The idea for my thesis project is a documentary style video that covers several TCNJ Super Smash Bros. players as they compete in tournaments at the college throughout the semester, culminating in the grand finale, King (Lions Gaming’s yearly tournament). The video will capture the rivalries between the players and will be presented as a series of interweaving narratives, heavily incorporating my own graphics, as well as footage from past Smash tournaments and tidbits of the players’ histories, e.g. what got them to this point.
What inspired this idea was the multiple documentaries that have been made for Smash in the past, including The Smash Brothers and Last Stock Legends. The former chronicles the nearly two-decade-long history of Super Smash Bros. Melee and the stories of its “five gods” (the five players who won nearly every tournament), while the latter is a series of videos that detail different historic moments in Melee history, such as the rivalry between Joseph “Mango” Marquez and Adam “Armada” Lindgren.
This project will be an extension of another project I worked on over the summer and am continuing to work on, which is a ranking of the twenty best TCNJ Smash Bros for Wii U players of all time. I have created graphics for every player and I am currently writing articles detailing each player’s results and histories. I plan to tie this project in with my video in some way, including using the graphics in the video or possibly converting them into motion graphics.
The project’s main audience will be anyone interested in competitive Smash and wants to learn more about TCNJ’s scene and the many stories that have come out of it. Being a member of the community for over three years and having created much content for it in the past, I want to share the community with people outside of TCNJ and help them understand what makes it so special. This project reflects my future aspirations because I would like to work for a gaming production team creating content for them or being a freelance video editor or graphic designer, and I want to show what I can do while also challenging myself to learn new skills.
This project will be particularly challenging for me because I have experience editing videos and have worked on a short (two minute long) documentary-style video before, but I have never filmed my own footage or incorporated motion graphics. I will have to learn different editing and filming techniques in order to tell a convincing narrative. I will be using cameras and microphones from the AIMM Cage and will be editing the video using primarily Adobe Premiere Pro, with some graphics made in Photoshop and Illustrator.
What will make this video unique and set it apart from other work in the field is that it will not be styled in the format of a historical documentary, but it will be more of a slice of life of the players and treat it more like a story unfolding before the viewers’ eyes. Each player will have their own graphical aesthetic and musical soundtracks associated with them, and there will be minimal narration. Audio from player interviews will be interlaced throughout, and there will be clips of prior tournament footage to give context or backstory in certain moments.