I'll start with the big stuff and work my way down to the smaller stuff.
What music is being played? Where can I download it?
The music is all legally licensed through a production music distribution website. In order:
Invictus by Leon Butler
Codename Ares by Dynamedion
Forward Gladiators by Dynamedion
The Conspiracy by Dynamedion
Science Fiction by Dynamedion
Heroic by Dynamedion
Because of how licensing works for production music, these will cost you about $30 USD per song. For those who may be pursuing a similar project, I use neosounds.com, stockmusic.com, and royaltyfreemusic.com.
What software are you using?
World of Warcraft, Fraps, and Adobe Premiere Elements. I used zero outside software to complete this project. Almost all motion control was handled exclusively in Adobe Premiere Elements, not World of Warcraft.
What kind of hardware are you running?
As it pertains to this project:
Nvidia GTX 285
I7 Nehalem 920
12gb DDR3
64gb Solid State Drive (runs World of Warcraft and Vista 64-bit exclusively)
300gb Velociraptor (records movies from World of Warcraft)
1tb Western Digital (file storage and recording)
What was entailed in this project?
About 50 hours of pure editing time, in addition to many hours of sifting through music tracks and planning shots. I worked with over 400 clips to put this together. The movie was recorded on raid time, so aside from our 20-man becoming a 19-man for the night, the bulk of this movie didn't take additional recording time (the exception being the solo traveling shots).
The movie cost about $300 USD in total for all licenses, as I purchased a license for the font in the title as well (Zapfino Linotype). I've always been in love w/ the font so it was worth it.
Here's how the project looked when all was said and done:
Were there any software or hardware issues?
Absolutely. Adobe Premiere was crashing once every half hour or so, and my 1tb drive carrying the lion's share of clips was making sad sounds. My ability to sleep soundly was not doing so hot. My next hardware purchases are external hard drives for backup so I don't have to be as nervous come Ulduar.
Why didn't you name this Heroic: Glory of the Raider?
It looked dumb.
Why didn't you make this 30 minutes?
Because I get bored out of my mind watching 30 minute movies. Because I couldn't afford it. Because my computer would asplode. If you enjoyed this, add in our eventual 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 movies and you'll get your wish.
Why are some bosses shown so briefly? Why so few death shots?
The movie aimed to show, at least briefly, every raid encounter that we've covered on Project Marmot. It was meant to be cinematic rather than comprehensive, and I couldn't realistically give equal time to bosses 1-13 and have bosses 14-17, which are way more exciting, get their due respect.
For the same reason, I didn't aim to do many death shots. Most movies focus on the death animation, but there was no way to keep pace on most of the awesome bosses w/ their actual death animation without completely going overboard on slow-motion effects. For instance, Kel'thuzad takes a grand total of 2 seconds to die and drop his phylactery, and Malygos disappears about 20 yards below you with a hungry look on his face.
When did Alextrasza say those words?
That is, word for word, the mail we received after achieving Heroic: Glory of the Raider. It seemed epic enough.
Is that a Blood Elf?
Yes. Our female Dwarves are ashamed of their natural appearances. As they should be. (This is one of the very few things I chose not to edit out, it just didn't bother me)
Who's talking before Razuvious?
That's the voice of Baron Rivendare. I went through a lengthy debate with myself on whether to use that, but decided it made the most overall sense to foreshadow the Four Horsemen for people who know the encounter but also wouldn't bother people who didn't know the voices and assumed it was Razuvious. I would have used more Zeliek but I felt the two voice clips I used for Zeliek fit better without overcomplicating it.
Is that a feral Dwarf?
If you spotted it the strange tank swap, yes, it's a feral Dwarf and that's quite normal for them.
Why a land mount?
As you'll be able to tell at a glance from the ending of the movie, flying mounts have enormous animation and latency issues. Land mounts no longer seem to have these issues (though they did back in 2005, which was the last time I made a cinematic movie). Flying mounts also have extremely limited draw ranges that are less of an issue with land mounts due to their slower speeds.
In other words, the small thread of movement throughout the movie, I used what was cinematically best at any given time. I made it logical as to location and consistency, but it's just a natural limit to the WoW engine.
Did an object disappear or appear unexpectedly?
Yes, in a few shots there are objects that pop in or out of view. I carefully edited out the obvious ones that were in the natural focus of the clip, but because WoW's engine is designed for performance rather than moviemaking, those kinds of things are going to be present in too many places to completely root out.
Anub'Rekhan wasn't capitalized correctly?
I made a judgment call on this. Anub'rekhan has spellings with and without a capital "R," but all recent spellings, as well as the spelling of Anub'arak, are lower case. Fortunately Trajan is an all-caps font so it really doesn't matter.
Are you in this movie?
Because of an unexpected hiccup in the raid, I learned quickly that I could tank without an interface! Check me out on the Kel'Thuzad adds.
Holy !@#$
That was C'thun.
Glory of the Raider - Cinematic Movie
