Filming

[xRiverKing]

Hey guys, I have played the games since OG, but never had time or desire to film. Lately I have been getting the desire, but find my filming to be bland and whatnot.

Was wondering if you guys could shed some light for tips and some guides on some shit.

- Long lense
- good fisheyes
- ramps
- what mm's work best for different styles

And I always end up with a 45 second clip when I only need 7 seconds of it. Anyway to down it to make the filming process easier?

Haha, I can't think of too much atm because I am still at work, but I think you get the idea. Any tips or tricks would be cool. I loved the filming in plain tee crew's last vid (all of their filming is what I am after). And saunder's Carroll vid was very impressive as well.

Thanks guys

[i am a snail]

experiment and find something you like, i guess a good place to start would be low and close to the skater but there's really no set formula.

edit: and for your last question, you have the scrub tool...

[cornflakes457]

I would also be grreatful to find out.

[m.seven]

too bad the EA forums took a shit.there were some really good tutorials on filming.
i'm no expert by any means,but like snail said experiment a little,watch other vids.when i first started filming i'd save a few replays and play around with the cams..different lenses,angles and such.that really helped me out personally.

[Deacon]

As Snail said there is no set formula its all about finding what works for you.

That said this good for filming lines.


For long lens, glitch the camera the opposite way described in the video until it the desired length (i tend use 150mm to 350mm) depending on what I am doing. Also on Long Lens I recommend turning off the vignette.

have fun dude.

[Spacepoet]

It depends on what type of style you are going for. If your trying to recreate a more realistic look, I think 16mm fisheye is the most common used in real vids. I sometimes take it down 14mm depending on the shot. Lots of guys go to 10mm but i think that distorts the shot a little too much but they make it work for there style.
I just max it out for long lense.
Try doing some long lense shots that really focus close up on the board and mix those with your fisheye.
Your clips may seem boring in game but set too music along with your other clips I think you might feel differently.

And I think you said you can only get 45 second clips, while editing in game hold the right or left bumpers and hit one of your analog sticks. You should be able to cut down the length of your clips this way.

[SK8ERatWAR]

dogtown's tutorial is pretty good, the only thing i wouldn't do is set so many keyframes, it tends to get shaky that way, especially for inexperienced filmers.
for long lens, just find out what looks best, don't always use the same mm, use your environment, zoom in/out, pan to or away from the skater, i think that's what the guys from ptc do alot, at least jerr, and so do i anyways.

[Wiltzuh]

Okay here's my advices...

For Fisheye/wide lense filming; I'm pure 10mm user. I'm always trying to have as small number of markers as possible. Easy way to do that is film your stuff first and then test, which markers are unuseful.
Another tip to make your wide lense filming look better is NOT trying to keep your skater centered in middle of screen all the time...let the camera "live". Watch some real life footage to see what i mean.

I think theres no real mm's that people use in Long lenses ? I have heard that someones have some mm that thei're not going bigger anymore...like someone said that he don't ever go over 300mm.
I don't use 500mm so oftenly...i have probably used it three times in skating footage. My advice for long lenses is to use mm that you feel like best.

I don't have so many advices for ramp slows. Basic ramp slows for flip tricks and gaps are pretty easy to do. Just put one marker right when you're popping your trick and another marker right before you're landing your trick. These two markers should be "100%" markers (speed i mean).
Then you just put marker into middle of these two and set their speed to whatever you want. Personally i like to use slowest or second slowest one.
When filming slides or grinds you can use more imagination with ramp slows...like ramping down when starting a grind gives you nice sound effect and little extra kick and ramping down when you're landing makes you're trick look sicker imo.

And also Roll in's and -out's. They make your footage look better. Personally when filming line or fisheye footage i stop my camera always when your skater lands the trick. I got that from my real life filming and i think filming in skate is much easier if you have filmed skating in real life =)

[BannerBoy360]

ya i cant add much to what wiltzuh said there but as for the 45 second clip when you only want seven, deacon is right about the bumpers, but what i do to make filming easier and to give me a
a longer timeline without as many seconds in it is just before you film a trick go into the object dropper or if you are in a CAP then go to the park editor. this means that when you do the trick straight after if you can, you only have to move the bumpers a small bit and you are able to put less key markers down on a clip. its explained properly at the start of this guys vid but dont do the whole free play then back to carreer cus that doesnt work, go into object dropper.
http://www.youtube.com/user/EaSkate3.../1/PRKPBGpGHTQ

[knexzor]

this might help

[Wiltzuh]

if you are in a CAP then go to the park editor. this means that when you do the trick straight after if you can, you only have to move the bumpers a small bit and you are able to put less key markers down on a clip. its explained properly at the start of this guys vid but dont do the whole free play then back to carreer cus that doesnt work, go into object dropper.

Yeah. Another way to get smaller timeline in CREATED PARKS, is filling both meters: Terrain meter and Props meter. Then it gives you maximally 36second timelines. In my opinion 30 seconds is optimum lenght for timeline.
So...if you find out that your timeline is going over 40 seconds in CAP, check out if your terrain meter and/or props meter isn't full and fill them =)

[xRiverKing]

dogtown's tutorial is pretty good, the only thing i wouldn't do is set so many keyframes, it tends to get shaky that way, especially for inexperienced filmers.
for long lens, just find out what looks best, don't always use the same mm, use your environment, zoom in/out, pan to or away from the skater, i think that's what the guys from ptc do alot, at least jerr, and so do i anyways.

