EPTBut yeah, for something so hyped up I kind of expected to see more of a diverse kind of film, showing a bit about how they actually train, how they live, a bit more insight into the team as a whole - instead it was just interviewes. So as I said, a cool treat for fans, but not much else. I think I'd rather just buy a T-shirt instead of paying for the film, because I believe they could have done a bit better.
"Liquid Rising" Documentary - Page 63
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Vodh
68 Posts
But yeah, for something so hyped up I kind of expected to see more of a diverse kind of film, showing a bit about how they actually train, how they live, a bit more insight into the team as a whole - instead it was just interviewes. So as I said, a cool treat for fans, but not much else. I think I'd rather just buy a T-shirt instead of paying for the film, because I believe they could have done a bit better. | ||
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GeNeSiDe
United Kingdom354 Posts
Although I was extremely impressed with the technical quality of the documentary(the director/editor is clearly very talented) I agree with others saying they weren't impressed with the actual content; I for the most part do not enjoy interviews and tend to just read transcripts because my reading/comprehension speed is too high for interviews and I get bored if nothing interesting is actually being discussed, aside from standardized questions and by the "say what I should say, not what I want to say" responses these tend to get. I think this documentary was full of these kind of questions; although I have no doubt that the TL team is indeed genuine but I have no interest in ever watching it again as the simple fact is that there was no "action", nothing happened, there was no unveiling of a greater truth(excuse me for an extreme exaggeration on what a documentary should do but that is the idea). It was literally 1:30 of TL players saying how nice and cool each other are, with a few interesting points like Tyler and Sheth's segment, where atleast we got to shed light on their past and their real personality. Why didn't the documentary entitled "Liquid Rising" talk more about how Liquid came to be rather than a brief 10-15 minute overview on it's players? I would have loved to see more information on how TL started, on Nazgul's, Ret & Tyler's histories in BW. 2 minute video of Artosis going to Courage with Ret? Why can't we get the full story of Ret's trip to Korea? Anyone who doesn't know Ret's history(which I'm sure a lot of newer TL members won't if they aren't avid Ret fans), or any of the other player's for that matter, would literally have no context on what this is. Although I did enjoy the watch-through because of how crisply it was put together, I did feel it was quite lacking enough interesting content such as a basic storyline(player goes to tournament, player gets battered/wins, following team around, showing everyday life, asking tough questions about the life of a progamer and how it affects them on a personal level), some action etc. I just thought I'd post up a link to one of my favorite paintball films "Cereal Killerz". Liquid Rising reminded me of it because of the way it dealt with the individual players, one spotlight on a time. "Cereal Killerz" was basically a documentary where they did shorts on about 10-11 different players, with a short interview montage followed by action footage. I must have watched it about 1000 times and seeing it is really what inspired me to reach the top of the professional world of paintball, which is what a Esports documentary needs to do. Here's a link to my favorite 6 minute segment Anyways, seeing as how this is the first real Esports documentary to have released, let's hope for better in the future! | ||
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Jornada
United States223 Posts
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Plethora
United States206 Posts
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PetitCrabe
Canada410 Posts
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nn42
Sweden18 Posts
To start, the targeted audience seems to have been the catastrophical 'everyone'. I can't show this to non-esports fans, I can't talk about it with anyone invested into the scene because every casual fan already know 90% of the content. They need to be more clear about who they adress. They also need to have a much clearer purpose in general in what they're trying to say or communicate to the audience. I'm still not sure what I even watched. If this was a first part of three documentaries from TL I'd be fine with it. But there was really no depth. So the format of having the entire TL team introduced through interviews isn't a good decision. All we get are stories to back up keywords about players. Ok we get Sheth is supernice, why have 10 people saying the exakt same thing over and over again. Just having players reading fluffed scripts about eachother doesn't really make for a good documentary. Another point of concern for me was Zenio and Taeja. In my eyes that was a really missed oportunity. Either take the chance to really introduce them and make people forget about the time where koreans were lesser known or just release the movie in time. Delaying just to put both their name into same intro and give them minimal exposure is taking the middle road. Next time (if there is any), focus on the storyline and what you're trying to tell to whom, the basics. Follow the team through one two or even three tournaments, have some ingame content and player reactions (just like Hero's). Or if you have the actuall fotage of when Jinro punches another wall. Skip the pure interview shallow fluff-script stuff and make a real documentary. Go watch HBO's 24/7 NHL Road to winter classics. Try and see what you can learn from various other sport documentaries. I was going into this thinking I'd surely pay $5 or more, but coming out of it. I just don't feel an effort. Except the nice graphics and equipment used of course. I really hope they try again so I can see what lessons they learned. | ||
