SO EPIC! Filmmaker reacts to SALTATIO MORTIS - FINSTERWACHT Music Video

[@saltatiomortis]

Thank you so much for your great reaction! Great that you noticed every single decision we made, or had to make 😅 The video was shot at Burg Lichtenberg. All of this was possible because of a great team and community, who did a lot of the costumes, masks and make up

[@manondereeper]

Hey guys! Thanks so much for your kind response, and you truly made something remarkable and exceptional. Love your work!

[@alea_saltatio]

Thank you so much for this great reaction to our biggest video project ever. 🙏🏻

[@manondereeper]

Hi Alea, thank you and congratulations on such an amazing video!

[@RolfMeyer-cl7ou]

Hallo Alea, hoffe ihr habt Spass auf der Burgentour. Ich vermisse allerdings Kaiserswerth. Omg, wie viele Stunden ich da war. 😊😊

[@Multiroester]

Das Lied hat nur das beste Video verdient, kanns kaum erwarten wenns da weiter geht, Finsterwacht: Die 2 Türme ;D

[@Mischnikvideos]

The filming location is Burg Lichtenberg and the surrounding area. Saltatio Mortis feat. Lara Loft - The Dragonborn Comes (From "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim")

[@alancarter41]

Excellent reaction and explanation of the filmmaking involved. I am learning so much about what going into these videos. I am amazed at how much content they can include in a short video, compared to a two-hour movie. As mentioned by others, many of the players are from the LARP community, which the band is very involved in, and there is a making of video for this song. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with use, and have a good day.

[@manondereeper]

So glad you enjoyed the video!

[@alexdoorn234]

I am the fan of both bands that gets to shed more light on Blind Guardian again yay! So I have to be honest most of their music videos suck or are simple performance videos and I mean suck with fondness I like to watch them and laugh once in a while. Blind Guardian is a German power metal band founded in 1984 so they have been around for a while, they are not in this video and only the vocalist Hansi Kürsch was involved in the song. He sings the second verse and sings along with the chorus, I never realised how similar Hansi's voice is to Alea (vocalist of Saltatio Mortis) until I heard him sing in German in this song. Now there are a few good Blind Guardian music videos I can recommend Life Beyond The Spheres, Blood Of The Elves and Architects of Doom but do not expect Saltatio Mortis level of quality that is just simply not what they do. However there is the orchestral album under the name Blind Guardian Twilight Orchestra (this is done on purpose because only Hansi and the guitarist André are involved in this) and they have the good music video War Feeds War. Now I know a pretty unknown band with some good music videos from The Netherlands like me and I have seen them live six times already, they are my favourite band. This is of course Blackbriar the music videos I recommend checking out are: Cicada, Mortal Remains, Until Eternity and My Soul's Demise. They're very stylised and the band actually shoots the music videos for themselves and they will film the music videos for other artists as well. I saw someone mention My Love's In Germany by D'artagnan that actually has the vocalist from Blackbriar as guest musician and a brief cameo from Blackbriar's drummer. Not spoiling how he is involved but it is pretty funny.

[@HinterdemAugeDSA]

A nice reaction from another point of view :) It has been shooted at Burg Lichtenberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. A bit of background: It's the first single from Saltatio Mortis' upcoming concept album Finsterwacht ("dark watch"), an hommage to German tabletop RPG Das Schwarze Auge (DSA)/The Dark Eye (TDE) for it's 40 years aniversary. The box contains the CD, a novel (one of the authors - Bernhard Hennen - is the one, who dies on the field after handing out the map), a tabletop adventure book (choose your own adventure style) and dice. Saltatio Mortis is a German medieval rock band, but they also mix in different music styles. The second single (Schwarzer Strand/"black beach") and the third single (Feuer und Erz/Fire Ore) are already out, and there are 2 more to come before release of the box on May 31th. There are also (German) making of videos for all the three music videos. Finsterwacht are a line of towers/beacons in the mountains of Finsterkamm, as last line of defense between the lands of humans and orcs (those are the creatures in the video) at Heldentrutz, a part of Weiden in the Middenrealm at the continent of Aventuria. Their function is to warn the people as seen in the video. Saltatio Mortis (latin for "dance of the death") is the group trying to reach this goal in the video. The video took 4 days of shooting, with a lot of LARPers - which is why they have such good costumes. The choir at the beginning and end is from Prague orchestra. Hansi from Blind Guardian sings at the chorus, sometimes alone, sometimes with Saltatio Mortis' lead singer Alea (the blonde, bearded guy).

