I was recently in a discussion between my friends and I on the status of current fan films on Youtube and other video sites and we ended up agreeing on one simple fact:
What people seem to do is take much from the source material and try to do too much with too little.
What I mean by source material is short films such as "Halo: Faith"; set within the Battle of Reach, a story that was already covered, looks terrible. The video falls in the "too much with too little" category in which the short film tries to do way more than they are allowed to with the budget that they have. Now the other Halo film in the works "Halo: Helljumper" which is set around the ODSTs on a remote colony and is a more character based study than Halo Faith, looks far superior.
Knowing what you can and can't do with your budget is crucial and by not delving into the main storyline as much as possible, you are allowed to do almost anything you want as long as you don't use any real characters by mistake. The Mass Effect short film "Mass Effect: Assignment" sort of went this route but ended up not working as well. They base the main characters off the N7 group that Shepard is in, instead of giving them a more original background and spent their money all on suits and ended up making horrible looking enemy armor with one wearing jeans and a watch. Once again, they fall back on relying on the main character to have fans recognize that it is a Mass Effect short film.
I wanted to know what you guys thought about the status of Video game fan films as of this moment: Do you think they can be done well if they stay away from the main storyline and simply use aspects from the universe or should they use recognizable items/characters to attract more viewers?
What people seem to do is take much from the source material and try to do too much with too little.
What I mean by source material is short films such as "Halo: Faith"; set within the Battle of Reach, a story that was already covered, looks terrible. The video falls in the "too much with too little" category in which the short film tries to do way more than they are allowed to with the budget that they have. Now the other Halo film in the works "Halo: Helljumper" which is set around the ODSTs on a remote colony and is a more character based study than Halo Faith, looks far superior.
Knowing what you can and can't do with your budget is crucial and by not delving into the main storyline as much as possible, you are allowed to do almost anything you want as long as you don't use any real characters by mistake. The Mass Effect short film "Mass Effect: Assignment" sort of went this route but ended up not working as well. They base the main characters off the N7 group that Shepard is in, instead of giving them a more original background and spent their money all on suits and ended up making horrible looking enemy armor with one wearing jeans and a watch. Once again, they fall back on relying on the main character to have fans recognize that it is a Mass Effect short film.
I wanted to know what you guys thought about the status of Video game fan films as of this moment: Do you think they can be done well if they stay away from the main storyline and simply use aspects from the universe or should they use recognizable items/characters to attract more viewers?