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Moolicious
Netherlands1 Post
If you ever gonna make a v2 of it, please correct the small typo in the introduction: Novemeber -> November. :D | ||
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
On June 24 2012 23:22 ProxyKnoxy wrote: And what's your experience with film making and storytelling? i've written a few books (tho none have been published because im not done editing them), and i have taken a few film classes. besides that i am a film fanatic and have written about a thousand reviews (again nothing published because i don't care to try to get them published) i am working on a screenplay and have a few others in the works also. They certainly didn't tell a story in this documentary, even though the title 'Liquid Rising' seemed to suggest that it was going to follow a chronological order with tournament wins etc on the way. mmm.. i disagree. Liquid Rising doesn't imply a run of tournaments to me, but rather the idea of a team coming from the ground up and maybe going further. besides i would have really been annoyed if they just repackaged a bunch of stuff i already knew about. What parts do you disagree with? They make legitimate points. In my opinion, this documentary shouldn't have been a muddled set of interviews DESCRIBING moments, it should have been in chronological order, following story lines (TLO's beard, Hero winning DHS, GSL, Huk leaving) with footage where you can EXPERIENCE the moments with interviews of course mixed in. i disagreed with pretty much all of it. and i really disagree with reshowing us footage that 99% of us have all already seen and a lot of us were there to witness happen firsthand. also, i thought that people kind of missed a lot. if you payed attention, there was a lot of things in there that reveal the inner parts of these players personalities and who they are as SC players. little stuff like Sheth talking about how he's "tried to be mean" and then his story about his friend. stuff like everyone's answer to the last question and how TLO took a completely different spin on it (it was obviously a joke, but i think it revealed a lot about their various views on winning/competing). Huk's views on the players and his attitude about the house, Nazgul's thoughts about a hypothetical where Huk wanted to return (which i agreed with 100% and thought it really spoke to his wisdom as a team owner) and how the players felt a little different about Huk returning. Jinro talking about being a pro-gamer forever and why he thinks its unlikely and not very desirable, whereas the other players seemed (maybe) more open to the idea. the thing is, ima huge SC2 fan, but i know next to nothing about Team Liquid, and know absolutely nothing about Nazgul, so this was really interesting to me. made me a fan of the team and made me want to look up their less known players. there was a lot of stuff there, it was all just very subtle and you had to read in between the lines a bit to get at it. | ||
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leffe
Sweden75 Posts
Why not do more of that behind the scenes stuff following a player up to a big event, at home practicing, qualifiers, family & friends, then end with the result of the tournament. Like a proper story with a timeline. What I think the movie lacked was emotion. Seeing HerO being sad sure was emotional, but I think it was lost on many since it doesn't really show how much HerO had dedicated his life to that single moment. This would've worked great with the redemption when winning Dreamhack. (Which was just a week after) Wouldn't it be epic to see HayPro before the tournament, all the practice, all the stress, and then he just goes and takes down sooo many good players. This glorious moment was lost on so many. Even Jinro is more pumped up over HayPro's performance after the loss against MVP than most of the viewers can ever be. | ||
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Dooba
Croatia588 Posts
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Blessthefall
4 Posts
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ShotgunMike
Sweden241 Posts
:D Great interviews. Not so much documentary stuff about the history of the Team though.. Perhaps this will be in the sequel? | ||
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Karliath
United States2214 Posts
Timeline & Structure: IG starts out by showing that the release date of Super Meat Boy is seven months away, and then follows with a short, tense clip of what viewers can assume is footage from the release date. Immediately, viewers understand that: 1. The movie spans some part of the game development, and goes at least as far as the release date. 2. The tribulations of making and promoting a game are a theme of the movie. These two thoughts are confirmed by the rest of the movie. IG follows the development of a few indie games, climaxes at a major event for each game (public demo, release, etc.), and ends with developers' afterthoughts. LR, on the other hand, starts out with TL players interacting with fans at a tournament, followed by Nazgul, Hotbid, and ~6 other people explaining why Liquid is "so magical." Then comes the animated timeline sequence. The main bulk of the film consists of multiple sc2 figures answering the same interview questions (very much like the introduction). Throughout the movie, there is no consistent timeline. It is either static or sporadic. The audience does not have the context to gain a clear idea of when each interview is taking place. With so many interviews, it would be impossible to keep track of anyway. Although they are some of the best parts of the documentary, the flashbacks and "real" footage scenes do not help the organization of the documentary either. The film does not progress, and the only evident form of structure in the movie is the focus on one player, followed by another, followed by another. Bad structure creates a few problems: 1. Without progress in time and plot, viewers do not know what to expect next. All they know is that each TL player will probably be touched upon one by one. Frankly, this is boring. 