[@manondereeper]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@menablubb442]

Pray to the Hunter is, in my humble opinion, the by far best Music Video they did so far. Even more impressive than this one and definitely worth checking out. But also all the others mentioned in the comments are really good.

[@manondereeper]

I will add it to my list, thank you!

[@marge2548]

Oh, wow, this is the reaction I had never dreamt of, but that I totally needed. Thank you for all the work and details you put into this. So, comments to your comments: The oddly lightened mountains you noticed in the background were indeed not there, but added in afterwards. :) They said in the making-of how they did this, IIRC it was Matte painting (?) The two guys walking: I think they just wanted to show that they had been walking all day, till it got dark. (In winter in Germany, it gets dark rather early. But not as fast as it seemed here.) I missed light in general in the video, especially in the fighting scenes, also to see the orcs and in general the fighting scenes better, but given the fact that in winter there are very little hours of actual daylight, they used daytime for a few scenes and for setting everything up and decided to shoot all the lengthy fighting scenes at night (as they only had 4 days for shooting the video). Ah, and yes, the orcs were orcs. The video is actually part of a project Saltatio Mortis participated in for the 40th anniversary of a very popular DnD-Style Role playing game, "Das schwarze Auge" (The Dark Eye). Which shamelessly borrowed, when developed, from everything Fantasy was supposed to have, so yes, Orcs. (These particular Orcs are a LARP Orc clan.) And a lof of other small details referring to the RPG and the world it is set in. When the remaining four watchmen were chanting before the last battle eg, they included a prayer to Rondra, goddess of warriors an honourable fight (from the RPG), to give them strength for their most likely final fight. (And to close the circle - the guy talking to the girl in red in the reprise of the intro, leading her away, is dressed like a cleric of Rondra.) Actually, the latest Album of SaMo is centered completely around "the Dark Eye", and the video serves as introduction to a whole RPG campaign that will be sold together with the album (IIRC). That's why we got the cliffhanger in the end. (Fun fact: The guy with the beard and the read cloak dying in the beginning ist actually the author of this campaign.) The reason why Saltatio Mortis participated in the project is that several of their members played this game when it first came out and some to even today. But altogether, they have a knack for Fantasy or gaming themed videos in general and do at least one every year. Another rather cinematic video by them I am not sure anyone has recommended yed is "Pray to the hunter". When I watched that, I thought: "Well, it can not get more epic than this!" - Well, I was wrong. But it's pretty epic nonetheless. 😀 And if you like that general style of videos, check out Feuerschwanz, as well. They are a German medieval metal fun band (who have recently released some English covers of some German songs), and usually do great videos. Ah, and one more thing comes to my mind now that I think of it. One of the two singers of Feuerschwanz, Ben Metzner, has a side project called D'Artagnan. They do more folk than metal, in an odd but rather compelling mixture or musketeer and pirate style. They did a video to a 17th century folk song called "My Love's in Germany" (about Scottish soldiers fighting on German soil in the 30 years war), and they went full on movie for that one. It's definitely worth a watch. Once more: Thank you so much for your reaction. It was fun to watch and very interesting at the same time. And sorry for ther wall of text. I got a little carried away, I suppose.

[@manondereeper]

I love people who get carried away along with me! haha. I feel like that's all I do in these videos! Thank you for sharing all these tidbits of information, that is all just so interesting and I love how they were able to tie in so many fun things (like the girl and the red cloak as well as the dude in the red cloak!) It's such a great video - more have suggested Pray to the Hunter so that'll be the one I do when I revisit Saltatio Mortis. This was a lot of fun! Thanks for joining me for the ride :D

[@elricthebald]

​@@manondereeperYes, Pray to the Hunter is highly recommended. As is Feuerschwanz. The DnD style game Marge mentioned was also available in The Netherlands in the 80's/90's under the name Het Zwarte Oog. 'Wasted' many childhood hours on that on. 🇳🇱

[@manondereeper]

@@elricthebald Super cool! Ik had er nog nooit van gehoord ^_^

[@elricthebald]

@@manondereeper Correctie: Het Zwarte Oog is de vertaling van de Duitse naam. De Nederlandse titel was Het Oog des Meesters.

