I need help and advice with creating battle reports. My gaming group here in Japan is looking to expand out a little and we thought a good way to start would be to start making videos of our battle reports. Currently the responsibility rests on me to get this done, so I’d like to ask you my CDO peers to tell me what you think of my first video.
Remember this isn’t the final format, I’m not happy with the opening screen, the text, and end titles. I’ll also be adding Japanese subtitles to the final version. Really I just want to see if I’m heading in the right direction, any advice regarding the video or getting more from youtube in general would be most appreciated.
Finally this battle report doesn’t involve our Chaos Dwarfs, but it might do in the future if the reports are popular.
A friend of mine takes a 30 second - 1 minute video with a recap of the happenings of each turn. They are about 5-6 minutes per game and easy to easy to watch.
My favorite bat reps on Youtube come from an Aussie named “Vaul”. Do a quick search and you’ll get his homepage. He takes still pictures and describes what is happening so viewers don’t suffer from watching a shakey camera (the most annoying thing for me). We also don’t need to see dice rolling unless it’s involving some climactic point of the game. As an enthusiast I just want to see the basic setup, some thoughts on the strategy involved, and the results on a turn-by-turn basis. Keep it simple!
Thanks guys for your replies. I like the idea of the viewer feeling like they’re also part of the game hence the length of the video. I agree with the point about simplifying it a little more, the camera does tend to jump around a little as I edit out all the rubbish. Plus like I said, a first attempt (including using a video camera). The picture route can work well as a narrated video, but I also quite like the videos where you get to see stuff as it happens.
I think I’ll try and use the tripod more for the next report and see if that helps out with the camera movement.
I guess at the end of the day it comes down to what the viewer wants to see in a battle report, the short summary style may suit some, but for others it might not satisfy.