Let’s Make a Let’s Play video

In the last post, I went into a brief history of “Let’s Play” videos and why I find them enjoyable.  In this post, I’ll go into how I create them, step by step.

Step 1:  Choosing a Video Game

First, Dragon Maiden and I choose a video game that we would like play and make entertaining commentary about.  So far we have a list of games that we want to eventually make Let’s Plays about.  For our first couple of games, we’re going to be playing Super Mario All Stars which is a collection of the Super Mario Bros games.  We’re starting out with this game because we’re both familiar with it, its fun to play, and there’s stuff to discuss about it.  Plus by time we’re done with the game, we would have ironed out the kinks of creating Let’s Play videos and be comfortable enough to branch out into other games.

Step 2: Setting up a screen recording program

A screen recording program is a program that records video footage of whatever is currently on your computer screen.  Having one is essential because we’ll be playing the video game on the computer.  Currently, I use a program called “BB Flashback Recorder”.  The free version has all the base features I need to reliably record video footage.

The welcome screen for BB FlashBack Express Recorder

Step 3: Downloading the video game ROM and console emulator

In order to play certain video games on the computer,  you’ll need a program called an emulator.  An emulator is a computer program that emulates, or mimics, a video game console, like the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation, etc.  Once you have the emulator for the console of your choice, then you need to download the ROM of the video game you want.  A ROM is a file that contains the code of the video game, that the emulator program can read and play.

Step 4: Play the video game on the emulator, while recording yourself with the screen recorder.

I set up the emulator, start the video game, and then play it until the point where I want to start recording.  From there I pause the game, and use the screen recorder to start recording the emulator.  Then I unpause the game and continue playing until I’m done recording.  When I’m done recording, I stop the screen recorder and save the footage.

Using BB FlashBack Recorder (the tiny icons in the upper right hand corner) to record playing a video game off of ZSNES, a Super Nintendo Emulator

Step 5: Record the audio commentary

Once I have the footage saved, I replay the footage in a regular media player, like Windows Media Player.  But while I’m replaying the footage, Dragon Maiden and I are also talking into a microphone and recording my voice over commentary.  I use another computer program, named “Audacity”, to record this audio.  Audacity is an audio recorder and editor, that lots of musicians, podcasters, and audiophiles use to edit their music/audio files.  Its pretty powerful, but I use it for the simple purpose of recording my commentary.  Once we’re done talking, I save the audio as an mp3 file.

The main screen of Audacity, the audio recorder/editor I use

Step 6: Putting the video and audio commentary together into one file

After the commentary is done, I use Windows Movie Maker to combine the video and audio into one playable file.  Windows Movie Maker is a simple video editor, that comes bundled in most Windows Operating Systems.  It works perfectly for what I need it for now, which is trimming the video file so all the useless footage is cut out, and adding the commentary audio track to the video footage.  But down the road, I want to upgrade to a more powerful video editor like Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere.  But for now, Movie Maker is good enough.

The main screen for Windows Movie Maker

Step 7: Uploading the combined file onto YouTube, so that others can watch and enjoy it.

Once I’m done using Movie Maker, that’s it….I finished the editing the Let’s Play video.  I save the video into a file type that YouTube will accept, such as a WMV file.  Afterwards, I upload the file onto YouTube, which takes FOREVER to do (one 15 minute file takes around 30 minutes).  Once YouTube accepts the file, I’m done with the whole process.  Now people can watch Frozen Diamond Dragon and the Chimeric Muse playing video games 🙂

A screenshot of YouTube uploading a file

So that’s how I create a Let’s Play video.  Check out our YouTube channel here and I hope you enjoy our videos.

Dragon and the Muse Play Video Games

A few years ago, a guy on the SomethingAwful.com internet forums, named Slowbeef, came up with a bold yet simple idea.  To record video footage of himself playing video games, along with live audio commentary.  The idea of commentating video game playthroughs wasn’t new.  Beforehand, Something Awful was hosting discussion threads where people typed out commentary over screenshots of the game.  The internet forum named these type of threads “Let’s Play” topics.  But the idea of live video commentary of playing video games WAS new, and the “Let’s Play” name carried over to mean video game commentary video.

Slowbeef’s “Let’s Play” video idea spread like WILDFIRE.  It dominated Something Awful and it soon spread off that site like a virus.  Different communities and websites hosting “Let’s Play” videos began spreading up over the years, with the most prolific being on YouTube.

I’m not sure if this is the true history of “Let’s Play” videos, since I wasn’t there when it happened, but it sounds good to me.  I started watching Let’s Play videos (LPs I’ll call them from now on) a few years ago, and they are some of the most entertaining videos I’ve ever seen.  When done right, it’s an exciting experience watching someone else play a video game.  You get excited at their triumphs in the game.  You laugh at their hilarious mistakes.  You learn more about the video game you’re watching.  Plus if the person you’re watching is especially funny and interesting, the experience is like watching one of your friends play video games.

