Jump to content

BC2 UK Forum: Meet Video Community Challenge winner TonyTheTuba!

Featured Replies

Posted

If you saw his amazing video, you know why we picked Malcolm Kelly, aka TonyTheTuba, as one of the three winners in the “Only in Battlefield 3” Video Community Challenge. We hooked up with him to learn the secrets behind his work, and to get a glimpse of what’s next from this talented video editor.

 

 

 

Congratulations, Malcolm! How does it feel to be one of the video challenge winners?

 

– Awesome of course! I spent way more time on my video than I originally intended to, and the stuff I learned while doing so was rewarding in itself. But getting picked as one of the final winners plus getting the opportunity to see the DICE studio and Stockholm is obviously fantastic and very inspiring.

 

Where did you get the inspiration to create your video and to do that cool multi-screen transition that you are using?

 

– I knew from the start that I wanted it to be about real gameplay — stuff that could happen to you just by playing multiplayer, but that makes other FPS multiplayer experiences seem tame by comparison. It was important that for the purposes of this video none of it was staged or prearranged — in fact, much of the footage comes from rounds played before the competition was even announced.

 

– Since I had fun making videos of gameplay in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I wanted to do it for Battlefield 3 too. When I started planning out the video I had two scenes which were pretty much fixed: the one where the chopper wreckage crashes out the sky and rolls over me (which happened just that very day) and LazyBullet’s lock evasion flythrough of the Gas Station flag on Caspian Border.

 

– The multi-screen effect was something I came up with later in the editing process. In itself it’s not a new effect of course, but I wanted to use it to illustrate that there are countless other players out there all fighting their own part of a larger war. Whether it’s a dogfight to the death up above or a cat and mouse dance to make a vital objective capture down below, these things are going on all around you every round, whether you see it or not. The rest of the video is examples of those tiny moments plucked out of the larger narrative, and I wanted to give that impression that you are just peeking into these situations.

 

“I wanted to illustrate that there are

 

countless other players out there all fighting

 

their own part of a larger war”

 

What would be your top 3 tips to aspiring Battlefield 3 video editors?

 

1) Be your audience

 

– It’s unlikely you’re going to please every single person out there, so work out who it is you’re aiming at, and then try and see things from their perspective. For example, I tried to make mine entertaining for existing players of Battlefield 3, but I wanted it to be accessible to those that hadn’t taken the plunge yet. Those who had maybe played only the single player campaign or other games. I wanted existing players who saw this to be able to link it to such a friend with an offhand comment along the lines of: “Oh this? Yeah, that happens to me all the time. You mean it DOESN’T for you? Ouch.” Or something like that. http://blogscdn.battlefield.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif

 

2) Make the hard choices

 

– I knew I wanted to end with an impact moment of some kind, and I felt that a cool TV Missile shot would work well, so I made the effort to get into as many chopper gunner seats as possible and pulled off a bunch of cool shots. But in line with my first tip above, I had to accept that as cool as some of these kills were, people who hadn’t used the TV Missile themselves would not really understand how tricky it is to pull these shots off.

 

– So they had to go, although I put some of them in my Cutting Room Floor video which is linked as a follow up to the original. It worked out okay in the end though, as the shot where I had to change target mid-flight added a small surprise element and the transition to the end title to give the kind of ending that I was happy with.

 

3) Turn away, then look again

 

– Once you’ve made your final cut, if at all possible then just don’t look at it for a couple of days. Just do something else. After that, watch your final cut again with a fresh perspective and you’ll be surprised that it wasn’t really your final cut at all, and you need to tweak and maybe even redo some parts that seemed good but don’t actually work so well. I don’t know if that’s something real film editors do, because I’ve had no formal training in this sort of thing, but it worked for me and definitely improved the overall quality of the video. Of course I look now and see more things that I’d change, but you have to draw the line somewhere!

 

“Sometimes when you’re in the midst

 

of a hectic multiplayer battle you can miss

 

the atmosphere of the amazing scenery

 

around you and the spectacle of the battle

 

outside your own crosshairs”

 

What were your favorite videos among the other Top 10 videos in the challenge and why?

 

– It’s a hard choice, but outside of the final winners I was, like so many people, struck by imMonkeyGOD’s entry. Sometimes when you’re in the midst of a hectic multiplayer battle you can miss the atmosphere of the amazing scenery around you and the spectacle of the battle outside your own crosshairs. This entry brings it out in a very embedded cameraman/documentary type way and allows people to see things in a new light.

 

– Two other video makers I’m a big fan of are JackFrags, who consistently comes up with great ideas and executes with amazing style, and Birgirpall whose videos I have learned from experience not to watch whilst drinking any kind of beverage, since cleaning a keyboard gets old pretty quickly.

 

What are you most looking forward to when coming to meet DICE?

 

– Heh, big question. I know that creating something as complex as Battlefield 3 takes a huge amount of work and talent behind the scenes, and I look forward to seeing how some of that was accomplished. Things like how the game evolved during development, how the maps themselves are constructed, the models, the amazing sounds (I’m still not entirely sure what the War Tapes option does, but I know it’s awesome) and stuff like that. You should probably just go ahead and invest in a cattle prod in case I get a little reluctant to leave.

 

Do you have any ideas for future Battlefield 3 videos that you are working on?

 

– My next project is that I’d like to give a little insight window into the flow of multiplayer itself. I’m going to get a bunch of people in the same match to record their viewpoints and then make a video that shows the interaction between those players onscreen at the same time. You often see cool videos with cool frags, but taken out of context with all the times they themselves were fragged before and after.

 

– Plus when newly starting in multiplayer you’re going to wonder just how that person was lined up at the exact place you didn’t look, how you’re sure you fired first on your screen and things like that. I haven’t narrowed down the exact format on how it’ll work, but I think it’ll be very interesting if I do it right. I’d also like to do something more along the format of a short film too. I’ve got a couple of ideas but want to refine them a little first.

 

What do you like the most about Battlefield 3?

 

– Another hard question, but I’m going to say the scale. It’s big, it’s shiny and a lot of stuff blows up in cool ways. Going from the tactical elements of fighting through the alleys and buildings of Seine Crossing to the all-out combined craziness of vehicle and rural warfare of Caspian Border, I can pretty much get any type of game I’m in the mood for.

 

MEET THE WINNER

 

Name: Malcolm Kelly

 

Nick: TonyTheTuba

 

YouTube channel: TonyTheYouTuba's Channel - YouTube

 

Lives: England

 

Age: 32

 

Job: IT Server admin

 

Secret skill: Scuba diving. Well, not a secret to anyone who knows me!

 

Famous: For his winning entry in the “Only in Battlefield 3” Video Community Challenge

 

Source:

 

View the full article

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...