[@11alpha48]

To me, the real Game of Thrones moment was when, having fought their way through the forest and losing many of their party, the final four survivors of the Finsterwacht reach the tower and find the orcs have already arrived. There is that moment of quiet despair, reflected in the music. Then, they begin to sing what amounts to their oath as they rally their strength for the final drive to light the tower and send forth the warning. It is similar to the moment in the Battle of Castle Black when Grenn and several men of the Night's Watch are sent to defend the tunnel through the Wall in what they know is a mission from which they will not return. As they prepare for the enemy attack, led by a giant, they recite the oath of the Night's Watch ("I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.") knowing that their watch is approaching its end.

[@sirsnackosaurus6584]

This song, video and the album with the same name is a collab with the Ulisses Spiele GmbH. Ulisses is a publisher for Pen and Paper Roleplay games. They merged to promote the pen and paper system Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) Finsterwacht is a special region on the continent Aventuria where The Dark Eye is located. The songs on the album are perfect for a roleplay evening even if they don't directly refer to the dark eye. in this special collab box there is this album, bandmember cards, a book, a solo adventure and character sheets and Alea is one of the playable characters.

[@auri9270]

The video was filmed in 4 days (or rather nights). You could apply for the video as extra (the dead people on the battlefield and the people in the castle), you only had to bring your own medieval clothes. It was filmed during long cold days and nights at the end of January and they only had 4 weeks until release to make the final video. I hope you watched the Making of and got a closer look at the orcs, who are from a LARP group 😀

[@manondereeper]

Oh wow, that's incredible - I can only imagine the pressure! That's a short time frame. Thanks for sharing - and I still need to watch the making of!

[@Andy_from_de]

Been waiting for this one! Such a great reaction. Ok, the next band you should check out is Lord of the Lost. I think "The Gospel of Judas" would be a great place to start the dive into the LOTL rabbit hole. They have a ton of great and very unique videos. Another really great video is "Dark Tower" by Burning Witches. Here, the filmmaker and editor Jenny Diehl is also seen as the villian in front of the camera. Which is pretty rare, I guess.

[@manondereeper]

Glad you enjoyed it!!

[@uli69247]

The scene at the beginning, where the gang wakes up, was filmed a the morning of the Wacken music festival. And everyone was hungover.

[@voelzkatja3664]

Dieses Finsterwachtvideo ist einfach extrem gut. Cool zu hören, wie Fachleute das auch so sehen und erklären, wie ihr diese Effekte zustande gebracht habt, die mir so gut gefallen. Die Stops bei den Lieblingsmomenten wie Luzi kurz vor dem Pfeiltreffer zu Alea schaut oder bevor Frank die Augen die schliesst, wie Till wie catwoman aufkommt, der Bote die Karte der Türme übergibt und das als Autor, wie Alea hinter den Zinnen erschöpft realisiert, was für ein Himmelfahrtskommando der nä Angriff sein wird und keine Zeit zum Durchatmen bleibt, wie Jean Alea allein weiterschickt, einfach nur wow. Je öfter ich es anschaue, umso besser gefällt es mir und es schreit nach Fortsetzung. Jeder will wissen, ob das Mädchen mit dem roten Tuch und die anderen hinter den Zinnen, den nä Orkangriff überleben oder warum und wohin die Gruppe im Abspann hüpfend zur nä Aufgabe zieht... Vielen Dank für dieses Mega-Gesamtpaket der Finsterwacht. Das Orchester ist der Hammer und hat auf Festung Ehrenbreitstein gefühlt die Lautsprecher platzen lassen. Ich würde mir der Umwelt zuliebe und weil es selbst an der gegenüberliegenden Festungswand noch ordentlich warm ankam, wünschen, dass die seitlichen Feuerfontänen etwas seltener oder kleiner ausfallen. Grüße gehen an die Familie neben mir, deren Tochter ich unbekannterweise stützen durfte, damit sie das 1. Mal auf Papas Schultern zu eurer Musik beide Hände in die Luft recken und meinen neuen roten Merch-Hoody kreisen lassen konnte. Was für ein herzerwärmendes Gefühl von Gemeinschaft und schützendem Zusammenhalt. Danke, dass ihr nach so vielen anstrengenden Stunden selbst auf einer verschwitzten Bauchtasche von Versengold noch freundlich-kollegiale Grüße von Luzi an Malte hinterlasst. Warum eure Burgentour nicht komplett ausverkauft ist, ist mir ein Rätsel. Dank an die nette Schweizerin, die mir 2 Karten für Koblenz überlassen konnte und die VG/SaMo-Community, die mir den Tipp gab. SaMo, macht weiter so, auch wenn das Finsterwacht-Meisterwerk kaum zu übertreffen sein wird❤Gratulation an die Regie, die Crew und alle anderen Mitwirkenden. Die Kostüme der Orks/eure Larp-Community-Freunde wurden zu Recht hoch gelobt.🎉 Mehr davon bitte 🙏🏻🤘🏻

