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Posted: 2/8/2010 6:56 PM
Post subject: Project: Commentaries to accompany all runs
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arkiandruski
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I really enjoy most of the commentaries added to the site, and if done correctly, they really serve to bolster a run, even if the run is rather straightforward. I think I would like to see more official commentaries. They would be a great way to introduce users to certain TAS tricks because the tricks are being explained as you see them on screen. Also, it may serve to make some of the odder runs more entertaining. Every run could benefit from a commentary (Yes, including King's Bounty) Some ideas for guidelines: - Assume this is the first run of the game they've seen. If it obsoletes a previous run, don't just talk about improvements. Cover some of the old tricks that were there since the first run. - Aim for being informative first, entertaining second. As a guideline I listened to Comicalflop's commentary for Banjo Kazooie, and I thought he skewed a little too far toward the entertaining side. Don't get me wrong, the commentary still made the run rather enjoyable, but I would have liked to hear more about what went into the run and the idiosyncratic aspects of the game. The commentary for Earthbound, I believe, had the right balance. - Commentaries should be of good quality, both in sound and style. Try to minimize artifacts in the sound file. It might help to make an outline before you start, so you know what points you will touch on and when. Make sure you can be understood at all times. Practice. Things to include (in order of importance) - Explanation of tricks and techniques used in the run, and why they are faster (Explain as they are being used) (If the run is a pure entertainment run, you don't need to explain why techniques are faster, obviously). - Explanation of game mechanics (this may be covered by the previous item) - History of the run - If some things are done in unconventional ways, maybe explain how they were originally supposed to be done. - Fun facts about the game - Sync points Authors have first dibs on their own runs. It is not required that an author do their own commentary though. I think etiquette for this should be people announce their intention to do a commentary. If the author then says they were planning on doing their own, the first person drops it. Does that work? By the way, I claim my own runs, and I may be doing Aria of Sorrow all souls unless Kriole wants to take that.
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Posted: 2/8/2010 8:50 PM
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Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
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Don't forget subtitles. Those can also be helpful, and they can be easier to create than voiceover tracks since you don't have to worry about your vocal presentation and can easily go back and edit things. Moreover, it's easy to include soft subtitles in the published encodes.
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Posted: 2/8/2010 8:52 PM
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arkiandruski
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Yes, I prefer audio commentaries, but subtitles are also quite acceptable.
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Posted: 2/8/2010 8:55 PM
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Comicalflop
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I think what you want in a commentary is different than my approach. It's true that I often go the way of entertainment/making fun of the game rather than technical explanations, because that's the formula that JXQ started, and also the formula from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (One of my favorite shows.) I don't think that we need to have commentaries on EVERYTHING. It just so happens that I like making humorous commentaries on longer runs, to make it more fun to watch due to the length. But rather than feeling the need to do a humorous commentary on every single run in existence, I'm just doing them on a few games that have long runs and that I think would be funny. If it's a game that I do know (OoT, Banjo Kazooie) then I'll try to add technical details. However, I never write anything beforehand, and do the entire commentary improvisational; so I've made mistakes. Like in OoT I tried describing the 'invisibile sword glitch' or I might make voice impressions of characters that just sound wrong, or I'll make a pop culture reference that is incorrect. Nobody's perfect. I don't think there should be guidelines. Just, if you want to do a technical commentary, go ahead, if you want to go entertainment like I do, go ahead. But not every run NEEDS one. I certainly encourage other people to make commentaries; even though funnyhair and I stayed up until 2:00 in the morning recording the Breath of Fire II commentary, it was a very fun 5 hours. For me, the spontaneity of the moment was more enjoyable than watching the run ahead of time, and making sure every technical detail is explained; because that information should be in the submission text. Now maybe there should be guidelines on how they're recorded. Certainly the dual commentary for Breath of Fire II has the mistake of sounds of the game included in the .mp3, which my other commentaries don't have (because in the others I watched the run on headphones, and in BoF2 my external mic picked up the game playing as we both sat and watched without headphones.) Perhaps some awesome encoder takes each commentary submission and splices it onto the published .avi/.MKV, in the same way as JXQ's commentary. But to say every run ont he sire needs a technical commentary is a little silly. I guarantee a lot of people would get bored having to make commentaries on every single run ever. But for some games, especially long runs, a humorous commentary makes the long experience of watching just that much more fun.
