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I am considering starting to make video battle reports, but before I do I would like to get some feedback from people who actually watch battle reports.

What are specific things you like to see or like to hear when watching a battle report? Do you want to see every dice roll? Do you want to hear why a person moved a unit to a specific location? Do you want a run-down of every unit before the actual game starts? Is a wide variety of terrain important to you?

Conversely, what are specific things you do not like to see or hear when watching a battle report? What are things that put you off of a channel when you see or hear it in their report?

I would be greatly interested in any feedback you might have. Thank you!

My optimal format is something like this

Matchup Announcement
Fast List Rundown
Skip to the end of deployment
Mention briefly the mission at hand
Show the roll to seize/declare who is going first
Skip movement phase to end of the phase, give a short summary.
Show all the phases P/S/A show just the rolls.
End of turn summary
Repeat for the other player.
End of Round Summary.

Rinse and Repeat.

One of my pet peeves is overly long winded descriptions of lists, highlighting every minute piece of wargear.
Dont care, we'll get the gist either way.

And definitely dont need to see every dice roll zzzzz

Generally speaking:

Short list rundown, maybe with brief discussion about why the players chose what they did.
Deployment overview
Skip to end of movement - we don't need to see every model moved, just a good overview of the board state at the end
Showing important dice rolls can be good, but I'm not a fan of battle reports that show every single dice roll. If you do want to show them all, consider having a separate dice box with its own camera to make actually seeing the dice easy.
Summarise end of turn and battle round, including a visual summary of scoring.
Invest in a tripod and good lighting! Shaky cam is really hard to watch for more than a few minutes at a time and nobody likes a video that they can't see.

Good luck with your batreps!

Slipspace wrote:
Generally speaking:

Short list rundown, maybe with brief discussion about why the players chose what they did.
Deployment overview
Skip to end of movement - we don't need to see every model moved, just a good overview of the board state at the end
Showing important dice rolls can be good, but I'm not a fan of battle reports that show every single dice roll. If you do want to show them all, consider having a separate dice box with its own camera to make actually seeing the dice easy.
Summarise end of turn and battle round, including a visual summary of scoring.
Invest in a tripod and good lighting! Shaky cam is really hard to watch for more than a few minutes at a time and nobody likes a video that they can't see.

Good luck with your batreps!

So you prefer a fixed position camera over free hand? Interesting. We've had quite the opposite feedback for our Battle Reports.

I wonder wow many people share your opinion?

In addition, if fixed position camera is to be used to record a batrep, what would be the ideal angle for it? Overhead (bid's eye view), or off to the side?

Cheers,

Thoth (of Battle-Report.com)

I much prefer free-hand cam myself XV_Thoth. And I also enjoy your reports.

XV_Thoth wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
Generally speaking:

Short list rundown, maybe with brief discussion about why the players chose what they did.
Deployment overview
Skip to end of movement - we don't need to see every model moved, just a good overview of the board state at the end
Showing important dice rolls can be good, but I'm not a fan of battle reports that show every single dice roll. If you do want to show them all, consider having a separate dice box with its own camera to make actually seeing the dice easy.
Summarise end of turn and battle round, including a visual summary of scoring.
Invest in a tripod and good lighting! Shaky cam is really hard to watch for more than a few minutes at a time and nobody likes a video that they can't see.

Good luck with your batreps!

So you prefer a fixed position camera over free hand? Interesting. We've had quite the opposite feedback for our Battle Reports.

I wonder wow many people share your opinion?

In addition, if fixed position camera is to be used to record a batrep, what would be the ideal angle for it? Overhead (bid's eye view), or off to the side?

Cheers,

Thoth (of Battle-Report.com)

Honestly, it depends on the camera and the person using it. I prefer a couple of fixed positions, but I don't have a problem with hand-held in principle, just with certain uses of it. For example, when it's zoomed-in to one point on the battlefield so all you can see is about 1 square foot of table and it's juddering about all over the place I'm not going to make it more than 5 minutes into your batrep. If it's from a fairly zoomed-out angle and held pretty steady it's probably OK. If it were to be fixed, something off the side rather than birds-eye would be better - 40k and AoS don't really work well with an overhead perspective as it's too difficult to tell the units apart.

