Turning My Narrative Batrep Vision Into A Video Reality...

The Story Of How I Got Here

For about 8 months, I've been interested in learning how to make video battle reports. I wanted to take my written narrative batreps & push them to the next level. I was inspired by old batrep videos I'd seen from the likes of House of Dice & Wargamer Girl, as well as taking inspiration from others like Warjax, War Budgies, & Tangible Day.

Each one inspired a different aspect of my overall vision, my batreps aren't going to be like any of those above. For one thing, my batreps have always been more about the story than the "numbers". In my written batreps, I include *most* damage roll info because I don't want to lose sight of the fact that I'm still narrating a game. However, I pretty much never include attack roll info. Attacks are covered by the story. An attack is described to have missed or hit with some appropriate flavor text. I don't care to bog down my batreps with every stat or dice roll. Some people may not like that, but I'm going to create what I want to create. If others like it or not is up to them. I have to be true to the vision floating around inside my head.

Before I get too far into what I learned, what I'm going to do different in future videos, etc, I want to go ahead and present a link to the video itself. The video is "unlisted" on YouTube because it's not really meant for public consumption. It was made as a "throw away" video that served a couple purposes. 

1. It was my opportunity to learn how to use Filmora video editing software.

2. It was to prove to myself (and those that said I couldn't do it / it was too much work) that I could actually make a batrep video from start to finish in less than 40 hours (which was what I was told it would take as a minimum). In all it took around 28 hours, but as I'll explain later in the blog, a LOT of that time was wasted time due to my lack of knowledge of how to use Filmora and the haphazard, inefficient way that I worked through the video since I had no idea what I was doing.

Slogging my way through the process taught me a ton and will make future videos come together much cleaner, much better quality video & audio, and take less time to make from start to finish.

Oh, I should know that this play was from a "throw away" game. We were using MK3 cards to play with *some* of the MK4 rules back in July right when the beta rules dropped. We skimmed the rulebook to get the gist of most of the changes and jumped in. One glaring mistake was that we hadn't yet learned that Advanced Deployment was only +3" in MK4 instead of the old +6" from MK3.

Mistakes like this won't exist in my future "real" batreps beyond this prototype test one. As mentioned this video was about me learning how to use the software & prove that I could see a batrep from start to finish. So, I purposely chose this game that "didn't matter" as far as rules, etc to save our other "better" plays for when I make real batreps.

So, without further ado, 

The Video

I wanted you to be able to watch the video with "fresh" eyes before I go into the things I think I did wrong or don't like about it. 

Don't get me wrong: I'm happy with the video overall. It was a ton of work. I went into it with pretty much zero video editing experience. It took a lot of trial & error. There was a lot of stopping to look up how to do something in the software. & I learned a lot of lessons along the way.

Overall, I'm proud of what I've created, but more than that I'm excited to take all the lessons learned from this "test" video to make my future videos so much better. 

The Process

For those unfamiliar with how I make my written batreps, my videos start off the same way. Donna & I set up a small Sony Handcam to record "static cam" footage of every game we play. It's set up off to the side & about 3 feet above the table on a tripod. I take lots of pics during the game with a Canon EOS T100 DSLR. 

After I choose a particular play to make a batrep from, I spend a day or 2 (depending on my work schedule / time off) to watch the footage and make several pages of shorthand notes of the action, dice rolls, spells, etc from the game. Then, I take those notes, open up Blogger, and start typing out a narrative batrep over 3-4 days.

Once it's done, I print it up and put it away until the next morning. Then, I come back to it with fresh eyes to read for spelling / grammatical mistakes and to find instances where I repeat certain phrases more than I'd like. For instance, I try not to refer to every time Severius casts a spell as a "prayer" or "blessing", but also use other words / phrases like "Menoth's favor", "the Creator's benediction", etc to mix things up. The same goes for describing a particular hard hitting attack as "devastating", "brutal", "with vicious intent", "ferocious barbarity", or something else to add flavor without repeating the same, single word / phrase over and over.

For my video batreps, I'm using a similar process. I have NO desire to film a batrep while we play. Due to the different camera angles, various distance of shots, etc I'd spend so much time fussing with the camera that I wouldn't be able to enjoy playing. Plus, I see my batreps as a production, a story, rather than just showing the live game in action with every model move, every dice roll, etc. 

