[Voting Closed] THF Movie Competition 2016 - Round 1: Pool C

Choose up to 4 videos.

Montage | Editor | Gameplay

Wizard | Editor: Halzred | Gameplay: Hyena
83% (63 votes)
A Halo 3 MLG Montage | Editor: Evadur | Gameplay: Evadur
66% (50 votes)
INGENUITY | Editor: Trevx64 | Gameplay: Trevx64, Behr
63% (48 votes)
Kampy H5M1 | Editor: Kampy | Gameplay: Kampy
46% (35 votes)
Take That! | Editor: thestrangestick | Gameplay: Koggy
38% (29 votes)
Master Chief Recollection | Editor: Fatal | Gameplay: Llama
14% (11 votes)
Halo 5 Montage | Editor: SunSearcher | Gameplay: A Sneaky Walrus
4% (3 votes)
Tennis Chief | Editor: Tennis Chief | Gameplay: Tennis Chief
4% (3 votes)
Then & Now (Chapter 2/2) | Editor: bigpookie24 | Gameplay: bigpookie24
4% (3 votes)
The Final | Editor: Bitter Smurf | Gameplay: Kevy
4% (3 votes)
The Origin | Editor: Tizen | Gameplay: ChaosNinja sG, Maniac sG, Prophet sG, Tizen sG
1% (1 vote)
Total votes: 76
oi m8 im rite here

Haha no disrespect m8 <3

Like I said I think you should have gotten 4th.  However I don't see any of the entries in this pool besides the top 3 making it past any more rounds, and since some people clearly enjoyed your entry I was just curious about what in the video really stuck out to them. I know you will have some bias but please feel free to let me know what you liked the most from it as well. Favorite clips? The editing style, the time put into the effects, the music selection, the angles, etc.

Haha no disrespect m8 <3

Like I said I think you should have gotten 4th.  However I don't see any of the entries in this pool besides the top 3 making it past any more rounds, and since some people clearly enjoyed your entry I was just curious about what in the video really stuck out to them. I know you will have some bias but please feel free to let me know what you liked the most from it as well. Favorite clips? The editing style, the time put into the effects, the music selection, the angles, etc.

 

idk man, you're kind of putting me on the spot here. My edits often get a very close ratio of likes and dislikes when they get uploaded to FBW, because (without trying to sound pretentious) I go for whatever the fuck editing style I feel like, whatever the song (all about the song for me) demands as opposed to rehashing effects, Halo montage tropes etc. Not implying that every tage does that - plenty don't - but you see what I'm getting at. I like to get weird and go all out, and the result is I think my montages are like Marmite - you either love them or hate them. If you don't 'get' what is going on (ie if you don't find yourself sucked in/entranced/whatever) then you're not going to be very impressed. Everyone has different tastes after all, and I don't care about trying to cater to as many people as possible, basically.

What you're asking is pretty intense, but as I don't want to just skip over it, I guess I feel like the clips are about as good as a ninja tage has ever been. They're not life changing as Halo 3 clips, but if you search 'ninja montage' on YouTube there's nothing out there with really any quality unless I missed something. That was kind of the point - to make a legit montage with only ninja clips as it didn't seem to have been done and ninjaing is one of my favourite things to do in Halo and criminally underrepresented. Even the great/famous montages that have good ninja clips in usually just involves one ninja in a stream of kills. I wanted a tage where the ninja was the focal point of the clip.

I put hundreds of hours into this video. More than I'd care to admit. It's really great to have it finished, like a weight off my mind. The music - a song I was into back in maybe 2009 and always thought would be amazing for a ninja tage. I didn't start until 2014 though, it was just always in the back of my head as an idea.

 

Like I said, it's kind of a pointless thing to answer, coming from me. The bottom line is that everyone has different tastes and my style is very niche. I tend to get better feedback from the stoners and creative guys like Hyena, Puba etc than people into MLG montages. Basically, you're a lot better off having your questions answered by someone else - I know your editor (Fatal) liked my tage, so he could be a good person to answer?

Anyway, good luck with the competition man. You have some excellent gameplay.

You said it already, Joey; the editing style, and the sheer amount of time and effort he put into his video. If you can't appreciate that you can get the fuck out of my face, and if you didn't vote for him you're either blind or stupid. You in plural, as in every one of you.
I think Joey's gameplay was better thank Evadur's tbh but it's definitely close. And personally, besides the intro, I really didn't like the editing in Wizard. Gameplay was great as usual but I don't think it stood out nearly as much as his other videos, which is obviously an unfair way to judge it since, as you pointed out, I'm only rating Wizard so low because it didn't top Hyena's other incredible videos.

