Getting My Masters
Getting My Masters is a short film, comedic mockumentary following my attempt to reach master rank in Street Fighter 6 so that I do not have to get my master’s degree.
Getting My Masters
Getting My Masters is a short film, comedic mockumentary following my attempt to reach master rank in Street Fighter 6 so that I do not have to get my master’s degree.
The aim of this project was to create a short film mockumentary that presents a common and relatable story in a way that is humorous and entertaining. In this project, I took gameplay footage, developed a story out of it, recorded skits and voice over, and put it all together with sound effects and music through editing.
The first step was to gather all of the footage of my attempt to reach master. To do this, I streamed my gameplay to Twitch and saved recordings of every stream. Since the story was made from what happened during the streams, I had to record all of the footage first. Streaming was a fun part of the process! Sometimes it was hard to be lively on stream without any viewers, but I had a few friends pop in from time to time, which was really fun.
(Hover your mouse over any images on the slideshow to freeze them)
The next step was creating a story using the footage I had gathered. I wanted to create something that was relatable to anyone (everyone has tried to improve at something at some point), but also funny and entertaining. First, I sifted through the dozens of hours of footage I had and jotted down notes about what happened. I decided to take a day by day approach because I found that each day had its own story. I wrote a lot of notes, and for various reasons, not every idea panned out. Then I brainstormed how to begin and end the video - this happened mostly in my head so I really only have the final ideas written out. The final step of creating the script for the voice over actually came after I edited together the skeleton of the video - this helped me understand where the voice over would fit and how it would look, instead of editing around dialogue I created blindly.
Once I had my outline for the video finished, it was time to shoot the skits that I planned out. I felt like these skits really started to liven the project up, and right after where I cut each skit, I have video of me busting out laughing. I had a few more ideas for sktis than what actually ended up in the video, but those ideas didn’t end up working, some logistically and others just didn’t work out comedically.
The final step was editing. This step was by far the longest step of the project, and it ranged from being really fun at some times, to gruelling at others. What was really tough from the beginning, was when I realized that in order to make the video not exceedingly long, I would need to cut every stream, each about 2 hours long, into 3 minutes. I tried my best to accurately portray what my journey was like, showcasing the good and the bad, at a pace that was fast enough to be engaging, while still allowing me time to show off my progress. In terms of my process, I placed all of the livestream footage, using any audio from it that was valuable or funny, added any other visuals that were needed, enhanced some of the funny moments with sound effects, added in music, and finally added voice over to shape the story.
Here’s a short demonstration to show what that looked like!