For my video batreps, I still make the same outline notes after watching the static cam, but then instead of writing out a full story, I'll write a basic script for the vocal narration. That script will also include rough notes for what camera distances / angles each bit of action calls for. 

Then, on the one day off that I get each week, I'll set the game back up the same as we played the first time & go through "playing" it using the shorthand notes from the static cam footage. For some sections of the batrep, I'll use still photos taken at the same time. 

After the final footage is recorded, I'll record the vocal narration separately. I create a separate video project in Filmora for each turn. Once that audio is cleaned up / balanced out, I'll add the appropriate audio to its respective turn video. I'll use the narration to determine how long each section of video should be to match. 

Where it fits the story, I'll add in special effects in the form of sound & visual effects including animations that I made for fires, explosions, dice rolls, and more. My vision for the batreps is to use visual and sound effects to make the story come to life on the screen, but I'm cautious not to use them for every action or transition.

So...that is the process I will use in the future. It's a process that I stumbled my way through figuring out over the last 2 weeks. My brain is a weird one. When it comes to creating things for the first time, I thrive in chaos. Had I sat down to write out a plan for how I was going to make this first video, I'd never have gotten it started.

Thankfully, I recognize that limitation in my brain. I've learned to embrace it & work around it. The process for creating this first video started with me getting the shorthand notes made from the static cam footage for set-up, Protectorate turn 1, Circle turn 1, & Protectorate turn 2 on a Monday. Tuesdays are my only usual days "off".

We have cats = I can't just set a game up to film some & come back to later. Knowing that I get called in from time to time on Tuesdays, I set things up and started recording the final batrep footage from my notes on the first few turns.

Then, I rushed back to my PC to watch the rest of the footage and make the shorthand notes before rushing back to the table to record the final footage for the rest of the game. 

Problem #1 - NERVES

Oh boy...I cannot begin to describe how nervous I was making this from the very beginning. I put a LOT of pressure on myself when making this. You can probably see how shaky my hand was lining up the laser for sprays or spells a few times. It is stupid to realize now how much I stressed over this. 

It was so bad that when I lined the laser up for Remus' Assault spray, it was all over the place. 

I also tried to show WAY TOO MUCH. Every time I moved a unit, I'd measure to move the main model & then show myself measuring out the 2" for the rest of the models. We don't actually do this when we play. We move the main model, move the rest *roughly* 2" away from it, & then measure any that look like they might be on the edge of too far away. 

I showed ALL of it in this video, because the stress told me that I had to show all those little things...which I realize now I didn't. Lesson learned there.

At the end of the day, creating this is for me, but a big part of it is also a "thank you" to the Warmachine community. The community has overall been pretty great since we started playing last summer & I want to constantly find ways to give back.

Problem #2 - RUSHING

One of the biggest problems I faced making this video was that I felt beyond RUSHED to get it done. There was no deadline. There was no outside expectation...but part of me felt like I had to get it done quickly. I don't know. I think a big part of that subconsciously was the need to prove to myself that I could do it. When I first mentioned wanting to try to make videos at the end of last year, a few people said it was too much work, not worth it, others quit doing it or never started because of the work, etc and basically that I wasn't actually going to go through with it. 

I guess that weighed on me in the back of my mind even if I didn't fully realize it until now. 

That "rush" was noted above when I started filming the first bit of footage before having all of the game action transcribed into my rough shorthand / script, but it was more than that.

That "rush" meant that the audio narration was basically "one & done". Sure, if I completely misspoke a sentence or word, I'd re-record it, but otherwise, I recorded all the audio in one take. On top of that, I recorded me reading the narration that I'd *JUST* written. I didn't go over it to edit or clean it up before recording it. Also, I didn't do ANY post-production work on the audio. No volume leveling. No EQ. No de-essing. Just the raw vocals as I recorded them. 

In future videos, adding that extra bit of audio clean-up will add at most another 30 mins to an hour. This is because once I dial in the settings I want for the EQ, the rest is pretty straightforward as far as volume leveling & de-essing. 

That 30 mins to an hour will be offset by the fact that after I get the narration script written, recording the vocals will go faster. This is because I'll be taking the natural down time in my day (lunch time, etc) to read through it. This will not only give me a chance to clean up any repeated words / phrases, but reading through it will also translate to being able to record cleaner vocals with fewer takes due to me being familiar with the words / sentences going into the recording.