[@RolfMeyer-cl7ou]

Waiting for reaction of The making off. I am shure, i learn much of the Details. Grettings from northern Germany

[@Brainreaver79]

Great reaction ! thank you for doing it.

[@manondereeper]

So glad you enjoyed it!

[@christiandrie2679]

It's in Kusel/Germany, Castle Thallichtenberg

[@m.behrens5332]

If you like it, you should have a look to The Dragnborn Comes with Lara Loft (not the live unplug version), Pray To The Hunter or My Mother Told Me from Saltatio Morties. A lot of the outfits from Alea (the lead sinder with the nice hair cut ;-)) are made by himself.

[@manondereeper]

The costumes are truly amazing!

[@monerane]

I can second this suggestion. And thanks for reacting to one of my favorite music videos.

[@gerdforster883]

The mountains in the background are copied in. The region the video was shot in is in the Central Upands of Germany, where you won't find sufficiently dramatic mountains. The Finsterkamm is supposed to be a full blown alpine mountain range (up to 3000m high, if I remember correctly). The mists on the foothills might actually be real, though. In some parts of the the Central Uplands, inversion is quite common. What happens is you get a thin layer of warmer air between two cold layers. This can cause clouds to form at a low altitude. So you have no mist in the valley, clear skies on the mountain tops, but a layer of mist/clouds halfway up the hills. Oh, and one of the reasons why you don't get many good looks at the orcs might be that they don't really fit with the lore of that world. The Dark Eye orcs are supposed to be covered in dark fur, and slightly smaller than the average human. The LARP group who played the orcs look as if they are more inspired by Tolkien's orcs.

[@marge2548]

Hello there, I just wanted to let you know that on July 12th, Finsterwacht (the song or rather, the music video) will be released in English as "Darkenguard". Now that this is underway, I have high hopes for the Director's cut to be published in English, too... (Even though, with you being from the Netherlands (if I am not mistaken) a movie with a German narrator might not present too much of a problem for you? In which case I'd highy recommend "Finsterwacht Director's cut" to you even if it is not actually a music video.)

[@Revament]

I can really recommend that you check out "Sabaton - Christmas truce". Btw love this one and its so interesting as a music guy to see you go through the visual details etc and what amazing things you can achieve in different ways to make it look awesome.

[@manondereeper]

Christmas Truce is next on my list for Sabaton! ^_^ So glad you enjoyed this video and all the visual stuff, really trying to take a bit of a different approach to the reaction videos and add to people's enjoyment, and share my love for film, music videos and visuals!

[@sandy1653]

Alea (and the band too I think) are into LARP & Cosplay so it's entirely possible he made that costume himself. I know he has for other videos.

[@manondereeper]

You can tell - the costumes were truly gorgeous!

[@marge2548]

Hi Manon, the extended version of Darkenguard (which is essentially a 16 Minute narrated movie, not a music video) was just released in English by Saltatio Mortis. I don't know whether you would want to review it, since you already did this one, but mayhap you might want to watch it. :)

[@yskdereade123]

Ik vind de donkere kleuren heel passend. Düsterwacht = donker wacht of duister wacht. Het Finsterkamm (donkere bergketen) is de grens tussen gebieden, die voor eeuwen oorlogspartijen wassen, Bedankt voor jouw reaktie en groetjes uit Duitsland.

[@manondereeper]

Oh je hebt zeker gelijk! Het is ook echt een smaak/stijl ding dan wat anders - zoals ik al zei, het was geen kritiek :D Groetjes!

[@farin71]

Great Reaction! Please more! Check thr Saltatio Mortis Video Clips from ,,The Dragoborn Comes,, - ,,Pray to the Hunter,, - ,,My Mother told me,, - ,,Schwarzer Strand,, or ,,Loki,, (painted Clip)

[@metalfan9000]

I second all of these!

