that sounds great kevin! i dont think i will have anything ready for submission in time though! everything else i have is way older than 18 months the rules state. (would love to send 2 music videos in that i did many years ago if they have a non competition catagory that can showcase stuff like this.) check out one of the videos on my website and pass the info along to whoever is in charge if you think they would be interested. i live in new fairfield CT now and look forward to attending the festival when it comes. (is it going to be held on the danbury campus like the animation festival was?)
anyway, check my stuff out at www.zenimage.com

thanks for the info!
marc

ps. kevin we should keep in touch for local productions...

good job! a few comments... try weaving the opera music into the background from the very beginning so it foreshadows its use and builds the mood to the climax. make the commercial a complete mini opera. you should be able to tell the whole story with parts of an opera. happiness, sadness, loneliness, madness, etc. you've got a lot to work with here. the opera part seems too separate from the beginning of the commercial.

also, the starbucks commercial was ok but i think it sold me more on the orange juice than the coffee. review the story you told and you will see that the OJ seems to be what perks this guy up and makes his morning great. most people wouldnt be that happy and energetic in the morning WITHOUT the starbucks coffee and that is what you need to sell/tell the audience isnt it?
one small tech thing...rack focus to the cup much much sooner. that is your hero shot and it needs as much screen time as possible (especially if this was a PAYING client who is spending a bunch of money to see their product!) revisit this story line and see if you can rework it into a better story. here is a thought...maybe you can have him wake up sleepy until he gets his coffee and when he smells the aroma you can do a fast cut quick time montage of a great morning (like you have already started) wake up sequence like he is remembering all of the best mornings of his life in one flashback. now he is awake and happy. he sets the cup down (your original shot but with a quicker rack focus) and tag line. just a thought!

slightly off topic but i checked out some of the other stuff and wondered what technique did you use for your timelapse stuff on the burnside music video? i havent found the best way to get it using the current dv cameras. i dont like their interval recording (.5 sec every 30 sec is the least you can do and it looks choppy.) i have heard some people using digital still cameras and recording to a laptop but havent tried that yet. ( ihave a digital rebel) some others (myself included) have filmed in real time and them sped up footage which is ok but chews up a lot of tape and hard drive space. adobe premiere used to have interval recording but left it out of Prpo! DvRack might be an option but dont want to spend 500bucks to find out right now! what about you?

good luck on your next projects! hope my comments help!

marc
www.zenimage.com

thank you for the feedback jake
we used a dsr-570 for that movie. it really renders great colors i wonder if it would do a nice job if blown up. that's when i REALLY realised how much this category of cam can't even compare with dvx and such.
i will definitely edit a subtitled version pretty soon...

peace

I guess it would be boring if you weren't part of the cast or crew. This was a 3 minute recap of the Saturday's events that we played Sunday morning before that days shoot. I only had 1 hour to filter through all the days footage to put this together (including making a DVD) which is why the quality of the cuts is poor. The makeup clip was created for the makeup artist to add to his portfolio.

I thought it could be of interest here but I apologize for posting it. Lessons learned. Thanks for your honesty Dylan.

Jim- Don't mind Dylan, he's just pining for Kim Catrell ;)
However, I too was hoping for a wardrobe malfunction... or 3.

I'll look into whether there's a non-competitive category or not. The festival will be held on the downtown danbury campus (the one on white street). I'll keep you posted.

As for local productions, I'm always looking for stuff to work on- sounds good!!

Thanks Marc. Now that's what I call constructive criticism! I appreciate it.

As for the Opera: I agree with you, but the song is timed, and the spot was based on, the fact that the laugh is exactly 15 seconds into the song so you hear it as it is. If I had a found a different song, yes, what you mentioned would have worked well. But the gimmick is based on the structure, so I guess it is what it is.

Starbucks: Yeah, the rack focus could have been earlier. The smell the aroma and happy bit? Well, yes, perhaps a big client would have wanted it that way, but that idea's a bit cliché' for me and I wanted to do just a little dissection of someone’s morning that turned into a spot. We had initially planed to do a shot of him at an actual Starbucks but couldn't get in one long enough to get the shot. Maybe that would have helped though. Thanks very much for your ideas and comments though. I'll keep them in mind next time out.

For the time lapse: It's just regular speed ramps done in post. I didn't have a cam that did interval recordings, so I just sped up the footage that was shot for a few minutes on a good steady tripod. That was it. Hope that helps.

Good luck to you too!

Sorry for being a downer Jim. I re-read my post and it came off harsher than I wanted. I think I felt cheated because I expected a bevy of bouncy busty beauties bonking boobies.

It does need to be shorter though.

Riley,
I agree wit Rhett, do you want this to be solemn or inspiring? In many cases, music can decide that. Something from a technical point...the general rule of thumb on opening titles like yours is to keep it up there just long enough for people to read it - if you end up recutting this, tighten up those titles and I think you will like the result. Another approach some might take is to have students reading them while they are on screen.

Nice look to the piece...keep up the good work.

-Robert

art installation
 

www.thedunesproject.com

to sample video element
click on photos -> video

warning: do not try to decipher

just sharing, dave.

1 - Aargh, not that music again! :)

2 - The first girl that speaks just gets faded out - This looks crude (if not rude). Allow her to finish a sentence and then cut to the next student. If she goes on and on for a long time, include someone else on the promo!

3 - Nice work, liked specially the part with the people moving at high speed in the corridor, while you track smoothly towards the student's back.

me and buddies 1st film
 

Hi

Here is a link to my film. Any insight on what I can do better next time would be helpful.

http://zed.cbc.ca/go.ZeD?POS=1&CONTE...nt&user=wpetti

It was shot with a sony vx1000 (with a broken viewfinder) and edited using iMovie and Premiere 6 but mostly on iMovie. It is approx 5min in length.

Willis

I shot this for Photonics West
 

I was hired to shoot several interviews down on the convention floor for different venders at the 2005 Photonics West Convention in San Jose CA. It was a one camera shoot. So I had the tallent go through the interview 3 times and got 3 different angles. I used a single Arri 650 and 2 wired lav mics. This is the best interview, in the other interviews the B roll was scarce. I should have shot more. I'm always surprised though when I see the final video...the xl-1 viewfinder is really sketchy.

http://spie.ndgo.net/exhibitcast/pw05/continuum/index.html

Bryan,
Looks good. Pretty utilitarian, but I'm guessing that is they are looking for - well lit, good sound, and the editing was generally seamless. Can I ask what lav mikes you used and if you like them...I'm in the market for some new (wired) ones and they sounded good.

-Robert

mics used
 

Thanks Robert,
Both of my mics I found on ebay. The mic on the interviewer was a sony ECM 66-B...the mic I used on the person being interviewed was a sony ECM-77B