The rushing also meant that if an idea for a scene's camera angle or distance wasn't what I wanted in the end, I stuck with it for this one in order to get it done. In future videos, I'll have no issue re-filming a shot if I feel like angle didn't help the story or wasn't clear.

Oh and I fudged things a few times to make sure everything was in the camera shot instead of taking the time to get the camera positioned in a better place. That was in part due to the limitations of the tripod I used. Since finishing this video, I've ordered 2 more tripods that each fit a specific use / idea of scene / shot that I want to capture. 

You can see the evidence of the fudging in a few places like in Protectorate turn 2 where the Repenter is actually somewhat behind the wooden house. In reality, the jack was past the house, but I moved it back so that I could get it in the scene. Otherwise, it'd have been blocked from the camera view due to the location of the stone tower in that particular shot.

Also, I moved the Sunburt Crew a bit to get the shot I wanted when Remus' charged in and sprayed his Assault "Death Howl". That meant that the laser didn't perfectly line up how it did in the original game in order for me to get everyone in the shot I wanted. 

I also neglected to film the Commanders at the start of each turn where the Control & Maintenance Phases would take place. Realizing this as I was editing, I used still shots from other parts of the video to cover this. More fudging. 

Stupid little fudgeries like this won't happen in future videos.

Problem #3 - HAVING A VISION WITHOUT A CLEAR PATH TO GET THERE

The third problem I dealt with was that I didn't know how to do much of anything in Filmora. As I started putting the video together, I'd get an idea. Then, I'd have to dig into the software to find out if it could do it & try to learn how. 

This was the case with everything from the text animations in the intro to the simple highlight bars in the list sections to the fiery explosions in the batrep itself.

"It'd be cool to have fire on the models that are suffering Continuous Fire. Let me see if I can add a picture of a flame to the video."

As I did that, I thought, "I wonder if I could animate the flame so that it looks like they're burning in real time."

A few days later, I got to the point where a burning model (Gorax Rager) charged in for an attack. That made me realize that fire animations are pointless if they don't move with the model in the video. 

"I wonder if I can make the animation follow the model it's on."

All of that wondering led to hours of playing around with the software, looking things up on YouTube or blogs, and tweaking what I'd found to fit my needs. Creating each animation took quite a bit of time and it wasn't as easy as just copy / paste every time I needed fire on another model. This was due to the fact that models at different distances from the camera required the fire to be shrunk or enlarged to fit. It was due to the fact that moving those different models meant unique animations had to be done to track their motion. It was due to the fact that I'd have to crop out the animations at points where my hand got in the way of the fire as I was moving models or tokens around the table.

All of this was happening while I was trying to learn what keys do what in the software. I was trying to figure out how many seconds each section should be. How many seconds each transition should be. You get the idea.

This was the same with all the animations including dice rolls, fog, fire, spell effects, and more. All of that increased the time it took to make it due to having to stop and figure out how to make whatever new animation I needed or to have to replicate a previous animation for a different model / camera angle / distance.

What you see in the video is the culmination of the original idea I had along with a bunch of things that came to me as I was making it. New ideas that added to that vision, but all of that slowed down the initial process.

As I wrapped up the final editing, it hit me that I could make separate small videos for all of my special effects. These small videos would have all the steps built into them. In some cases upwards of 40-50 actions needed just to make a simple animation. Then, in future videos, I can just import them, make a few small adjustments if needed, and be off to the races. Going from 40-50 actions down to maybe 3-5 actions per animation.

HUGE time saver.

Wrapping It Up

While I recognize this video is a "throw away" in the grand scheme of things, I'm proud of it. It's not perfect, but it serves its purpose. I learned a lot. I proved that I can do it. It's motivated me to dive into making video batreps entirely & not continue my written batreps (the original plan was to do both).

I'm going to take a week or 2 to get all my rough notes together from this learning process. That will give me a solid plan going forward so that my future videos will be better quality & be made in less time.

My plan after that is to get at least 2 videos completed before I start uploading them again. I want to put up one video per month at a minimum and I want to give myself a small buffer of 1-2 videos done / ready to go to prevent any delays if family / work / etc cause any small delays down the road.