Like everyone, I prefer pictures and map Battle Reports.

Things I dislike:

1) Wobbly camera syndrome. It's very distracting to try watching a video when the camera is shaking and wobbling, even more so if its wobbling in and out and not just side to side as the person holds it.
This doesn't mean it always has to be on a tripod, but it means most of it probably should be. IF the camera doesn't need to move around stick it on the tripod. It helps to focus the view for the viewer and also means that the operator can make sure focus, exposure etc... are all done well.

2) Getting too close. Yes you might have a macro lens on the camera, but if you don't focus it properly all those super close up shots do is show the viewer a really blurry blob of nothing as the camera fails to focus in those few moments that aren't checked.

3) Overhead views - the problem - Overhead sounds nice in theory, but in practice if you're viewing the whole board overhead chances are individual units get pretty tiny on the average home screen, esp if the person is viewing in youtube sized video slot and not blowing it up to fullscreen.

4) Other gamers talking. I'm aware some games are recorded at the local club; even so make the audio clear. Honestly many times its better to record the game and audio separate from each other and provide a background music and narration over the top of the video of the game. This lets you record your voice clearly and without distraction. It also cuts out a lot of the "umm and harr" and dithering whilst also meaning that the viewer can focus on the game.
Hearing half the game room echoing in the background; getting that opponent who mumbles when they talk; bad microphones that don't pick up well etc... It's all very very distracting.

Ideas/liked things

1) Overhead. Break out photos. Yes a video doesn't have to be all video content. You can easily show a photo of the end phase of each turn (and the start of the game); upon which you can draw blobs to highlight certain units on the table as you talk about them and also show arrows or such. Imagine how many history shows display battles and you get the idea. The concept here is not showing the models, but a quick summary of the action and where things are in relation to each other come the end of the game.

2) Dice - show the dice rolls. A dice tray to roll into with a little camera above so that the viewer can see the dice tumble and then a few moments to see the results for themselves. In a game where dice are key a corner of the view showing each roll as it happens is a nice addition.




Overalll making a good video is going to take time; the game has to played to the video's needs. You might have to re-record some bits; you might try a few different angles and don't be afraid to experiment and find what works for you.

Get the rules right, yep things can get overlooked in game but try to flag any flubs in edit

Try to not run over 90 mins

Like Over said consider doing the audio after the game

Try not to shill too hard, you might get less freebys but some channels are total boot lickers

A lot of this (the orange are my edits of iGuy's text):

 iGuy91 wrote:
My optimal format is something like this

Matchup Announcement
Fast List Rundown like a simple scrolling text
Skip to the end of deployment
Mention briefly the mission at hand
Show the roll to seize/declare who is going first
Skip movement phase to end ...
(delete)
... End of turn summary
Repeat for the other player.
End of Round Summary.

Rinse and Repeat.

Camera angles:
a. An overhead is cool, but not necessary. Further, I like when FrontLineGaming has the player comment on how the turn went overall while there is speeded up action (requires a green-screen & ssoftware, I think). 'Course a voice over is just fine ... no need to see the dude.

b. I really dislike handhelds that zoom in and out on models and dice. Motion sickness occurs. Instead, a steady hand, with the other hand pointing out models & important locations or such is very suitable. Slow panning from a wide angle is nice. Cell phone cameras? Nope. Uh-uh. Too narrow a field of view.

c. I like slide show batreps, too. Currently, dakka poster Twilight Pathways is my favorite, because of a shorter format, less than 20 minutes, if that. While humorous, the software voice speaks well without constant, "Ums," and "So, then *this* happened" a, "So," again and other dialogue that shows that some folks aren't suited to be good at a speaking format.

Clearly, poster Twightlight Pathways is typing up the report and feeding it into that voice program. Which addresses good sound delivery/recording.

Other considerations:
I bet a majority of players verdant green & tan game mats show off armies better. Stark bright or color opposite of the mats objective markers are better, too.