The final episode of Zaid “RedRapper” Tabani’s extensive documentary series concludes in proper dramatic fashion with SoCal Regionals. For those of you wondering why it’s been so long since Episode 2, check out RedRapper’s notes for the whole (painful) story.
highlights:
Daigo introduction at 0:03, roll call and arcade retrospective at 2:55, oddly timed Shirts cameo at 7:38, Jorge vs GamerBee with CaliPower commentary at 11:07, amazing advice from watts and company at 15:48, Tournament Day at 20:00 …
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recorded on November 5th-7th, 2010 at SoCal Regionals
filmed and edited by RedRapper
soundtrack:
RedRapper – SSFIV TV Spot (Remix)
Beastie Boys – Sabotage
The Beatles – Rocky Raccoon
Phil Collins – You Can’t Hurry Love
released today, January 4th, 2011
related projects:
Run It Back: The Road to SoCal Regionals – Episode 1 | Episode 2 by RedRapper
Jchensor… you made me tear up. This was truly, an amazing year for tournaments.
Man, there’s a lot of really sharp, professional editing in this thing. That whole “Tournament Day” montage was awesome and totally conveyed the intensity of walking into that room. Also the whole thing is fast-moving in general, which is nice because it keeps the story developing at a brisk pace.
And the scattered top player advice is great. Anytime i kind of start to get bored with what’s happening on the screen, less than 30 seconds later we get an insightful voiceover that catches my attention right away.
Some of the match edits are nicely done too. Like that Bison vs Adon match at 22:00 wasn’t particularly exciting, but the way it’s edited conveys a story point – that top player Bison is daunting! That’s why it only zooms in on Bison’s hits and not Adon’s.
Aaand here’s where i run into a problem. There’s SO much going on in the first 22 minutes, that we get used to information being given to us at a certain pace. Even that first match is okay for the reasons above.
But beyond that, it’s too big of a dropoff going from condensed passion to random match footage. Then the zooming effects become a distraction, because now it’s hard to mellow out when there’s so much artificial action being thrown at us.
There are specific moments that are certainly nice, like jchensor’s reaction to Gief’s ultra at 28:25 and Coopa’s reaction to Cammy’s hooligan at 30:13. But by that point i feel like it would’ve been much better to chill out on the editing and be very selective with those cuts.
I mean i don’t mind watching extended matchvids, but the sensory overload just gets tiring after a while. Maybe i’m wrong and it would’ve been worse without that fancy stuff, but i really doubt it.
Anyway it gets back on track at 34:30 when James loses, because obviously that kick-starts the drama and it’s instantly captivating again. It’s even enough to make the next match (at 36:36) enjoyable, and it helps that Brett wins so we’re all happy that he doesn’t go out-in-two.
Then we’ve got a stage match, so that kind of keeps the momentum going in a positive direction. Plus having stream commentary on top of it makes it that much better. Hell, even Jorge watching Daigo is interesting. So yeah, the stage helps a lot.
Anyway, good call fast forwarding through Brett’s next match, as well as skimming through Jorge’s last match. They just wouldn’t have been interesting compared to the big stage match, so it’s good to get them wrapped up so we can return to the human element.
From then on it’s awesome again – especially the s-kill parts, the Tokido parts, everybody reminiscing, and so on. Haha although i wasn’t quite expecting it to take such a sudden turn towards “Ode to Arcades.” But that’s cool, i’m not complaining.
In summary, 24:00 to 34:00 could’ve been better. Everything else is money.
4.9995 / 5 overall!
When you compare the amount of montages to how slowly some of that match footage went, yeah, it’s really uneven in terms of pacing, and they tried to make the match footage more interesting, but the truth is, you can film people playing for hours and really only come away with a handful of 3-second clips of their faces that are worth using. I would have just shown highlights from each set (not even each match/round) and then summarized.
James Chen is a really nice guy to let them follow him after he got peaced out; I’m sure he said some stuff he now hates hearing, and NOBODY wants to talk after a loss. I mean I joke about how SF4 doesn’t mean anything to me, and yeah it’s not my favorite game, but if it’s a remotely important match, then I’m in an awful, stupid, negative mood once I’ve walked away a loser. I figure that’s why you don’t see a lot of scenes like that one, where James is chewing himself out, so it might seem weird to people who don’t play, but it makes perfect sense to me, and props to James for baring his soul like that.
I can nitpick a hell of a lot, but Zaid knows where it could use some tips in the smaller departments. Overall, I think the quality in terms of editing was uneven, and both themes of following wannabes, and “remember those days, but keep it going” were a bit forced, I can’t say I liked that it seemed to have wrap-up montages two or three times. …but of course, the hardest part of any work is tying it all together, so I can understand.
That’s all the negative stuff, and for something that’s this huge an undertaking, it’s nothing, really. It’s a great look into the personalities of established arcade-scene frequenters and a few, more timid, newcomers.
Honestly, the documentary basically builds up to the scenes where they lose. Especially when I reflect on it, the scenes where we see James, Brett and Jorge dealing with the game losses – and then be motivated to play or practice more – are pretty powerful stuff. There’s a scene where James talks about ‘how hard it is to be good’ and dealing with losses well is, no doubt, one of those things that can be very hard. As others have pointed out, there are lots of tasty interviews as well.
Thematically, I’m not sure that the stories of Brett, Jorge, and James really gelled that well with the ‘farewell arcades’ stuff. The trailing monologue -except the punchline – seemed rather artificial.
Yeah that’s kind of been a trademark of the “new age of SF documentaries” because when you choose one or two (or even three) people to follow, chances aren’t very good that they’ll win the whole thing.
Back in the day, these kinds of videos would cover the event rather than focusing on individuals, so you’d end up with grand finals regardless. Since SF4 was released, there have been at least three or four documentaries that ended with their stars losing. It’s kind of awkward, but interesting in its own way.
Making this the Vid of Week for 01.03.2011!