[@ravendelacour1917]

Interesting. There's a serious Nordic fantasy flavor in the zeitgeist atm. Everything from music videos, to series, to movies, and the excellent God of War remake video games. Also, the last shot with the extras atop the ramparts is a visual nod to the same type of prebattle scene for the battle of Helm's Deep sequence in the LotR Two Towers film. As someone who handles live steel myself I have a different perspective on battle scenes like this. Just like your experience in film making gives you a more critical eye toward lighting and shot composition, I have one toward weapon play. The weapon art style here is known as "Flynning", named after the old swashbuckler American film actor Errol Flynn who popularized the style. It's a flashy style requiring minimal training where one concentrates on attacking the other person's weapon to make a attention gaining display rather than actually trying to penetrate the other person's defenses. It's quick, cheap as it doesn't require professionals, and looks good in the background for extras. It can be used in the foreground if the actor like Flynn is charismatic enough to hold the viewer's attention through snappy dialogue or other dramatic activities. There's an famous scene in classic Doctor Who in the third Doctor run where Jon Pewtree, a decently skilled fencer, fends off the Master in a sword fight by Flynning with one hand and eating the Master's lunch with the other to show just how better skilled he is. The biggest problem with Flynning is how tempting it is to overuse it. Its cheap production value and low skill requirements makes it low hanging fruit. If there's not the budget or time to stage a professional production it's easy to throw together volunteers like the LARPers in this video. They've got their own gear, at least minimal training, and will often do it for minimal pay and exposure. And if course it's rare when the actors playing the leads are skilled in swordplay and working with live steel is always a risk. One either has to to hire a stunt person to fill in for sword fights or have the LARPer types give them the minimal training to look good safely. The issue becomes Flynning is all they can do and the production crew is left with a choice. They've only got one flavor of action in their production wheelhouse and they have to try and either minimize the onscreen exposure of the sword fighting so it doesn't become dull to the viewer through repetition or use camera tricks to try and disguise the sameness of the combat. The latter choice is usually where the production team goes as they did here with shaky camera, intentional insufficient lighting to blur out details and emphasis on the dramatic posing of the leads more than the actual fighting. It's unfortunately so common that I roll my eyes and wait for the next scene when it happens because of how many times I've seen it. The reason I suggested Czarina's "Blaze" video a while back was that despite being a much smaller production the swordfighting, especially at the end, is quite good. Czarina and her husband and creative partner DeadlyKawaii are practioners of Bushido style sword art and Zen swordsmanship. They choreographed their own final nighttime sword fight with excellent lighting and demonstration of skill with subtle FX to portray both combatants utilizing supernatural abilities during the fight. Plus it's got a Samurai cyberpunk ascetic crossed with traditional Asian storytelling. It is definitely a contrast of quality versus the quantity I usually see.

[@manondereeper]

Thanks so much for sharing this Raven, this is SO interesting! I had never heard of "Flynning" before but the way you describe it really sounds like basically most of the swordfights we see in film and TV. I just finished watching the new Japanese TV show Shogun and felt like that took a bit more of a realistic approach to the sword fights, but I might be wrong because it's not at all my forte. This is why I love filmmaking though - all these different fields of expertise coming together to make something beautiful, and it can get so incredibly complex. I just watched "Blaze" and was pleasantly surprised to find that it's also Japanese (inspired), just after I mentioned Shogun, haha. Nice video! What I do know is that for most videos and movies, they will use rubber swords/knives, and not real ones. The ones we used on set on this TV show I was just working on were all fake. They manage to make them look remarkably real, but they're not - just out of safety because people can get seriously hurt. I don't know if the swords they used in this Saltatio Mortis video were real... I just watched a large chunk of the making of video (really great!) to find out if they were, and there's a part where you can hear that there's real steel clanging coming from them so I would guess so! I'm definitely a bit surprised haha! kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJSzlpVrpN-oqsUsi=lrBT_fzB4ixj5uuG&t=1033

[@ravendelacour1917]