I noticed that sometimes using less keyframes is best, thanks bro! By the way, I love your filming too

ya i cant add much to what wiltzuh said there but as for the 45 second clip when you only want seven, deacon is right about the bumpers, but what i do to make filming easier and to give me a longer timeline without as many seconds in it is just before you film a trick go into the object dropper or if you are in a CAP then go to the park editor. this means that when you do the trick straight after if you can, you only have to move the bumpers a small bit and you are able to put less key markers down on a clip. its explained properly at the start of this guys vid but dont do the whole free play then back to carreer cus that doesnt work, go into object dropper.
http://www.youtube.com/user/EaSkate3.../1/PRKPBGpGHTQ

Finally what I wanted!! The object dropper works awesome thanks man!! (yes guys, I know there is a scrub/bumper :/ haha)

And also Roll in's and -out's. They make your footage look better. Personally when filming line or fisheye footage i stop my camera always when your skater lands the trick. I got that from my real life filming and i think filming in skate is much easier if you have filmed skating in real life =)

The roll out's can annoy me because they pan back, but its an easy fix. I love doing both, but I tend to find myself wanted to do them for every line haha. Thanks man

this might help

This vid helped a lot, thanks, didn't know that he had that account. Great in depth vid here for people wanted a tutorial.



Thanks everyone else! I find the long lens to be quite fun and easy. My biggest challenges are looking for good, clean, unique angles and getting fluent line-filming down. I must say after tinkering around with all of this I feel a lot better about it all.



I got a line, and filmed the line and a long lens after. Tell me what yall think.

Fisheye line
Long lens follow up (pan back at the end would be edited out ofc)

The help was greatly appreciated!

[Boxerman08]

Just noticed this thread and thought I could maybe help and contribute to it a little, but it seems that everyone has covered what I was thinking of saying haha
But what I can do, since no one has given you tips for your 2 clips at the end, I'll give it a go and tell you what I think.

For the Fisheye line:
You have the right idea for fisheye filming, but maybe try to bring the camera a little closer to the ground/skater's board and feet, but still trying to show the entire skater if you can, while trying to keep the filming as smooth as possible. Try to imitate real life filming, at least that's what I do lol (ie. filming close, either right next to the skater, behind or in front, and use a combination of filming "positions", if you want, when filming a line). For the beginning of the clip, try to leave maybe 1 or 2 seconds before the first trick so the transition between clips will be smoother. Once the line is done, try not to pan back it too much, although in your clip it was alright, but maybe try to keep the skater's roll-away a little longer as well, because in your clip, when your skater lands, you almost go immediately towards the pole.

For the Long lens follow up clip:
Nothing to say here, because personally I thought it was perfect.

My intention isn't to bash your filming or anything, just trying to give you tips on what I personally think looks good, but everyone has different opinions. If you want, I can TRY to get clips of what I do, how I film my stuff, etc... But a lot has to do with experimenting. My filming has changed drastically from when I started to now lol I used to film fisheye lines in like 13 mm, and now I'm always using 18mm.

But it all boils down to what you like and how you like to film! Have fun experimenting dude!

[xRiverKing]

Boxer my man thank you for this, I need criticism.

I agree 100% on my fisheye. It needs work, and I feel I have gotten better since this post. I hate the way I started it, and the pan to the post was terribad haha. I like 15 mm myself, but I am now using anywhere from 12 - 20 mm. Sometimes I find it hard to keep things fresh, like angles and positions and whatnot.

I find long lens pretty simple, and really fun. I am not sure how I feel on this one, it was decent enough for a beginner I guess. Thanks for the compliment!

I will prob ask you for some guidance later when my schedule eases up. Haha

[Boxerman08]

Haha no problem, glad you liked the criticism, you film how you want to film though. But you get better at it after lots of trial and error, and from other people's tips as well.

Honestly, my filming improved a lot because of VirtualParadise. A while back, I tried to get on Conspiracy, and he sent me this huge message on stuff I should try to improve/focus on, from the tricks to the filming. Because of this, I've more or less changed how I play and film, but I like my stuff more than I did initially. It's from everyone's criticism that you'll get better at filming. Sure it's always good to get comments like "really sick" but it's also good to get comments like "that was garbage", but only if they back up their negative comment and not be a troll haha

I actually find lines are easier to film, partially because I find that filming for lines is more or less straight forward while for long lines, you have to find a nice looking angle, and half the time I try I can't really find an amazing angle for the trick. But again, probably trial and error, I should try to film more long lens I guess and experiment with it haha.

Whenever your schedule loosens up, I'll be glad to help out if I can dude!

[xRiverKing]

VP is one of the best at this game in all ways, no question. Its cool that he gave you some insight.. sounds good we can tinker around sometime.

[stuey2dope]

Sorry to kinda hijack this thread, but I didn't wanna start a New one and my question is kinda related to filming.

Not played Skate in a while. Got the urge to skate and film the other day but found that I couldn't upload my stuff and I was constantly getting the 'cannot connect to EA server' message.

This just a one off?

[Seanne1986]

It happens from time to time.. EA servers are very unpredictable.. some times it works.. some it doesn't. Just keep on trying or save your replays and try another day.

[agusbmxarg]

Filming is one interesting topic, maybe what makes the Skate games even more entertaining. Most of us (some of you skate, I particularly ride bmx) get the ideas from real life videos and that's what helps the most I think.
Of course watching other skate game videos helps too.


Now that I think about it, I think I've never saw a skate game video filmed like this:
A bmx park video filmed from a RC Helicam. (7D attached to a RC heli, I'll post the pic below).








Some one should do this!

[Demzilla]

i watched that heli test vid yesterday..
sick....

fake skate done the same....
brought to you by myself...

http://www.wegame.com/watch/SPEILBURG/

[jerr bear]

SKy high angles might not work because the board is usually under the skater, people do like to film from high "diagonal" angles though, at least, I've seen it.