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Posted: 2/8/2010 9:08 PM
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funnyhair
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The problem I can see with this is people doing commentaries on other peoples runs, that they know nothing about. When Comicalflop and I made the commentary on BoF2, we did it as a joke, it was entirely improvised. Our idea was to make the 5 hours more enjoyable. We weren't making fun of the run, we held the highest respect to Janus and the difficulty of making that run. I watched Bubble Bobble alone, then I watched it with Tompa and Adelikat's commentary, which had a lot of moments where it was informative, but times where Adelikat was being funny. I think it should be a combination of the two. As some runs on this site are really short, Do we really need a commentary on a movie that takes three minutes to watch? That just seems pointless. And as Derakon said, whats wrong with subtitles? I have watched a few runs with subtitles and have found them enjoyable.
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Posted: 2/8/2010 9:16 PM
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adelikat
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The bubble bobble commentary was fun and I enjoyed the result. So I intend to do commentaries on future publications and possibly past publications of mine. I also have ideas on how to make them more informative (as well as entertaining). Also, I would definitely prefer commentaries from an author over commentaries from just anybody.
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Posted: 2/8/2010 9:22 PM
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Comicalflop
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Why? I would hope that all I've contributed to the site makes me more than just a somebody. Maybe the author doesn't have recording equipment, or doesn't want to make one, or doesn't feel skilled enough? OoT all-temples has 2 commentaries from different peoples linked in the movie description. I see no need to limit who can do what or what has priority. We all like doing different kinds of commentaries; perhaps whoever feels like doing one should just make one, have it linked in the description, and if people like it yay, if not oh well. And if there's a technical commentary on a run cool, if there's an entertainment run cool as well. That's what I've been doing anyways, just whatever I fancy doing. Just like making TASes, it's my free time, I'll do with it what I want, whether it's make a TAS of X game, or make a commentary of whatever style on Y game.
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Posted: 2/8/2010 9:25 PM
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arkiandruski
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Really, my goal here is to encourage more people to make commentaries. On the other side of things, I think commentaries can really be used to introduce new people to the ideas of TASing. Really, I think the biggest requirement for the commentary is that the person making it has a lot of knowledge about the run and the game going into the commentary. I still think the fun commentaries are fun, but I was thinking we could really make this a useful feature of the site. That's also the reason I said authors would have first dibs, since they are the ones who know most about the particular run. Second dibs would be people who have put work into TASing the game. For example, even though CpAdolf doesn't have the current any% run of Super Metroid, he could probably make a pretty good commentary for Taco and Kriole's run. He wouldn't be able to go into the details of decision-making, entertainment and discovery, but he would be able to explain it very well. Also, no offense to JXQ, I still think he's a great guy and respect him a lot, but I didn't like his commentary for Oot. He admitted in the beginning that he knew very little. It was obviously the first time he had watched the run all the way through, and half way through he got bored and left the microphone. Imagine someone who didn't have the same sense of humor as JXQ watching it. They would get nothing from it. So anyways, what I'm trying to do is put the idea in people's heads and really seeing if we can get a lot of quality commentaries (or subtitles) on the site. Usually, even if you have an idea that will take a lot of work, there will be people who are willing to do the work to get it done, especially if they think it's a good idea. (Again, look to Earthbound's commentary as a good example. I also think that Comicalflop's commentary of Banjo Kazooie serves this purpose rather well, too. I haven't listened to his other commentaries because I haven't watched the runs yet).