@@manondereeper To be fair, Flynning is an archaic term and regional to America and possibly Britain. Errol Flynn's career as an actor was at its height in the 1930s and early 40s and the Western swashbuckler genre of films he popularized died out in the 1960s until films like "Pirates of the Carribean" revitalized it more recently. I only know of the term for the technique because it's preserved in a TV Tropes page. I think it's become so ubiquitous in TV and film production it no longer has a distinct identity outside of us sword and film hobbyists. I haven't seen this version of Shogun but given it's set in a Japanese cultural frame odds are there was more effort out into using historically accurate sword work. Japan has a centuries old tradition of martial artsmanship that is still preserved to this day. The term I use for it, "weapon art" is a crude Western translation of Kobudō, which is blanket term for the various martial artistic traditions that were codifed in the Edō period of Japan but have their roots much further back in smaller, more secretive martial schools of earlier eras. (As an aside, this is the origin of the title of the popular anime IP "Sword Art Online" which is why despite the title being culturally significant in Japan, where it compares the mastery of MMO RPG techniques to traditional martial skill mastery, the meaning is lost and likely seems goofy to most Westerners.) "Blaze" shows off a few of these arts. Czarina's charcater the Assassin's initial slaying of the red shirts is based of Iaijutsu, the art of drawing a katana and attacking or partying in a single fluid motion. Its ideal purpose is to end a duel before it even begins. Her style of swordsmanship is the traditional Nitōjutsu, the use of a paired katana and wakizashi that is among the most common styles. Her first 1v1 opponent Yakuza Owl uses bōjutsu, the traditional art of the staff although not well. I have not studied fist weapons so I can't identify the style of her next opponent Tiger Claw but my crude guess is that it's a Korean style. Of course, DeadlyKawaii is the real life weapons master who taught them all so he shines in the final fight and he incorporates the spiritual aspects of the Kobudō within his character of the Samurai. He uses a variety of Kenjutsu styles but one that is prominent near then end is Iaido, a subset of Iaijutsu that expands the quick draw, strike and resheathing of the blade as he does when the Assassin disappears and reappears. DeadlyKawaii also demonstrates the solo weapon forms known as katas in the video's sequel "Wonderland" when his charcater fights CGI opponents. You can see why the videos appeals to a sword geek like me. The video is also shot in a style of Asian fantastic martial arts exploration films that descended from the Chinese Wuxia tradition. That genre was where Michelle Yeoh, Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan first started. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" introduced that style to Western audiences as a high budget and production film rather than the it's roots in the seedier quick and cheap style of Asian filmmaking that reached Roger Corman levels of awesome stupid. The Asian film markets have been making more in that style and elements of it showed up in "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" because Michelle Yeoh will forever be associated with it. As for Finsterwacht, that's the down side of hiring LARPers. They almost only possess live steel and will be using that and you need to work around that. I guarantee that every one of them had to sign a waiver of liability for the production regarding injury so that if anyone was hurt it fell on the LARPer. I am a huge advocate for productions to retain professional armorers if weaponry of any type is being used. The tragic death of Brandon Lee in "The Crow" film occured because the production dismissed the armorer just before filming the scene that killed Lee. They made every stupid mistake in the book from using a live piece that had been used to hold live ammo without properly clearing the chambers to having an actor instead of a stunt person handle the weapon in the shoot to not having adequate medical attention on hand to treat a gunshot wound. All to save a few thousand dollars. Nor is it the only example of fatal consequences of carelessness, just one of the most prominent. Even prop weaponry can be dangerous if handled poorly. I look at a rushed production like Finsterwacht and I think it's luck rather than preparation that nothing happened. I understand the tight crunch of time and money film production is almost always under but it's better to lose time and money than life for me. Many executives feel differently I am sure.

[@marge2548]

@@ravendelacour1917 Well, to be fair, the Fantasy themed videos SaMo does they do because they are LARPers themselves and have fun doing them, usually bringing along all their friends from the LARP and cosplay scene. This was the first time they did not do the cinematography themselves but hired a camera crew because the scale of the production was too large for that. So this is more like an annual"high school reunion" (Klassentreffen) gone movie scale than like a movie production trying to save money. But yes, of course, you have to work with what you got there. Given the fact that none of the folks in front of the camera were professionals, I think the result is quite good. (And it is actually shown in the making-of how they practiced the fighting scenes in order to prevent accidents, so yes, of course all of it was staged. ) Edit: I do completely understand that a mediocre fighting choreography would bug you, though. I used to be a biochemist, and more often than not, if I see people working in a lab in a movie, it just makes me cringe because it‘s obvious they have no idea what they are doing. I know that this is sort of unavoidable, but I still can not “unsee it”. I guess for you it’s similar with sword fights. 🙂

[@ravendelacour1917]

@@marge2548 After letting the thought ruminate for a while, I think my primary issue is that actors, LARPers, and cosplayers see weapons as props and thus harmless. While those who handle them in a martial fashion see them as instruments of murder that need to be treated with great care. Thus the dissonance.