I just rewatched Wizard again for comparison and was reminded why I didn't like it as much as Beau's solo edits. The CC I'm just not a fan of, the audio editing sucks (it seems to redline/clip and deteriorate constantly and is really distracting IMO) and the choice to render out MCC like OG Halo 2 (correct me if I'm being an idiot and this is somehow OG Halo 2) so the slow-mo is over the top laggy I also found annoying. I also dislike videos that have 'epic', loud music throughout. I'm not saying it doesn't work, it certainly sets a tone, but the problem is it seems to detract from how much the clips themselves set the tone versus the actual quality of gameplay. I also don't like that this is one Hyena tage pre his 'look I broke the game physics' stuff (you know all that body glitching stuff etc) where I don't know what's going on or don't feel absorbed at times. None of Hyena's old stuff had that issue for me. It's a combination of poor angles and distracting slow mo and cuts.

Disclaimer: I am being incredibly OTT nitpicky here to make a point. Wizard is still a fantastic video, and deserves to go through as solidly as it did, of course.

Hyena's solo edits are a lot more atmospheric. He was one of the few editors to not be afraid to show a clip in its entirety without any cuts, which was great because his gameplay deserves to be shown without cuts for the absolute most part. IMO, all his old solo edits allow the GP to set the majority of the tone, (focus on game audio helps) rather than the other way round with overbearing loud music, CC etc. Wizard feels like the inverse, and that's my main issue with it. It's still a great and thoroughly entertaining watch though and once again I am literally putting it under a microscope here.

I also found myself chuckling about the intro, because I feel the opposite to you m8. I've never liked 'guest editor' intros, it's like the editor is a high school basketballer who brings out Jordan to dunk for him. It also means you have a bit of a jarring cut between OMG EPIC 3D intro and then a solid GP heavy tage with minimal editing. Plus Wizard's intro was really fucking good, even just comparing them side by side. Plus also that 'FEULED BY' typo... the stuff of nightmares.

 

TL:DR; I think discussing Halo videos like it's a university class is fun!

I see where you're coming from on a lot of your points, just a difference in preference for the most part. The first few times i watched wizard i said alot of what you said. the more i watched it the more i began to enjoy it for what it was.

I think Joey's gameplay was better thank Evadur's tbh but it's definitely close. And personally, besides the intro, I really didn't like the editing in Wizard. Gameplay was great as usual but I don't think it stood out nearly as much as his other videos, which is obviously an unfair way to judge it since, as you pointed out, I'm only rating Wizard so low because it didn't top Hyena's other incredible videos.

I thought JC and Evadur were the best two videos from a gameplay perspective. There's not much in separation in my mind (literally a hair) and if either got voted best gameplay i would consider that a good call. For me personally the things that gave Evadur the nod was the larger volume of tier 1 clips and  the  "OMG" clips for me as well. I thought the 1-2 stand alone clips in Evadur were just a hair more memorable than the JC ones. Overall i thought Joey had more utility type clips however which were a very welcome sight in H3 MLG tages overall, and i don't blame anyone for rating that higher. Also, and I said it last week, Evadurs cursor control is absolutely insane with the sniper in his clips. I'm not saying that makes him a better player or anything of that sort but his sniper just looks so fucking good.

 

Just as a sidebar:

It's a task to compare either video to Wizard because you're talking about highly situational competitive plays vs. learned, planned and practiced "Techniques". In my mind, the great parts of wizard are obviously thought of as sick but i don't think people understand just how incredible it is from a player standpoint. Conversely i've seen some people talk about the less impressive stuff as if it were the most amazing thing they'd seen so it's obvious to me there's a decent amount of parity in terms of grading his gameplay from one individual to another. For me it's tough because i've been playing halo 2 for like 11 years now: You play the game for long enough and you've already seen a fair amount of what he's doing on an accidental basis (hidden ledges, hit box manipulation, boundary and wall breaking, certain jumps and launches). Discovering the game logic and how to replicate those things is impressive to a certain extent, but it doesn't have the pop to me that it might have to some other players. Then i watch some of his other stuff and it literally confounds me where the influence came from and how he replicated it. I've played way more halo 2 than him and to have that type of insane originality in 2016 is baffling to me. For every clip I go "yeah that's happened to me or i've done that" there's another clip that follows it where i say "I could never have thought of that" or "I couldn't do that with 15 more years on the game". To me, the top end of wizard (or any of beaus videos for that matter) is basically untouchable but wizard as a package it doesn't have the staying power and consistency that joey clutch or evadur had for me. 

