Guide to Movie Making

FRAPS

 * This is by far the easiest clip-making program I have ever seen. Download at : fraps.com. You will want to pay the $$ for the full version, as the gimped version only let's you film small portions at a time.
 * Make sure the fps setting is at 30, the highest FRAPS will go. You may not always get 30fps in-game (especially with more than 2-3 people in the vicinity) but FRAPS will give you a 30fps movie clip back at this setting.
 * FRAPS also records sound, so you can get in-game fighting sounds, animal sounds, emote sounds, etc.
 * FRAPS saves as uncompressed .avi files, so from there on you can take it into any movie editing software you like. The files tend to be HUGE, though, so make sure you have adequate hard drive space.

Filming

 * Do your location scouting well in advance of filming. This way you know how to plan each of your scenes and shots, and can conveniently draw up a filming schedule based on location. Pick locations based on their looks, but also their ease in maintenance. Some locations are beautiful but in the middle of highly aggressive mobs. If you really need to shoot there, make sure there are adequate bodyguards for your actors, or you will spend your time fighting off nasties and not filming.
 * Draw up your shooting schedule and make sure everyone you are working with knows it, and knows your goals for each session. This helps keep people focussed on the tasks at hand, and really helps keep the shoot on-schedule.
 * Use Teamspeak to communicate to your group. Even if they can just DL and listen in, it really helps keep the lines of communication open, especially since while filming your HUDs will be off.
 * Film everything. You never know when some small clip will come in handy as filler for some other scene.

Windows Movie Maker/Editing

 * WMM can only handle so many movie clips before it starts borking. With a movie of this sort, it started borking around the 4 min mark because of the number of clips and the relative file size of the clips. I had to do this particular movie in 3 parts, and then put them together in the end with WMM.
 * WMM can be used to edit in sounds (as evidenced in this movie). Simply split your main soundtrack and then put your sound in there. Overlay the sound into the soundtrack enough, so that you can then overlay the 2nd part of your soundtrack over the sound again. This way they blend together seamlessly.
 * If your original clips are very large (>800k) the preview of your movie will lag. This does not affect how the final product will come out, but it may affect how well you are able to edit your movie.
 * Sometimes on longer movies WMM will bork when you try to save it as a movie file. Subsequent attempts will also always fail, unless you restart the program. Also, restarting the computer may help it try again. If it continues to not want to export your movie, you may have to split it up into smaller parts.

With all these in mind, here is the result of about 2 weeks of hard work by my actors and myself. My actors and stunt doubles deserve most of the credit for this movie--they are a great group of people, very patient (standing around for 2-2.5 hrs on end while we were filming special shots), and helped make this movie what it is.

Enjoy!

Credits: Laeren