[@marge2548]

@@ravendelacour1917 Uh, thank you for getting back to me. I very much appreciate that. 🙂 I completely understand, even if not necessarily sharing all of these thoughts. Reading your posts, it appears to me (but please, correct me if I am wrong, there's certainly no offense meant) that there are two partly conflicting tendencies: 1st impression: "Now, that looks simply unprofessional and it could have and should have been done better". 2nd impression: "This whole "weapons are a toy and fighting is an adventure"-approach rubs me the wrong way, it just makes everything feel wrong." And I see where this might come from - after all, there is precious little blood and gore involved in all that happens on screen here, too, even in cases where it obviously should be from the viewpoint of physiology. Now, whether or not fighting should be faked for the purposes of a game (or sports) in general might be debatable. On the other hand, most sports (even those involving fencing weapons) are toned-down, ritualised versions of fighting. And so, even in a more colourful way, is LARP. Which means that a LARP-appoach to a swordfight naturally is different from a natural one, and actually, everyone knows that. So is fighting on stage, or fencing or Kendo. And the outcome will look different. As for the video, there are, I think, two angles to look at it. 1st: "We want to do a video telling a dramatic story, including realistic swordsplay. How can we do this best?" That would mayhap have included hiring 10 to 15 skilled swordfighters able to do free style fighting on a level most band members would not have been able to compete with. Resulting in them needing stunt doubles, and rendering the whole approach of the video with the band members being protagonists rather pointless. Or (and I think that rather was the case here): 2nd: "LARP (or re-enactment) was one of my most favourite passtimes. Now wouldn't it be cool to do a LARp-video now and then?" LARP is basically acting, and no one wonders that an actor may protrait a certain character but does not necessarily has all the skills of that character himself? This results in the fighting being LARP-style as well, and as you put it it yourself, and I am inclined to agree: This leads to a limited outcome with respect to realism already for the sake of safety alone. (Which seems completely reasonable to me). From this POV, the outcome is not the result of lack of trying or sloppy planning, and certainly not of carelessness. It rather represents what was feasible under the given circumstances w/o endangering anyone. And if that is the case - so be it. Then, watching the fights might be a limited pleasure from a technical point of view, but IMHO, the fights still fulfil their purpose within the context of storytelling, and there is still the amazing amount of details in location, costumes and athmosphere to marvel at, leave alone the music. So, for me, that's perfectly fine. A 3rd option that came to my mind was this: The video is, essentially, part of a project centering around a large Pend and Paper RPG campaign. You could hence also view the video as "illustrated RPG". And I think that a lot of people doing RPG, even where there is a lot of fighting and monster-slaying involved, do not imagine that in the graphic, gory way it could or maybe should be done. (I certainly don't.) Which might be another reason for the oddly goreless depiction of events in this video (apart from age restrictions otherwise). Anyway, thank you for reading. Your comments certainly gave me a lot of food for thought. ☺

[@Andy_from_de]

The band just announced that on May 31st there will be an even longer director's cut of Finsterwacht... just sayin'. 😀

[@ekarus4360]

Better production than amazons lord of the ring show

[@marge2548]

Manon, I got another movie-like video for you. "The Story of one Sky" by Dimash. Now this was filmed on a professional film set, with a big budget (and it shows) and, being war-themed, it was really tough to watch (for me at least). But there are so many interesting effects, especially with sounds. I think it might be worth a look.

[@manondereeper]

This sounds very cool, adding it to my list! Thanks Marge!

[@marge2548]

@@manondereeper It's really impressive. On another note, Saltatio Mortis have just announced that, the release of their album "Finsterwacht" will unfortunately be delayed by one week, to June 7th. Because of that, they will, on the original release date, which is May 31st, publish a "director's cut" of the Finsterwacht video. Which will be even longer than the original. I suppose that even if you might not want to do a video on that one again, you might want to watch it, mayhap.

[@born2rock182]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJSzlpVrpN-oqsUsi=6b1hwm8uAIFvbmd5 the making of from the video 😊