Uncharted 4: A Thief's End features a host of extras that unfortunately aren't commonplace in many big budget games. One feature in particular that I really liked was the 'No HUD' mode. Personally this makes Uncharted even more cinematic, and it gives game capture enthusiasts a beautiful clean image. Perfect for those 'All Cutscenes' videos.
One thing I've found with most of those compilations however, is the lack of presentation. Scenes are poorly cut together with noticeably jarring audio edits. There are obviously exceptions like Grant Voegtle's cinematic playthrough of The Last of Us & stepultura's entire channel. While extremely well edited their videos still contain UI elements, which obviously isn't their fault but is something that always pulls me out of the viewing experience.
I've always had the desire to share a game's story with others and I feel the best way to do that would be to edit the game into a TV series or movie. So, this is an experiment to create something along those lines using the first moments from 'Chapter 7 - Lights Out', removing every instance of UI. Creating the ultimate cinematic experience.
While capturing the gameplay I stumbled across a particularly awesome feature, the ability to remove music from cutscenes. For anyone for edits, this is a truly awesome feature.
Back to capturing where, my playthrough was going 'cinematically.' That was until Nate jumped into frame and the text 'Chapter 7 - Lights Out' appeared. I sighed and carried on with the scene hoping the dialogue options were removed from Nadine's fight. Alas, these UI elements were not removed by 'No HUD' mode also. Determined to fix it in post, I captured four playthroughs of the sequence, playing one with only music.
Once all the footage was exported I jumped into Sony Vegas Pro, where I decided to cut the short gameplay sequence, including the chapter title. Having Nate sneak around and find his bearings would disrupt the pacing of a film or show. From there I synced all the clips, similar to a multicam shoot, allowing the music to be placed in their original timecodes.
From here I could see that the major bulk of the edit was trying to erase all the dialogue options text. I scrubbed through the first instance of the text and couldn't find a clever way to editing around it without cropping the image. The entire exchange of dialogue between Nadine and Nate is conducted in one shot, thus eliminating any possibility of cutting away to something. I decided I'd make a matte and 'cover up' the text, the hard part being that the camera moved. Frame by frame I attempted a match move in Sony Vegas. It's not perfect, but I can imagine I can get it there in Premiere Pro or After Effects (after all, it's only an experiment).
After that fiddling around I moved onto the second bit of text. This one was a little easier. When the text first appears its on Nadine's black pants which allowed for an easy mask. However when the dialogue option is selected the camera tracks up with Nate placing the text over Nadine's hand and the intricate carpet. This made making a basic matte (like the previous solution) pretty hard or in my, case out-of-the-question. However, this time I had a shot to cut to.
Originally, there's a shot of Nadine watching Nate getting up from the floor and into frame. I spilt the shot just before she starts to look up and slightly stretched the clip. From there I cut back to the shot of Nate getting up some frames after the text had faded out. Thanks to the option to play the game without music I was able to place Nate's dialogue onto the shot of Nadine looking down at him. As the shot of Nadine doesn't last long enough and the need for a visual cue of Nate getting up, I let Nate's line continue over the shot of him. While the line isn't actually synced to his mouth it works because his movement and hand obscures his mouth.
Overall this was a fairly basic edit that includes very little gameplay. It's paced well and could be passed off as an animated show similar to Steven Spielberg's Tintin. The only moment that awkwardly stands out is the shot where Nadine holds Nate against the bookcase. Because of the dialogue options, the game 'hovers' or 'pauses' on the moment, but because we're now viewing instead of playing, it feels odd the Nate would take so long be a smartass. Still, I would very much enjoy a HBO styled take on Uncharted 4 and I guess I'd totally be down for editing it. Here's hoping Naughty Dog patches the 'No HUD' mode to include those dialogue options and chapter titles.
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