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Posted: 2/8/2010 9:42 PM
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Warp
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About audio vs. subtitle commentaries, note that: - Many people whose native language is not English can understand written English much better than spoken English, especially if the person speaking has a heavy accent (which is not uncommon, especially if the speaker is also not a native speaker). - The same is true on the other direction as well. The author of the run is usually the person who is most suitable to making a commentary on it, but most people whose native language is not English are often more fluent at writing it than speaking it, so a written commentary would be much easier. (And even if someone would be fluent at speaking English, it might still be easier to just write a commentary rather than speak it.) - If the commentary is in subtitle form, the video can be paused in order to read the text at one's own pace. This means more info can be included in short segments. This isn't so for audio commentaries.
Posted: 2/8/2010 9:49 PM
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Nach
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Derakon wrote:
Don't forget subtitles. Those can also be helpful, and they can be easier to create than voiceover tracks since you don't have to worry about your vocal presentation and can easily go back and edit things. Moreover, it's easy to include soft subtitles in the published encodes.
Also, our site code now supports playback subtitles for online streaming from archive.org, and being able to turn it on and off.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 2/8/2010 9:51 PM
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adelikat
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I think he means the subtitles that can be embedded directly in .fm2 files. But yeah, those get translated into soft subs by the publishers and thus can be on the streaming media as well. Also the subtitle feature of .fm2 was far more of a success than I anticipated it would be when coding the feature. In the near future I hope to add it to the .fm2 clone movie formats as well (.mc2, .ymv, and .dsm). I would like to see the idea of author commentary (whether in the form of subtitles or commentary videos) be a much common feature of the site.
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Posted: 2/9/2010 2:52 AM
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adelikat
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Comicalflop wrote:
Why? I would hope that all I've contributed to the site makes me more than just a somebody. Maybe the author doesn't have recording equipment, or doesn't want to make one, or doesn't feel skilled enough? OoT all-temples has 2 commentaries from different peoples linked in the movie description. I see no need to limit who can do what or what has priority. We all like doing different kinds of commentaries; perhaps whoever feels like doing one should just make one, have it linked in the description, and if people like it yay, if not oh well. And if there's a technical commentary on a run cool, if there's an entertainment run cool as well. That's what I've been doing anyways, just whatever I fancy doing. Just like making TASes, it's my free time, I'll do with it what I want, whether it's make a TAS of X game, or make a commentary of whatever style on Y game.
Woah, chill out dude. I didn't say I wanted to keep anyone from doing commentaries. I'm just saying, for me, I would prefer to listen to author's do commentary on their runs. Someone else, even you, doesn't interest me personally as much. No offense, just personal taste.
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Posted: 2/9/2010 5:14 AM
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CtrlAltDestroy
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I think commentary/subtitles skewed to the entertaining side are better than those on the informative side, simply because it should be common practice here on TASvideos to put everything the viewer would want to know about the run, including stage-by-stage commentary, into the submission text. Doing a strictly technical commentary would just be taking these submission notes and reading them out loud. And for those watching on other sites, they are always encouraged to "see tasvideos.org for more information" and look at the submission notes.
Posted: 2/9/2010 5:44 AM
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WebNations
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 33
i have to agree to warp. my native language is german and spoken english is pretty hard to understand in some cases. subtitles are way easier to understand and way faster to follow than spoken words. in addition i do not think that there are many people who will add audio commentaries if their own native language is not english. for these people it will be way easier to add subtitles. i often watch movies from mega man i.e. because of the music. =) spoken commentaries would decrease the entertainment because subtitles would be more passive.
Posted: 2/9/2010 7:40 AM
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arkiandruski
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This would be to cater to people who like different ways of watching. For people who like the submission text, it's still there, but for me personally, I have trouble connecting what's said in the submission text to what happens in the run. I can read it beforehand and not understand anything that's said, or read afterward and still not understand anything that's said because I don't know what they are referring to. No matter how well they make the submission text, I still would prefer it if there were an immediate explanation to what's happening in the run which I can hear (or see) while it's happening.
