Community Created Videos

We are getting a constant stream of community created videos into video@eve-online.com.

This is of course excellent and I thank you for all the material. We have been sent so much, that we can't list it all, it is just too much. Because of this I want to suggest some guidelines regarding direction/editing of EVE videos.

1. Longer is not better
   This applies doubly to cuts, if you look at music videos or advertisements you notice just how short the cuts are we have grown accustomed to. This applies to total video length also, longer clips soon start to repeat themselves unless they have a big story to tell.

2. Try to tell a story
   Even though it is obvious to you what is happening in the video it is not always so to the rest of the world. Story driven text overlays or silent movie style text billboards between cuts work wonders for telling a story. Voiceover (movie trailer style) also achieves this but is of course difficult to produce.

3. Matching visual events to aural
   Matching cuts, explosions, impact, etc. to the beat or events in the sound track is a power full way to grab the audience attention

4. Fleet battles
   It is always interesting to me to see large fleet battles, as that is EVE's end game and we are constantly striving to improve support for them. Fleet battles, specially the long-wide-shot-from-a-far, kinda all look the same after having seen a lot of them.
   If you watch movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, LOTR, etc. there is little time spend on wide battle overview shots, the focus is much more on the personal aspect, the hero, the villain and how they do in the combat.
   There are heroes and villains in large fleet combat and they are famous in the EVE world, following them through out the battle and explaining with role-played text/voice what they are doing does wonders for the clip.

This is just what I have observed when watching at the submissions. I of course have no special experience/education in movie making, so take this with a grain of salt. If you have more golden rules of movie making, please post them as comments.
We have also received submissions that are excellent regardless of adhering to any "rules of movie making" so conforming is not always the way to success..