On one hand, this video really could have been finished in the span of the week, which is the ideal for a quick, twelve-minute recommendation video. On the other hand, two complications cropped up: the first one has me feeling like a bit of a fool.
Towards the four-minute mark, I mention several combat capabilities that I barely used. I used them so rarely that scrubbing for footage was going to take excruciatingly long just to find those abilities in action. As such, I tried to find ways to scrub through faster and more efficiently, only to realize too late I could just boot up the game, load an end-game save, and demonstrate the moves in one simple, short clip. I need to start considering these things more during the video editing process, especially while scripting.
However, while having to deal with heavy scrubbing is enough to kill my motivation to push through editing, the real problem was more personal. A lot of drama at my Church, a very important place to me, and so I have found myself quite depressed and struggling to work on things. However, I managed to finish, and have proven to myself the Ramble Recommends concept can work.
The Darksiders 3 video is finally complete after unfortunate delay. I am actually surprised it is nearly an hour long, and perhaps with a bit more time put into examining the level-design and each Sin’s region, it could have been as lengthy as the video for the original Darksiders. I’m glad I did not choose to make it so long, however.
I will be honest and confess to being unsatisfied with this video. While I had chosen to perform some experiments, they only made a minor impact on how I felt during the video’s creation and editing process. I won’t share my own personal critiques of my work, but needless to say, there are multiple points where it feels like a shoddy and rushed product despite the time taken.
Nonetheless, I am always my own worst critic, and I still feel like this video can stand on its own as my personal reasoning for why I enjoy Darksiders 3 despite each of its flaws. For that reason, I would not change much. Additionally, the lessons learned while producing this video were incredibly valuable, and were perhaps a very, very long-time coming.
It may seem unusual to apologize for how long it took to get this video out. After all, it’s only April and I’ve already released three videos this year. The last time I even released three videos in a year total was 2019. My track-record since December has generally been pretty good, and has the potential to be my best ever.
While I am glad to have maintained a positive rate of video production thus far, the Evil West analysis would have been available earlier were it not for an unfortunate case of strep throat, the sudden onslaught of depression for about a week or two, and the frustratingly timed food poisoning I suffered. Regardless of these setbacks, the greatest trial was having to edit footage for a game’s combat analysis for the first time since last year’s Darksiders critique. Such editing is a bitterly tiresome, time-consuming task, often requiring lengthy stretches of scrubbing different video clips for the particular instances of gameplay I need. The most common feedback I get regarding this struggle is to simply write down when these things happen, yet the intensity of the moment prevents me from writing down or making note of such specific mechanics. Simultaneously, I do not always know what specific moments I’ll need until I’m far into the game, or on one of my drafts of the script.
Honestly, I cannot say I am entirely satisfied with this video, but that is nothing new. It has been a year since I last completed an analysis of this sort, and even that was after being rusty for some time. Really, however, it was a matter of “rushing” the script at points, something I hope not to do with the next project.
Speaking of, I do not know how long the wait for the next deep dive will be. The script writing process has proven a challenge, but a welcome one. I plan to have an interim video, a bit of an experiment that won’t require any video game capture, but certainly will require video editing. I hope to release that video by mid-May, and for the next deep-dive to be posted some time in June.
Before I leave you, though, I wanted to share a few more thoughts on Evil West that could not fit into the video.
I had sung the praises quite vocally and publicly of the Super Mario Bros. movie when it released in theaters last year. I acknowledged it was imperfect, sure, but I didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on this imperfections. I instead emphasized and even exaggerated the good qualities, decrying critics for either being out of touch or simply too biased in their tastes.
However, going back to its home video release, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something lacking. I often have podcasts or movies playing in the background while I complete work tasks, but some movies just do not carry as strongly when you lose the ability to focus on the visual element. When a film can only be carried by its script, you start to realize just how lacking that script may be.
Such was the case with the Super Mario Bros. movie. A lot of that joy was gone once the visual element was taken away.
The second part of the year in review is now done! I apologize for the delay, as things were busy not only during December, but throughout much of January as well. I also got sick during the holiday break, preventing me from being able to record the necessary audio to even begin video editing.
However, I managed to push through and beat the latest deadline I made for myself: end of January.
I’ve gotta say, working on these two videos back-to-back with a deadline on each was quite the learning experience. At the very least, I am far more comfortable working in Adobe Premiere Elements now, enough so that I am surprised it took me so long to make the jump. I was very attached to my process with Windows Movie Maker 6, but it was clear that it was time to move on to something more modern and far more capable. Premiere Elements still doesn’t have the full suite of options most content creators are utilizing, but it certainly allows for more control over what I can do in a video and how I can integrate sound than before.
However, I’ve been learning a lot of other lessons working on these.
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