Promotional Video with 5DmkII
 

Hi All,

This is a commercial piece I did for a local gym. I appreciate any critique you may have.

YouTube - A1 Boxing and Fitness Promotional Video

Thanks in advance,

Dutch

Hey Dutch,

That's a nice piece there. I especially like the 30 second spot.

(IMHO) I do think you're overgrading the colors a little and it's causing a loss of contrast. I think this was the same issue with the fly-fishing piece you put up before.

I've found what I call 'exposing for the web' where you lose brightness a little, so I tend to (very) slightly overexpose for work on the web, which is where most of my work ends up.

I had just got Magic Bullet a while back and really wanted to use it on a piece. The client complained the the image was too dark and so I dropped the MB all together and they were happy. It was a promo piece for a hospital, so it didn't really work. In this case you've got a lot more opportunity for creativity. A lot of times if you white balance correctly you don't really need to grade (IMO), unless you're just looking for effect.

The opening shot in your piece that tilts up the front shot of the guy with his arms crossed works really well, because it looks like you either over exposed the shot or did a bleach bypass or similar too create a little more contrast.

In the gym shots, there are the black hanging bags and dark mats, t-shirts and skin tones that really darken the shots and the grading slightly exaggerates this.

All in all though, it's great stuff, and I'm sure the client was happy.

Thanks Ken!

Indeed, I'm still trying to dial in my color for various outputs, but the web does seem to be my most popular destination. What is your process to "slightly" overexpose for web? Are you using Final Cut, Color?

Dutch,

No, I use Vegas. It has a decent CC built in, and I use Magic Bullet, though not nearly as much as I thought I would. I found a few of the MB presets tend to overall take down exposure and contrast. What I tend to do for the web is just make sure I don't underexpose. Sometimes I'll pick up the gain (and contrast) a little. I don't know this for a fact, it's just my sense that the web (maybe it's my monitors) tends to slightly darken footage. I shoot a lot of real estate, and so I'm always looking for light without noise. (though the web tolerates video noise fairly well). That type of shooting needs to be very clean anyways.

Re: color grading - I think that unless you're trying for a very stylized look, that it's better to just tweak your colors a little if at all. Just white balance well, and expose properly, and you shouldn't need much color grading. I shoot weddings too and seem to be de-saturating these days more than anything.

The 5d2 has a great feature which is a dial-able White balance setting which I use indoors as I find it quicker than setting the WB any other way.

In the case of your Flyfishing stuff, typically when you're shooting that kind of footage, you're shooting in or around the magic hour so people are looking for beautiful, natural shots. I've shot a lot of that style and it really is about time and place.

It's really easy to overdo the color grading. Otherwise, the spots looks awesome. I'm sure the client dug it.