Wizard and Combat Evolved are the top montages of the year for me, and it has a lot to do with the emotion they created. Very comparable to some of Zola's work in that regard.
Actually I did the intro mostly -- even the stupid spelling mistake. Slippin came through with the cool spartan models, which I thank him for, but he did those models in December and promised to finish the intro for the comp (he was gonna do the tage as well but lost interest). As the deadline approached, it became like pulling teeth trying to figure out if he ever was working on it (I had a nightmare of a time with editors for this thing but I honestly don't want to bad mouth anyone). Anyway, the night of Aug 30th, the day before the comp was due, I was scream texting Slippin on Skype to send me something... anything! He delivered the models from December, but I had to stay up all night capping angles and bullshitting an intro. This is why there's a spelling mistake that haunts me to this day. I'm gonna go flip a table now lol.

So for the people talking about Take That, what specifically did you enjoy about the video? Im just curious...

I thought it was better than Kampy and Apple's tage, but it's not like it would have lasted the next round anyway right?

Come on kid, have you ever watched a non-MLG/Hardcore Halo video before?  

Come on kid, have you ever watched a non-MLG/Hardcore Halo video before?  

Can you at least make an effort to not sound like a completely condescending asshole every time you post?

Why?  I excel at it. 

Ok thank you for taking the time to respond.

You definitely have the best ninja tage I have ever seen. I think its cool when montagers set out to do something like "get ninja clips" or "hit a multi from this angle" and actually accomplish it. I can also tell this project had a ton of time and effort put into it.

I think for me my biggest issue was I see what you tried to do with the song, and apparently it worked for some people.  However it just annoyed me, which is completely subjective and also a fairly huge aspect of a montage. Otherwise  it was very solid overall. I wasn't trying to single you out or hate on your work, I definitely found it enjoyable and appreciated the effort you put in (maybe just not as much as others).

P.s. the Animatage was one of the craziest things I saw back then, thank you for that!

Im precisely 83.6% sure he is just trolling. I read his post in a sarcastic voice in my head and I thought it was pretty funny actually. 

 

Disclaimer: Even if he actually is being serious I will continue to believe its sarcasm because that would make me much happier. And to everyone else that might actually think like that I just want to say I love good montages whether they are social, MLG, or freaking campaign.

Nice man. I'll say it again, for a first edit this was very clean and professional. Good job.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dat spelling error tho

Yeah it was cringworthy, but to me the 'non-mirrored shadow' of the text in the intro of the quadtage comes very to close but i haven't heard anybody about that :/

Mistakes can slip through, especially knowing that he edited it just the last day. That while doubleAA, or so the rest of his tage made it seem, put more time into the project so I'm more surprised that wasn't fixed. 

I am 100% serious.  Your video isn't as good as you two think it is.
I'm starting to think inxy was on to something tbh lmao.
Did you quote me in your signature? lmao thanks dood <3

Joey Clutch's video might have some of the strongest MLG gameplay I've ever seen, but the way the video was constructed was so unmemorable that I get bored every time I try to watch it (even if the editing is technically good). We've seen this post-rock style done to death in the Reach era of montages and there wasn't anything special about this video except being technically superior to most other Halo videos of the same style. It really reminds me of why the mentality of "letting the gameplay shine" can backfire more than accomplish what the player/editor originally intended. Nearly all attempts I've seen with this mindset has left the impression that it doesn't leave room for the editor to inject any personality to the video. If you look at videos like Death Machine, Combat Evolved, or Evadur's video, they manage to display the raw skill of almost if not all clips while adding a personal touch or style to remember the videos by. I can really say the same for Take That. I can't believe something as stylish as strangestick's video did not make it past the first round, it's one of the more memorable videos I've seen all year.

I really think Joey Clutch's gameplay was a missed opportunity to make a really special Halo video, possibly of ground breaking level. It certainly had the right caliber of clips to accomplish that.

appreciated the words :)

Ding Ding Ding!

Someone finally said it.

Joey Clutch's video might have some of the strongest MLG gameplay I've ever seen, but the way the video was constructed was so unmemorable that I get bored every time I try to watch it (even if the editing is technically good). We've seen this post-rock style done to death in the Reach era of montages and there wasn't anything special about this video except being technically superior to most other Halo videos of the same style. It really reminds me of why the mentality of "letting the gameplay shine" can backfire more than accomplish what the player/editor originally intended. Nearly all attempts I've seen with this mindset has left the impression that it doesn't leave room for the editor to inject any personality to the video. If you look at videos like Death Machine, Combat Evolved, or Evadur's video, they manage to display the raw skill of almost if not all clips while adding a personal touch or style to remember the videos by. I can really say the same for Take That. I can't believe something as stylish as strangestick's video did not make it past the first round, it's one of the more memorable videos I've seen all year.

