WoW Moviewatch: Hallow's End fanmade trailer
by Natalie Mootz 
Oct 1st 2008 at 12:00PM
It's October 1st, and Brewfest will be over at the end of this week. But fortunately we have Hallow's End starting on October 18 to look forward to. In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, filmmaker Konack1 made a trailer to prepare us all for the visit of the Headless Horseman. This is his sixth machinima attempt and he's making wonderful progress. This trailer features a spooky kid whispering warnings (The Sixth Sense, anyone?) and a professional-quality narrator whose deep voice sounds remarkably like the late Don LaFontaine. Konack1 even uses the dip-to-black technique so popular with movie trailers these days. The visuals of the Horseman rising from his grave and stalking his way to the city combined with the child's creepy voiceover are very effective in creating a Hallow's End mood.
Konack1 is still posting his work on YouTube, so we don't have a higher quality version of this video to show you. However, I would urge you to check out some of his previous work. Especially My Immortal - Tribute to Cody, an ode to a lost pet, that left me in tears.
If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.
Previously on Moviewatch ...
Filed under: Machinima, Events, WoW Moviewatch, Lore
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Naix Oct 1st 2008 12:07PM
Breathy whispering children are so not scary. This has been over done sooo many times. Please do something a little more creative.
offday Oct 1st 2008 1:30PM
I'd love to see your pathetic attempt at something half as good as this.
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 1:52PM
Ooh ooh, can I? Because I have done something better than this :>
Naix Oct 1st 2008 5:09PM
You want to see me make somethin half as good as plagiarized material?
Ok give me some time.
Naix Oct 1st 2008 5:13PM
TotalBiscuit
What have you done better than this? ;>
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 5:18PM
Well Chronicles of the Goldfarmer 1 and 2 got over 200,000 views each, and the trailer for both was better than that. Those videos are over 2 years old and still vastly better than this :P
Draenors Oct 18th 2008 7:44AM
"They forced him to leave his hot tauren wife... But they made one fatal flaw... They made him angry!"
Awesome stuff ^^
Illirien Oct 1st 2008 12:18PM
Yes! I'm excited for Halloween now :) Very nice.
superfrank Oct 1st 2008 12:21PM
The reckogning has come!
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 12:29PM
Good use of sound assets, very effective and nice and thick. Always a good thing.
Visual quality left a lot to be desired, thankfully there wasn't an awful lot of it. If you're trying to make a trailer, particularly focus on effective use of text, the font and colors didn't have any impact what-so-ever and ended up looking like something slapped together in Windows Movie Maker. That was compounded by the fact that he couldn't spell 'reckoning', rather an unfortunate typo.
It does seem rather odd that if he got a professional sounding voice-actor for the actual voice-over, that he couldn't find someone with a mic that wasn't infected with electrical interference and hiss for the whispers.
Regardless, a good use of sound is often overlooked when it comes to machinima, and it's effective use is vitally important if you want to create atmosphere and tension. This production did that very well, and deserves praise for it. Polish up the video-aspects and presentation and he'll be onto something. Oh, and buy a legit version of FRAPS, that watermark is ugly as sin.
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 12:31PM
Speaking of typos, it's 'The Sixth Sense'. Might want to get someone else to proof-read your posts before putting them up.
JDKenada Oct 1st 2008 12:37PM
Yup, recognized that girls voice right away. Hope credit was given to the source of the audio.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koulOrFwNFo
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 12:42PM
Well that explains the poor quality, it was probably a stereo-mix rip directly from the video. It's generally bad form not to credit that kind of thing in your videos, for future reference.
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 12:45PM
In fact yeah, the entire thing was directly ripped from that promo.
Seriously, taking all of that and not crediting it, really bad form, and can get you into a lot of trouble.
I take back what I said about the audio, he didn't create it at all, so in reality, all this video was, was stolen audio and lousy video.
It does not deserve attention, it should be decried for such outright plagiarism.
Yeng Oct 1st 2008 2:37PM
Well he did put WWE Undertaker Unforgiven in his 'tags' for the video on youtube. But yeah, he needs to give proper credit where it is due.
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 12:38PM
Well for some reason my first comment didn't post, so let's try that again.
The creator should be applauded for his effective use of sound, and often overlooked area when it comes to machinima these days, (though I do wish we could get some music that wasn't by the Immediate group). Nicely layered, good, thick and properly used to build tension and anticipation. Although I was confused by the fact that the whispering was clearly done by somebody who had a poor quality mic, with very noticeable hiss and interference. Kind of unfortunate when you stack it up against the more professional sounding voice-over. Regardless, the audio production is solid and that is a very good thing, more of this please.
Unfortunately the visuals didn't live up to that. Poor quality, even for Youtube, and a particularly unprofessional looking typeset. When creating a trailer, it's best to use a font and color that have impact, rather than look like they were randomly picked in Moviemaker. Not only that, but one of the climax words is mis-spelled, 'reckoning', indicating the creator didn't check his work before releasing it. More haste, less speed when it comes to production please. You're not on a deadline, get it right first before releasing it, you'll get better feedback that way.
One last thing, do buy a proper copy of FRAPs. The watermark is hideous. Applause for the effective use of sound, not enough visuals and the visuals that were there were poor quality and didn't live up to the standards of the audio production. Keep at it, there's a lot of potential here.
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 12:42PM
And now it posted. Refreshing a WoW Insider page is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
TotalBiscuit Oct 1st 2008 12:48PM
Since the audio was not created by the machinimator, I take back what I just said. This video is plagiarized garbage and shouldn't even be up here.
April Oct 1st 2008 12:39PM
Overall I liked it but suggestions would be:
1. Perhaps putting the text up...then image..then text...then image instead of image...text...text..text..image.
2. The cut to black scenes seemed a little too long. I felt I was watching mostly black nothing
JDKenada Oct 1st 2008 12:50PM
I decided to share the audio revelation in the comments section of the video itself on YouTube.
It's one thing to be inspired, it's another thing to go "no one will notice if I just change The Undertaker into the Headless Horseman."