After a few years of watching LPs, I began to think that maybe I can create a Let’s Play video too.  So with my new Asus computer, I started  creating LPs.  There by my side is my partner in crime, Dragon Maiden (if you remember her from the Oshawott Pic I did earlier in the blog), who’s an even bigger fan of LPs than I am.  She does the voice over commentary with me.

Together we make up the “Frozen Diamond Dragon and the Chimeric Muse” LP team on YouTube:

Frozen Diamond Dragon and the Chimeric Muse Play Video Games

We started back on May 27th, and we only played Super Mario Bros 1 and we’re currently playing the US version of Super Mario Bros 2.  I hope you enjoy our videos.

Next post, I’ll go into how I go about creating the LP videos and the creativity that goes into making them.

Birthday Vow: Brainstorming Styles

Right now I’m still in the process of brainstorming a script together.  I’ve been working on it everyday, as I  definitely feeling the clock ticking as July 22 slowly creeps up.  I’m about halfway done with it now.  I was having some difficulty with it because I had to find a new brainstorming style.

Back when I did the Niece Web series, I used to be able to script a comic as I went along.  I would brainstorm, and write down the character notes, panel notes and dialogue all in one sitting.  Here’s a sample of my old brainstorming style that I used when I worked on a comic 6 years ago.  The comic I’m about to show you was a comic I worked on before Niece Web, called Trailblazers.  It was about a strong boy named Zoan (not shown), a fairy named Kaira and a magical girl of destruction named Trina.  They went on random adventures together.

My notes on a Trailblazers comic

I would sit down a script the comic as I brainstormed the ideas behind it.  In my notes, I was only concerned about dialogue.  The numbers in the margin was the panel number, and I wrote enough dialogue that could naturally fit into the panel.  This was my idea of story writing back then.

My thumbnail sketch of a Trailblazers Comic

After I finished the script, I would turn the page over and draw out a thumbnail sketch.  I took the dialogue and created the art around it.  When I did the thumbnail sketch, all I was concerned about was facial expressions, visual effects, camera angles and speech balloon placement.  Other stuff like body figures and background art, I figured out when I worked on the final artwork.

The finished Trailblazers comic

After the thumbnail sketch (it usually took one, and I was satisfied), I worked on the final artwork.  All the other visual details not addressed in the thumbnail sketch, I worked out along the way as I completed the final artwork.

Right now if I was to try to create a comic using my old brainstorming style, I would immediately run into writers block.  I think I figured out why.  Now when I brainstorm, I’m juggling a lot more topics in my head than just straight dialogue.  Topics such as characterization, visual details, plot, etc.  I find that I can’t start out with doing dialogue anymore.  I have to brainstorm other areas of the story first before I even begin to think about dialogue.

That’s where my current brainstorming style comes into play.  I sit down and write down everything that’s going through my mind about the story, in a stream of consciousness writing style.  For example, I need to figure out Spider’s motivation for doing a certain action….so I write down exactly that, and begin to write down every idea I have on that problem.  This brainstorming style has been very effective for me, and my ideas are flowing onto the page.  The only drawback to this brainstorming style is that it takes up more of my time to do.  Not only that, but now I have to script the comic separately from my notes, which…again…takes up time.  But its the best style I have going for me right now, and its getting results.

Drawing Course: Task 2 (Tone)

***This is a continuation of the lesson learned from the Drawing Course: Task 1 (Form) post***

Task 2: Tone. Draw an object with a single light source, then move the light source to a new position and redraw.

Masking Tape- Light Source 1

My sketch of the above masking tape

Masking Tape- Light Source 2

My Sketch of the other masking tape

How did I do?

Right off the back, I realized that the light sources didn’t create that much of a difference on the masking tape.  Instead of the shadows moving onto different areas of the masking tape, the shadows only got deeper.  I did switch the light sources (1st light source is a lamp on the right, and the second is the outside light coming from the left), but the subject itself doesn’t allow for too many differences in tone.  Maybe I should revisit this task?

I mentioned in past posts that I hate drawing circles.  So when doing these tasks I chose objects that help me to get out of my comfort zone.  So that’s what lead to me choosing masking tape for this task.  An object that requires you to draw a perfect circle.

This was another tough task for me to complete.  Personally I thought the masking tapes came out sucky.  You can see the wobbliness of the lines as I tried to draw the circles and was hesitating a lot.

The tone of the objects came out average, I suppose.  As I mentioned earlier, the shadows on the masking tape weren’t different enough to warrant a second sketch.  I effectively made the tones darker for the second sketch, which they were.

Yea, I anticipate me becoming neurotic as I go through this book and complete these tasks.  My inner critic is going to drive me insane, lol.