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Posted: 2/9/2010 12:30 PM
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djchilxxn
Joined: 11/9/2008
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if what nach said is true, end of conversation. people who enjoy "funny" audio commentaries can make them and make them available people who enjoy technical commmentaries can read them and people who don't care can turn them off. personally 99% of the time i am not into humorously inclined commentaries, but i see no reason they shouldn't be made available. also i typically love reading technical subtitles, and learning that they are optional makes them even more useful, because of course once you know what the subtitles say you can just turn them off. for the sake of science, i have to agree with the majority that subtitles are more useful when it comes to informative commentary that audio. plus what if you like to bump the music an sfx LOUD?
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Posted: 2/9/2010 12:33 PM
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Bisqwit
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This gives me an idea for a submission of mine that should be ready in a month or two. I probably won't have time to do it anyway, so I'll give this idea to someone who wants it: Do a "funny" audio commentary which is exclusively in Mr. Bean style "speech", and submit it on April 1st. That said, I await to see the first commentary of a movie made in the mother tongue of a deaf person. By which I mean the sign language.
Posted: 2/11/2010 12:54 AM
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Healblade
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Which?
Posted: 2/11/2010 5:56 PM
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ventuz
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Healblade wrote:
Which?
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Posted: 2/12/2010 3:23 PM
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Baxter
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CtrlAltDestroy wrote:
I think commentary/subtitles skewed to the entertaining side are better than those on the informative side, simply because it should be common practice here on TASvideos to put everything the viewer would want to know about the run, including stage-by-stage commentary, into the submission text. Doing a strictly technical commentary would just be taking these submission notes and reading them out loud. And for those watching on other sites, they are always encouraged to "see tasvideos.org for more information" and look at the submission notes.
While this might be true, look at the populairity of for instance gametrailers.com. Everything they say in their movies could just have been put in a written review, but it's so much nicer to actually see what the person is talking about. I (would) enjoy an informative commentary so much more, even if the same information can be found in the submission text. Since I like informative ones much better than the ones trying to be funny, it's indeed probably the best if the author is willing to do it. I also think frame advance (and maybe rerecords) should be used in the commentary, to explain exactly what is done in some cases, and to have enough time to explain some very action packed sequences. The best audio commentary I've heard sofar was this one.
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Posted: 2/12/2010 10:48 PM
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arkiandruski
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Thank you for the support, Baxter, and also for the files. I'm watching the run right now and the commentary is very good. As promised, I've completed one of my own commentaries. You can find it here. This is my first commentary for anything and it may show a bit. Let me know what you think.
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Posted: 2/12/2010 10:54 PM
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alden
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Baxter wrote:
I also think frame advance (and maybe rerecords) should be used in the commentary, to explain exactly what is done in some cases, and to have enough time to explain some very action packed sequences.
I was thinking about this when I was considering doing a commentary on my one, boring movie. What would be the best way to do this though? For subtitled one I could write a lua script that controls it, but what if I wanted an avi with talking commentary?
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Posted: 2/13/2010 5:38 AM
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Kumquat
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I added annotations to my Tails' Sky Patrol video on YouTube. (I think I may have added a few too many...) How do I make subtitles that can be used with the videos downloaded from this site?
Posted: 2/13/2010 11:02 AM
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Mukki
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That was a very interesting commentary, arkiandruski, thanks for doing it. I agree that technical commentaries are by far the most interesting and I would also love to see more runs with author commentaries. It was great to have you point out several of the nice little gems that you put into your run that I missed on first viewing.
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Posted: 2/13/2010 1:47 PM
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Warp
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Kumquat wrote:
How do I make subtitles that can be used with the videos downloaded from this site?
I'm not an encoder, so you should take this with a grain of salt. If you want to create soft subtitles which can then be embedded into the video file, the two most popular formats are, AFAIK, SRT and SubStation Alpha (the former being a very simplistic format with only rudimentary features, while the latter is very advanced with tons of features, and hence becoming very popular with the fansubbing community). If you create such a file you can make most media players use it alongside the video file, but it's also possible to embed the file into the video file as well (in which case players will automatically give the option to use it).
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