Bravo Italian Restaurant Promo (Ex1+Letus Elite)
 

This is a promotional film I wrote, shot, and edited for Bravo Italian Restaurant located in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Bravo Italian Restaurant on Vimeo

Technical Info:
Six hours of shooting using three SXS Cards on Friday, February 20th and delivered fully edited to the client on Friday, February 27th.

Shot on a Sony PMW-EX1 with a newly purchased Letus Elite. I used a 28mm 2.8 (Wide), 50mm 1.4 (Primary Lens), 105mm 2.8 Macro, and a 180mm 2.8.

All tracking shots were conducted using an Indi-Slider and Steadicam Flyer LE.

Feedback is greatly appreciated and critiques are welcome!

Overall it is a nice piece. Great color and the pacing is good.

There were some glitches on the steadycam shots... the panning across the rooms. Is that just a Vimeo compression thing? I assume it's not in the original footage.

A couple of suggestions:

I didn't care much for the opening and ending shots. They seemed amaturistic compared to the body of the footage. I would consider coming up with something a bit classier.

This one is for your future projects as I'm sure you can't reshoot: The clearly visible lav mic on the narrator is distracting and, again, detracts from an otherwise professional looking piece. Either find a way to hide the lav or use a shotgun mic and boom pole.

Again, overall, very nice.

Thank you for the great feedback and suggestions!

The glitch must be Vimeo's compression. It is not in the original footage.

I am curious to see what you would add to the opening and closing shots instead of the time lapses. Maybe more food or close details? I will be doing quite a few more of these so your input is greatly appreciated.

I will use a boom next time, my 50ft XLR cable shorted out, so I had to resort to the wireless system. Is there a place you recommend the lav going to better compliment the subject?

Thanks again,
-Josh

Well,

I think I would ask the owner, if he had one image that would represent the feel of the restuarant, what would it be. Build on that. The advantage of this is that you have almost automatic buy-in on the idea because it was his.

Maybe it's the old world italian feeling. Maybe open with an image of the restaurant in a sepia tone and then transition to full color? I don't know. It would really depend on the conversaton with the owner.

As far as hiding the lav goes, that's real easy. Just run the wire up, along his back on the outside of his shirt. run it up under his collar, then using double-sided sticky tape, wrap the mic in the tape and position it under his collar, just near the open edge by his neck. You can hold the wire on his back with some gaffer's tape.

Josh

Nicely shot. However, I tend to agree with Marcel. I realize there are many ways to edit a piece but what came to my mind as a better way to edit this was to start with your beautiful shots of the dishes, intercut with teasers of the exterior (if you need it at all in the beginning anyway), and then prior to any interview have the owner invite you inside....that fairly screams...FOOD ! Beautiful FOOD ! Wine ! Italian !! (now you got em hooked). It IS about the food, after all, not the real estate. The shots of food and wine, with the music would immediately capture a viewer in a way the exterior does not. The exterior, tell truth, hides what's in store inside in this case to my eye. I might even save the exterior shot for the end.

And Marcel is spot on about the lav mic. I am not opposed to a lav appearing in a shot when you are in a hurry but when it is not run and gun, hiding it is better, and sometimes in a slightly noisy environment a lav is better than a boomed hyper in any event.

If you recut it, let us see how you did. Thanks for a lovely piece.

Chris

ps. I liked the slider shots. I have found for myself that a moving camera really ups the production value of a shot. Have you considered a jib (crane)? A few of those kinds of shots would really punch up the piece. Since you said you would be doing more I wanted to suggest that - that was not a criticism.

pps. I have not had the chance to try this myself, but I once read somewhere that beverage shots just look better in slow mo. I tend to notice on broadcast spots they are in fact most often shot that way, you might experiment with the wine pour in slow mo and see if you prefer it.

Chris has some good suggestions for an alternate opening.

I guess when we want feedback we want it NOW.

Thanks for the excellent feedback Chris! I definitely agree with all your points and will take your considerations in my next shoot. Sorry I have not replied this thread, I actually re-edited this based on all the suggestions I received.

Thanks,
-Josh

I'd love to see your re-edit.