I really think Joey Clutch's gameplay was a missed opportunity to make a really special Halo video, possibly of ground breaking level. It certainly had the right caliber of clips to accomplish that.

The only thing that is really lacking in the video is the soundtrack imo, which almost promotes a safe but well done edit.

Combat Evolved probably still has my favorite edit of the comp.

I agree with that. I still enjoy the third song but, even while editing, I was starting to lose interest in the first two and really didn't like how I transitioned between the songs. Lights and Motion's music is pretty repetitive/formulaic so they get boring after a few listens. However, Joey enjoyed it and that's who I was trying to please so I'm still happy with it.
Man, bxsouljah has to be the most cringeworthy poster when it comes to commenting on any Halo video.

Ding Ding Ding!

Someone finally said it.

I'm rather saddened that "Take That" didn't move on, though not entirely surprised. Kampy himself is probably one of the bigger Halo personalities, his name carries a lot.

This is probably a rather odd part to enjoy of that Take That, but 3:52 - 4:45 was absolute bliss to me. I love the firing animation at 4:21 and flying through the bloodspatter at 4:34. The angles at the beginning of it and going through the shield door. It almost reminds me of that Halo 3 Believe trailer where they are showing you around the diorama.
The blur warping effect (whatever it is) was also just fun to watch and fit the music perfectly. Some of the clips were also really cool to watch, I wasn't huge on H3 content so IDK if its been done before, but the ovk ninja on guardian lift was awesome to see, even the first kill in that being on the slope and still making it over him. The falling pit double kill and the rocket jumps on sandtrap.
The only thing I dislike were the opening clip, it just didn't set the tone for the rest of the montage (clip wise) for me at all, I think understand why it was put there, it just didn't appeal to me at all.

As far as JC/Fatal (even though this isn't the correct thread). I think its a very solid entry with small shortcomings that seem larger than they are. JC's gameplay is stellar, there is no question about that. The music however puts me in this kind of consistent pace that doesn't have huge moments or deep lows (if that makes sense) and it makes the gameplay feel less stellar than it can be at times. It definitely took me two or three watches to appreciate some of the clips a little more, but like I said its a small shortcoming that seems larger than they actually are. I typically believe that you should take two looks before you objectively throw out opinions, so its not like they went unnoticed. The editing is great, I think it fits the songs really well, but again because it feels consistent I notice smaller things that I normally would have overlooked, I feel more nitpicky. Like a couple of the triples it just leaves me wondering why or there was a transition that just felt slightly off.

Evadurs montage is very different tunes than JC for me. It's one of those montages that makes me want to play halo. Like after the first song I was so pumped I wanted to just hop on halo and start hitting clips and thats a huge thing for me. Editing had a few weird moments and its commendable that he did a great job for a first edit after having so much trouble with editors, but I can't just over look those things because of that reason. Anyways like I said he sets a great atmosphere for his montage. His gameplay is a complete blast to watch, even the questionable clips where its like ehhh its just fun. I dunno how else to explain it. I adore almost everything about it.

In the end if it honestly came down to Evadur and JC it would be a hard thing to pick. JC seems more consistent and polished, but lacks charm. Evadur is a complete blast to watch and his clips stand out more in my memory. They both have different things going for them and against them. I hate to repeat myself one more time, but this is just from the eyes of a guy who didn't put a ton of time into H3. Who knows how well I'm judging the clips and I sure as crap ain't a good editor. Just calls it like I sees it.

Man, bxsouljah has to be the most cringeworthy poster when it comes to commenting on any Halo video.

Lol alright that was good, I'll give you that.  It's definitely more quantity than quality.  

I'm rather saddened that "Take That" didn't move on, though not entirely surprised. Kampy himself is probably one of the bigger Halo personalities, his name carries a lot.

This is probably a rather odd part to enjoy of that Take That, but 3:52 - 4:45 was absolute bliss to me.

I don't think that's odd at all man, that's the part I'm most proud of, that took the longest, and that I'm always thrilled when I hear it clicked with people. Obviously to some people it was just a weird interlude, but to the ones that it clicked with it was a lot more significant than that, which is great, and is always good to hear.

My reason for the first clip was to add some humour in (always gotta have some humour) and remind the audience this tage doesn't take itself seriously: the editing is tryhard, but the montage isn't. I also just am personally fond of that clip; staring overconfidently at a guy as he approaches, hopping away and then hopping right back to slap him to the ground was one of my more favourite single kills I've ever gotten in Halo 3. It cracked me up and felt cool too. It might not look as flashy or as measured as some of the other clips, but the point was to set the tone and establish how comfortable we are with blackslapping some bitches. So that was why I put that there.

 

I also completely agree with the rest of your post too. Good shit.