And now, the third attempt at a quick Board Game Vibe video (although this one is not as quick). Its on the dice game Greed, which is fairly similar to Farkle.
This time I have used a few photos ... iMovie is very keen on the "Ken Burns" effect. Alas, that is seemingly its only effect.
At the end, I mention another thing you can do with 5 dice is the "Petals Around the Rose" conundrum - - direct link is:
And now, the second attempt at a quick Board Game Vibe video. Its on ‘Zathura: Adventure is Waiting, a game published in 2005.
This is my one shot attempt, and is a tribute to William “One Shot” Beaudine, nominee for a lifetime achievement award for “The Worst Director of All Time” in one of my favourite books (“Golden Turkey Awards (1980)”). The fact that he didn’t win the award (it went Edward D. Wood Jr) just makes him all the more better. To quote the Golden Turkey book:
“He earned his enduring nickname, “One Shot”, by filming virtually all scenes in his more than 150 movies in a single take. Never mind if the bat is dangling visibly on a string. So what if the cowboy villain dies with a huge grin on his face and only one of his eyes closed. “One Shot” Beaudine will print it anyway”.
An interesting point in doing a quick shot with an iPad is that you hold the camera in your hand rather than having it (as I assume other people do for videos) with a camera static on a tripod.
So, when your hand is in shot to point something out or pick something up, you only indirectly see it via the iPad screen, which can screw your coordination. Hence, my fumbling to press a button, point out the jigsaw puzzle or find the rotor. Also, the way you hold the iPad determines where the lens is (bottom right or top left).
So, think of my finger that partially covers the lens at the end of he video as a small acknowledgement to ‘One Shot’.
So, the first attempt at a quick Board Game Vibe video. Its on Mouse Trap, something I still have difficulty in accepting as an actual board game.
The impetuous for this little blog came with the recent purchase of an iPad and the iMovie app. Basically, putting a voice-over on some footage of my son after we had played the game.
Apple promise on their website that:
“iMovie helps you turn the HD video you shoot on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch into a masterpiece worthy of the red carpet (even if it’s just the one in your living room). This fun, fast, feature-rich app is designed especially for the Multi-Touch screen”.
Its promises like that, and results like mine, that suggest Apple is inexorably heading towards becoming the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
But isn't blogging intended more for the author than the reader?
Basically, blogging seems to be just like keeping a diary of various (in this case board gaming) thoughts ... except that instead of the diary pages being in a locked bound book, that is kept in a box, under the spare bed, in the room no one visits; you actually place enlarged copies of the pages on telegraph poles on the nearest main road to give everyone a chance to read it, whether they want to or not.
So, the initial motivation is to dip the toe into board game mastication (need to stop there and make sure the spell checker doesn't auto-correct that word). To lightly chew the board gaming cud without getting too tongue tied.
The prompt to do this was a recent iPad purchase and the thought of fiddling around with iMovie to make some video reviews. But not the type of professional looking, 45 minute long, tightly scripted, nicely titled, individually scored by the local string quartet, detailed review you regularly see on BGG.
Instead, I just want to capture a couple of minutes of throw away chat about a game that typically doesn't garner much attention (and probably for good reasons). The type of video summary that if I posted in the video section of a game would be quickly scorned and panned by the BGG community - - hence the need for a blog.
This is why its called Board Game Vibe. It is to be a humble collection of mini-videos that should give you a rough feel for a game within 3 or so minutes, with a promise that it will most likely be updated infrequently, and will unlikely improve in quality.
