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Director Dialogues: TM22

Though maybe not as community renowned as some of our other interviewees, there's no doubt that TM22 is a Halo montage virtuoso. Best known for pioneering the Halo 3 montage scene with his beta montages, but he didn't stop there. He's created a plethora of high quality videos and he's not stopping yet. Read on to meet the man behind the moniker.

Who are you?

Well, my name is Trevor Mack, and I'm 16 years old and I've been in the Halo editing/montage scene since late 2005. I live in BC, Canada (and yes, we do get a lot of snow, but not as much as the stereotype suggests). I've been playing Halo since the first game came out, then I just got really into it and I started thinking, what if I somehow recorded all the uber l33t kills I got and showed it to other people? Unfortunately I wasn't the only one who had that in mind, hah. Since then, I've been editing videos and making montages with other people in the Halo community, which has been an awesome experience which involved me learning a lot about video editing/motion graphics.

How did you get into the Halo montage scene?

Well, like a lot of good editors that have come out of Halo, I started at Halo3Forum.com. I literally just googled "Halo videos" and then it came up, so I registered, then I was surrounded by people who wanted to do the exact same thing as me; make halo videos. So, it was pretty much perfect and I've been there ever since (September 2005). But there were two specific videos that made me REALLY want to make some of my own; OscarMayarNinja's "Overkill" and JoeKing's 1st Montage. I would literally watch those videos 3 times everyday. Ah, the memories.

They say picking a favorite video is like picking a favorite child, but can you decide?

That's a hard question, but I would have to say Calamity and Reflection. Calamity because I never had so much fun making a Halo video with 3 other great, fun guys. Calamity was also the video that I guess "kicked started" my editing. Before that video, I was just a kid who wanted to make a sweet Halo video, but after that I was "the guy who made Calamity". And since that video was only made in around 4 weeks, it really surprised people what we got during the beta, which was really sweet to see everybody's reaction. And as for Reflection, which is no doubt the biggest video I've ever released, that video I had really complete control over and it felt good to have complete control over everything in the video. I made all the angles, chose the clips, and of course edited the video to how I wanted it, and not really how the gameplay guys wanted it.

What software and hardware do you use in your work?

TFrom 2005-2008 I used a Dazzle 90 to capture all of my clips, but that capture card is obviously obsolete now compared all of these new HD cameras that everybody has. So I don't really capture my own clips anymore. As for software, I use Sony Vegas 8.0, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Photoshop CS3. I've been using Sony Vegas and Photoshop since late 2005 and only got around to After Effects in early 2007.

On average, how long does it take to create one of your videos?

Well, Calamity took only 3 weeks to gather and capture clips, then only 6 days to edit a 20 MINUTE video. Looking back, I don't really know how I ended up putting together a 20 minute video in only 6 days. With the exception of Calamity, all the videos that I've had gameplay in takes around 2-3 months (and even more sometimes) to gather gameplay. The editing part takes just as equal amount of time - for me anyway - because I like to get started slow on a video. I know a lot of people nowadays want their video captured/put together in 1 week. But that's just not how it works if you want a quality outcome. It takes time to come up with creativeness and originality.

Care to give a few pointers for wishful montage makers?

Take it slow. Everything doesn't have to be a huge rush to get your video out. You can always judge a video that has been quickly made in 2 hours and then a video that they've spent 5-10 months working really hard on. If you want your video to be what you think it should be, spend as much time on as you can. If you think something doesn't really look great, render out a test and check it out. You can't just be like, "Oh, I had no time to fix it so I'll just say I made the video in 2 hours or something."

Can you gives us some inside scoop on any of your future projects?

Well right now I'm working on a HUGE campaign montage with over 9 players. the video is called Orima and the trailer can be found below. I'm sure a lot of people will be amazed by the creativeness and originality that these guys bring to the table with their kills. I'm also trying a lot of new editing/motion graphic techniques with this video. I also have some other secret videos coming out after that, heh.

Get Adobe Flash player

Where do you find you get the most montage clips?

When I played Halo (my live expired), I used to play a LOT of MLG, Team Slayer, and Social Slayer. But I mean, I like videos with entertaining gameplay that have people going against noobs in Multi-Team, and then videos with Pros owning other Pros, so it all comes down to your opinion.

Wanna say "hi" to your mom?

I'd like to shout out to Z, because I would not be here without him getting my videos out there to the world, Kindred, teaching me a lot of great things, Drake, Tweak, Kraynium, ST68, Crest, and MDTohm for having to go through countless hours capturing the clips for Orima.

Thanks TM22!

Check out TM22's "main videos" below, and his youtube channel here.

Calamity
A Halo 2 Tribute
Shocktology
Calamity 2
Unoriginal
Reflection
Orima Trailer

See you next week!

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