DVC #6 Feedback - Ed Sloanker (An Hour In The Sun)
 

The music blew me away. I've always loved that type of new age style music and I am drawn for some reason to any references to the sun. The entire movie works as a meditative piece for me. I can watch it over and over because the images/music evoke the beauty and happiness of nature. I wish I could describe how I feel right now. Your movie has put me in a happy, reflective, mood. Thank you, Ed. I Loved it.

Ok, the eyes freaked me out.

The music and the images went together extremely well. Once I got past the freaky eyes moving around, I realized that the sun was looking at what was going on around. I loved the shadows dancing on the sun too. Like Hugh said, it made me feel happy.

S-l-o-n-a-k-e-r :)
 

Hey, THANKS, y'all for the nice comments. This film literally was shot an hour in the sun. Had one camera (gotta love sturdy, Manfrotto tripods) trained on our sun god on the side of the house. The other I ran around shooting other stuff. Would've liked to have gotten more of the "wilder" life around the property, but nothing was happening. Can't get the talent to work like you want 'em to, eh?

I have to hand it to my stepson, Ryan. He's an incredibly talented musician and I love using his music in my videos.

The eyes were.....fun. Try sitting directly in front of the camera for four minutes with your eyes wide open; dogs running around you, mosquitoes buzzin' in your ear, hot, humid, yadda yadda yadda.... Yeah, you just can't buy memories like that.

Again, many thanks.

Ed.

Oh no, I loved the eyes. In fact I could have sworn the grin got bigger. I know mine did. Very nice job Ed. Wonderful music, beautiful shots all combined for a very nice entry.

Nice concept, caught me off guard lol. The end made me smile as well.

Thanks, Dennis. Yeah, the grin does get bigger at the end.

Here a link to the actual .WMV if anyone wants to download it and view it separate of the web page.

http://www.elpilon.com/anhour.wmv

That dog rolling in the grass!!! Loved it! And I loved all the critters in the yard; for this viewer you can't go wrong with dogs and cats. :)

This was one of those "feel good" movies, and I really liked it, Ed. Generally, I don't get into those sun faces, but you used it well. Great job, as usual!

You know... with his music and a few more props, you could almost make this into a saleable relaxation video. Just an idea. Maybe use a few garden Gnomes, that cement duck, one of those fake deer people put in their yards, Flamingos, those Owls people put on their roofs and frog shaped lawn sprinklers, etc. Do a piece through all their eyes and you have a whole community of "actors" to watch the world through. Now that could be creepy (If I did it)

I liked it as well. I didn't notice the eyes for a few moments. They blended really well. I liked the soft focus effect around the perimiter of the shots looking through the sun's eyes.

Good stuff,

Sean

thanks for the download Ed. I was having trouble getting the stream to keep playing and wasn't able to see the end.

I loved the eyes once I noticed them. And the music was great. Kudos to your stepson, and to you for being smart enough to take advantage of the talent you've got in the family.

A very relaxing video. I liked the concept and the music, it fit really well with the video. It made me smile.

Those eyes were freaky! An hour in the sun sucks (not the film lol) im white as can be and I burn like no other. I was only out in the sun for a little bit and I still couldn't handle that. The dog and cat were a nice addition. At first glance the sun god looks like a chicken pot pie. Maybe im just hungry. Anyways great work!

Holy Mary, Mother of God. That was the scariest thing I've seen in some time, thanks a lot for the nightmares, Ed!

An hour "in the sun", at first I thought you meant it literally, and the plot had your body somehow getting stuck in that thing. I honestly found it hard to relax during the shots with the sun; I can't watch this without imagining the sun as the one who's singing the vocals in the music (which is, once more, superb). Those eyes darting around--at times seemingly in tune with the soundtrack--were mesmerizing, and freaked me out like you wouldn't believe.

The only suggestions I would have are to try deinterlacing (the Windows Media Encoder Deinterlace option has produced decent results for me in the past), and maybe ease up on that "tunnel vision" effect. It worked, for the most part, I just think it was a little strong.

Great, and terrifying job!

Thanks for all the great comments folks.

Robert, that first comment made me bust out laughing. I had to play around a bit with the track matte to even be able to SEE the eyes. I learned a lot about keeping my head still (not that I'm ever gonna do that again!).

That's for the deinterlace tip. I'll try that next time. This is my first (well, alright, second if you count the last DVC) real foray into web delivery of video. I need to learn more because Podcasting is next. :)

Yeah, I wasn't that thrilled with the radial blur, but I needed something to distinguish the video scenes of what the sun what looking at (if that even came across). Again, more learning....


Hey, John, I see you staring at me with those hungry eyes!!! Go get a sandwich or somethin'!! LOL!

Ed:

Download gave a better appreciation. I couldn't even play on one of my systems. Can't figure that out.

But once I got it downloaded and looked at it on a little bigger screen, I appreciated it more. I can't place my finger on it, but that sun reminds me of some character deep in my past... Maybe it will come to me.

Great job !

I'll admit I'm not much on mood pieces and prefer movies with more narrative but I still liked this one. I wasn't put off by the eyes, I was delighted and watched them closely because they both added so much life to the thing and I wanted to figure out how you did it so well. The music was a perfect match.

My only issue was that there was no sense of conclusion. The smile was well done and would have made a nice finish but it fails because I didn't know what he was smiling about. Was it about the sundial specifically or just at the end of the day with all these pleasant vignettes happening all around?

Otherwise, I thought it was a great interpretation.


-j