2. Player growth cannot be shown through progression and footage; it has to be told through interviews. One is clearly more effective than the other. 3. It is difficult for less knowledgeable (and forgetful) fans to mentally organize the presented information. Did HuK leave before Sheth joined? When did HerO lose to HuK at MLG? How long ago did Jinro get that far in Code S? You get the idea. Simply put, the problems with structure could have been alleviated with a consistent timeline (flashbacks are okay), the following of the team through a/some tournaments, and less interviews. Theme & Content: Right from the start, IG's themes are discernible. Thematically, the documentary is about the emotions that are involved with the creation of an indie game. This is expressed through developers' conflicts with themselves, their partners, developers(?), gamers/reviewers, and so on. Viewers can feel the anxiety and stress that comes with the creation of an indie game, but also the love and pride of producing something so personal and awesome. IG achieves this with a variety of content, from "real" footage, to interviews, to commentary, and so on. Importantly, during the interviews, the documentary does not always show a dude sitting in a chair, but rather displays relevant video in forms like gameplay footage and a developer's interaction with his family, environment, and even self. LR, on the other hand, does not have a cohesive theme. What it does have is consistent subject matter--the players of TL, as a part of TL. I want to emphasize that. Whatever the director's intentions, the bulk of the film does not deal with the "magic" of TeamLiquid, but its players. I think that, implicitly, highlights of each player are supposed to represent the team as a whole. Unfortunately, this was done unsatisfactorily to my standards. This problem arises from a lack of good content, on multiple levels. Overall, LR fails at the simple but important concept of show don't tell. Most people agree that there are too many interview sequences, and not enough "real" footage. Audience members want to see the team go through a tournament; they want to see extended footage of the team having fun together. Moreover, the interviews are lacking in deep, informative, content. I don't want to hear 6 different people telling me that Sheth is nice. Actually, I don't want to hear 10 different people tell me that the TL players are all nice, funny, and have the potential to be great--if they worked hard. In terms of the players, there are much deeper things that can be elaborated and talked about. These range from the gaming related (how Sheth places his keyboard, for example) to the personal (Tyler's depression). While I use examples from the movie here, I feel that those scenes could have been done better, and more numerous in number. Moreover, there is little to no information in regards to the founding and workings of TeamLiquid as an entity. Visually, the interviews are boring as well. 85% of the movie is a dude sitting in a chair, talking. This gets boring, fast. It is no wonder that some of my favorite parts of the documentary are the animated scenes, HerO winning DH, and the intro sequences for each player. When Tyler speaks of how his wife supported him, show the two of them interacting (instead of Tyler sitting in a chair). When Tyler talks about how TLO is "enthusiastic about the way he plays" and then about how TLO injured himself, show TLO playing and perhaps a photo of TLO's injury (instead of Tyler sitting in a chair). There are some examples of this (a scene of Haypro telling a joke after 6 people say he's funny), but they are not done well, and there need to be a lot more. Furthermore, the documentary would have benefited if important interview audio was layered over some of the footage with useless audio (like background sound from a scene where a fan and a player are posing for a picture at a tournament). Audio: This is a quick one. It is rather unprofessional that subtitles are necessary for parts of the audio--especially when it's the interviewer that can't be heard clearly. I won't lie and say this detracts from my enjoyment of the film, however. What does bother me significantly is the difference in audio levels between the intro sequences, the interviews, and footage from tournaments. Having to adjust the volume constantly throughout the movie really sucks. It just makes me wonder whether anyone checked the audio levels at all, and if they did, why they thought it was acceptable. Conclusion: My comparison/review may have been critical, but I do want to say that I did enjoy the | ||
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Scoop05333
United Kingdom55 Posts
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
I am quite surprised that there are so many negative comments, as I would expect that fandom to overwhelm the thread, but this time, I am quite positiviely surprised by the realistic feedback that did not go to flamewar neither. Maybe we will get another documentary, from a completely different point of view soon? | ||
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thoraxe
United States1449 Posts
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figq
12519 Posts
the man is an international treasure | ||
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TBone-
United States2309 Posts
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Mr Showtime
United States1353 Posts
On June 25 2012 09:04 Canucklehead wrote: The biggest red flag while making this should have been that you can listen to this as an audio book and would essentially miss out on nothing. This is a great point | ||
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nB)Bouh
France35 Posts
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