhance his music. You didn't exactly do this, but I like the idea of the music being background to the sounds of the game in certain instances (which you did). It also worked really well with the fade-in transition from the title sequence. That lift sound is so distinct, we know what it is. So many great clips in Halo 3 involve a lift. I would have wanted you to wait to fade in right after that sound. By the way, is that a quote/definition of, or involving, the word “drive” during the title sequence. I can't quite make it out, something like “'drive helps individuals...' and 'An individuals personal drive...” , anyway...
- The synced shot with the triple kill caught my eye here. Both sniper shots before this moment landed on the same beat. With the triple kill, you chose to wait. If you had synchronized the triple kill with the beat that hits at :16 it may have helped the flow of the video. This could be good though, to make us wait and break the pattern. However, I think it would have been better to make us wait for the climax of the clip, the overkill, instead of the triple. Your transition into the overkill was slightly abrupt. I won't talk anymore about transitions because you wanted me to focus on the flow and syncs, but I think if you do a transition like that on a major beat of the song (like you did after the previous two kills, which were nice), it flows much better. This one seemed a bit out of place.
- The sync to the final kill of the Pit clip starting at :28s caught my attention. I think it's because the climax of that single clip didn't sync up to a major beat in the song. Now, it's a short clip, but I think you could have added a theater angle or two to help make the clip longer so you could hit the major beat in the song that shows up a couple seconds later. I'm sure you weren't looking to spend a tremendous amount of time on this, so you didn't fly around in theater mode, but I think one extra angle could have done you well here. It would also help with the fact that there are 0 cuts in this clip, which is actually kind of funny that it hits a beat on every kill naturally.
- The clip at :47 lines up with our first big climax of the song. I think you did well here. During the crescendo and climax it's sometime a good idea to let a clip play out with minimal cuts. Also, the fact that you used a single kill “trick” shot here I think works really well with the crescendo and climax of a song and in turn benefited the flow of the montage.
- I think your choice of using the triple on Guardian (the quick scope) with a moment of change in the music was a good choice. The music went to a warp-slow-mo sound which I think helped sear that nice clip into our mind. Should it have been swapped with the previous clip I mentioned? Maybe, because the previous moment was more of a climax in the song which may warrant a better clip. It's always a good thing to call out our song climaxes before we start mindlessly laying clips into the timeline on our editing software (im NOT saying this is what you did). The climaxes in your song are located at :47, 1:38, and our biggest climax at 2:44) So, we should save our best clips for these moments. The best of the best clips should obviously be placed at the 2:44 mark.
- Also, I think it's important to make transitions from clip to clip RIGHT before our crescendo, and RIGHT after our climax. For example, you continue playing a clip after a climax here, when I think it would more benefit the flow of the video if you were to make your transition at this point (also happens at 2:21). So, you were smart to transition from clip to clip during those warped-slow-mo sounds of the song most of the time.
My head was like a flame.
Did you get a chance to watch any of the videos I posted on the last page?
Actually, i have seen Hyenas videos. Blizzard From the NetherWorld II is my second favorite video of his.
i think
Did you get a chance to watch any of the videos I posted on the last page?Actually, i have seen Hyenas videos. Blizzard From the NetherWorld II is my second favorite video of his.
i think
And i thought i was the only one. One other thing i noticed. After 11 minutes of pure epicness (gameplay and editing/theatre wise) you see this really horrible zealot opening angle. I mean i felt like he just did one damn try to capture that angle. Even i could've done that better. Also, please watch the angle at 3:27 (which muggsy used) and after that CJs version at 13:12.
btw fatal, what are your favourite clips from that tage. i mean skill wise. This is my top 5:
1. Call out double into spawn prediction triple at 12:46
2. Spawn Over on instinct at 9:34 (What a dammm fucking shot)
3. jumping Qs triple at 6:40
4. prediction nade over ex countdown at 2:41
5. triple sanc ring2 on rocket guy at 2:55
The triple at 6:40 is really good too, it could probably switch with one of these. The DMR over on Countdown didn't seem too impressive to me since his teammate died at big door and he likely received a call out. In no particular order:
2:55
5:05
9:02
9:35
10:33
BTW, I'm not sure if you know but the song at 5:15 (and Radioactive) is edited by CJ, not Muggsy.
Hey Valiant, u must have A TON of montages to catch up on in these past 5 years. Here's some montages I think that are worth the watch...I'm an H3 guy, so sorry for all the H3 vids lol.
Also, thanks for the review on my M8. I've always been big on nostalgia (or feels if you will), I think most of the people that follow me know that. Obviously, different types of feels can be provoked listening to different kinds music, so that's what I tried to do with my video. Bring all the numerous feelings into one video, thus, the 4 split sections each telling a different story. Hopefully, my side of the story clears it up for you a little more on why I did what I did in my video.
Good luck on catching up!
Nah, Muggsy used to show me lots of renders while editing so I know which ones are his. Plus, there's a pretty big style shift editing wise between the second and third song. The third one definitely has quite a CJ feel to it lol. Just watch it really closely and compare it to the song right before and after and pay attention to these things:
- The CC changes from all of Muggsy's other songs, and it looks exactly like CJ's usual CC.
- I'm like 90% sure the quality drops but that might just be my bias talking lol
- Absolutely zero use of the bulge/CC lens effect and rare use of pan/crop, both of which Muggsy uses very often. Basically every second or third kill in Muggsy's edits in general has this.
- No creative transitions, look at the first and fourth songs and compare it to the third. CJ uses only fades or cuts, Muggsy consistently does nice mask transitions, smooth angles from map to map, creative stuff like the skull to flag one in the third one, etc.
- Lack of angles relative to previous songs, plus the angles aren't that good as before either.