Basic Halo 3 Theatre Tips

- Before you start recording clips, make sure that you aren’t connected to Xbox Live because that puts you at risk of updates such as game invites and friends signing on popping up while you are recording. This will allow viewers to watch your clips in all their glory without pesky interruptions.

- Make sure you have the reticule/aimer in your clips unless you are leaving it out for editing purposes. Accidentally leaving out the reticule makes the clip look incredibly awkward, which is why this is an important requirement when you are recording clips for a montage. If the reticule does not appear in your clip press B until nothing but your HUD appears on the screen. Then hit A, Y twice, and zoom. Your clip should now have a reticule. Also make sure that before you start recording clips, the time-bar and theater menu are gone because they are distracting

- When you are cutting clips from a gameplay, make sure to record a couple seconds before and after the clip. This is because a clip ending or starting too soon makes a montage look choppy and is rather annoying. Remember, you can trim down clips to their perfect length in whatever editing software you use, and it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

- When you are recording angles, make sure that they are as smooth as possible. A problem I often see in montages is that the camera work is all over the place, and I think that this is often a result of impatience. Remember, you can use more than 1 angle when working with a clip in theater. For example, a lot of the sticks I have seen in montages are recorded like this. The player throws a grenade and then the camera quickly detaches and desperately follows the grenade across the map and right before the grenade sticks the person or as it’s blowing up, the camera quickly zooms in to get the shot, often resulting in an off-center shot or one that’s way too close up. Even though I have seen this technique work out well in some montages, it is very hard to do with the way the camera works in theater. A better way to record sticks is to use a combination of many still angles to record it. For example, if you got a stick on a guy in the opposite base from throwing a grenade as you were going out your man cannon on Valhalla, you can first record yourself just throwing the grenade from a first person point of view, have a shot from top mid showing it fly across the map, and finally have a shot from the floor of the base slightly behind the player to show the actual stick and explosion.

- If you are going to have the camera move in a shot, I suggest just having the camera move in a single direction (up down, left right, or the clichéd spinning your camera around your Spartan from a third person point of view thing) since this can easily be done smoothly in theater.

- Do not try to do work that should be done with editing software in theater. For example, some people try to slow down or speed up clips in theater instead of just doing it with their editing software. This doesn’t work because slowing down a clip in theater at a consistent rate is almost impossible and after speeding up or slowing down a clip a theater, the clip stops. This means that you have hit play again and the slight pause that results makes the clip look choppy and awkward. With your editing software, you can do both of those things very smoothly and unlike in theater, it is easy to control the pace at which you want the clip to be sped up or slowed down.

- Here’s a tip that can save you a bit of time when recording clips. When a clip is loading in theater, the game is actually loading the map. So when you are recording clips, make sure to record all the clips on the same map at once because you will only have to wait for the clip to load for the first clip of the batch. This lets you get a start on editing the clips as soon as possible and is a great time-saver for impatient people like me.

- Here’s another time saving tip. If you need to fast forward through a ton of gameplay in a film in order to get to your clip(s), just hold down the right trigger and hit the start menu twice. Then you should be able to let go of your controller and have the clip fast forward by itself.