2012/13 Showreel
 

Hi guys,

I've just finished sticking together my first showreel. Was hoping to get some feedback before I put it up on my website. Any tips/criticism appreciated.

I've chucked a password on the video because I want to keep it under wraps, as I haven't licensed the music yet. I know, not technically legal, but I wanted to get some feedback before I finalised everything and paid for the music.

Password: spaceman
Video: Thanks guys, any feedback appreciated :)

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Right, got around to licensing the music. So here it is. Any feedback appreciated :)

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Jody, a great intro. I liked that a lot. I thought the waterfall was overexposed. Do you have the option to use GNDs? I'd rather see blocked shadows than blown highlights if GNDs are not available. The plastics workshop sequence worked well. One of the realestate interiors also had badly blown highlights tending towards flare. I'm guess YouTube's restricted bandwidth is not helping with this though. Nicely paced and not too long.

Interesting comment about licensing the music. I've not put any of my projects online because they have used unlicensed popular music. :-(

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Thanks for the comments. No, I don't have any GNDs. I've never actually used them. Might be something I need to look into though.

I do struggle with exposing interiors with big windows in the background. I expose for the interior, hence the blown highlights. Hopefully I'll improve with practise.

As for music, I typically wouldn't put a project online with unlicensed music. But in this case I wanted some feedback first.

Either way, the music is licensed now :)

Thanks again.

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Hi Jody,

I've followed your work and I like it BUT... you MUST work on the exposure, the highlights are getting blown out to an unacceptable level, even taking into account the You Tube factor....practice.... shoot and reshoot the same scenes until you get it right, you have a good eye, don't accept mediocre exposure.

Learn to look at light, reposition yourself.

My advice, don't use this as your reel, go and shoot something and persist until you get the exposure right.

You can do better than this, not in content but in exposure.

Al.

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Thanks for the feedback Alan.

I generally use the "push auto iris" button to set exposure, and then work from there. Any tips on how I could improve my exposure? My camera skills are all self-taught (my diploma mainly focused on post production), so any tips would be great :) Always keen to learn.

The worrying thing is, it looks fine to me.. I don't see the problems with the exposure.

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Jody,

I'll go through it and be precise.

What camera are you using?

Al.

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

JVC HM600. Thanks! :)

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Jody,

Intro is good.

Rising sun timelaspe is not bad at all, bit blown out but acceptable, not enough to worry about at this point.

Fade to next scene is good.

Slide is good, nice speed and smooth, camera position is off. Why do I say this? Lets say we keep your iris and shutter speed the same, If you look at the grading of the sky colour at the top of your shot to the bottom of your shot, you'll notice it fades out to a very pale blue. This is due to the position of the sun. Keeping all settings the same but tilting the camera up changes your persective to the sun and moves your frame into a region of deeper or more consistant colour. This will also give you more saturation in your greens. The sun will still be hard light and give the same effect. Now, it may push you more to shadows but the information is there and can be retieved in post.

The transition to the lake is too fast, particularly with thw pull back happening straight away. This scene is of the same genre as the last.

The pull back on the lake is jerky, this may be a product of You Tube. Focus of the scene is soft, i.e. not sharp, this however, may be intentional.

The cut to the pigeon, in time with the music, is good.

Now, this pigeon is a challange! You're shooting with the sun on your left shoulder, which incidently gives you a rich blue in the sky, that would look good in the second scene!!!, back to the pigeon, sun on white pigeon with darker backgroung = headache! So, take your reading and then stop the iris down one stop. This will also help with your focus, which is soft, in actual fact, your focal point is behind the pigeon and closer to the edge of the birdhouse (I think that's what it is!) Have a read up on the thirds rule for depth of field.
The bits that are blown out here are from the top of the left hand wing up the neck, stopping just below the head and the right hand side of the breast + the beak.

Cut to the waterfall is good.

What's the position of the sun? You have that lovely blue sky!!! ;)

That's all I can do for the minute, it's been a hectic day for me and I'm knackered. I'll finish tomorrow if you like.

Al

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Hi Jody,

OK, to the waterfall......... :)

The majority of the left hand side could do with a bit more saturation, but it's not too bad. The RHS however, is well overexposed, if one were to break the frame into thirds, on the landscape orintation and moving from L to R, the right hand side third is your problem area. Because this is a static scene, i.e. still there and therefore repeatable, it would pay you to go and reshoot it if possable. Set your gear up as you would normally, take your readings as you would normally, shoot the scene. Then close the iris down to F3, adjust your shutter speed to slightly on the slow side and shoot. Now, I've read up a bit on the JVC HM600 and I see it has a 3 stage ND filter, I think this could be a real friend for you. After shooting your Man. iris and shutter, set your camera up in manual at the correct settings, shoot the scene, then drop in the ND on a 1/4, shoot the scene, move through the next two ND settings. If you dont have a clapper board, scrounge up a small white board and jot down your settings and shoot that prior to each shoot.If none of this works to null out your overexposure, it may be worth getting a graduated ND filter to screw to the front. BTW, make sure you shoot with no gain, i.e. 0dB

Cut to Strata Precision Plastics.

Both cars are overexposed. Maybe this could have been shot at a different time of day, i.e. either early morning or later in the afternoon. It's best to stay away from shooting during the middle part of the day as colours are washed out.Notice the run off of colour in the sky.

Move to the secretary, she's busy having her head chopped in half by the glass shelf, either lift or drop the angle but get her whole head with an unobstructed view, she is your point of interest in this scene. Exposure, apart from the rear window, which simply doesn't matter in this scene, is good.

Move to the workshop, this is very interesting, the blues, reds, greys, yellows and the ply wood background are all good. However, the greens are are a bit blown out, could be telling you something about shooting outside, also, skin tone is a bit on the red side and his left arm is a bit on the overexposed side, that young bloke is a red head, therefore he's more likely than not to have fair skin......can you remember if that's the case? Exposure in general is practically spot on in this scene.

Office scene, exposure is a tad over, whites are a bit blown out. Focus is a bit soft but not necessarily a bad thing.

Car pulling out is not bad, a bit overexposed but the scene is so short it doesn't matter.

Real Estate, I consider the two opening external scenes to be good. Good composition, lightings good, position is good.

Gotta dash......

Al

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

I'm finding this really informative, thanks Alan. If you get the time, I'd love to hear what you have to say about the real estate/marathon footage, as that's my more recent work.

I should mention that the first two sections (nature shots and Strata promo) were shot when I first purchased the camera, so I was still getting used to how it worked (having come from a consumer camera). So I'm hoping the real estate and marathon shots are better.

Thanks again!

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

OK, I'm back.

As I said, first two scenes on the real estate are good.

Now, the first internal scene, bit of a screaming diasater.... colours are pale, lights above the curtains are blown out to the max, reflected light off the picture is blown out. Left and top edges of the white cushions are on the way to being blown out. It almost looks like you may have got your WB muffed up. I think you need to stop down and shutter down as well. I like the perspective, I feel you're trying to create 'space' and I think it works but you'd be better off trying to get as much of that brown sofa out of the frame as you can. It has caused you exposure problems. It may have been better to turn off the lights and instead had a fill light behind / beside your camera bouncing off the ceiling.

Fruit and table. Lose the foreground left hand chair, it's not whole and detracts from the fruit bowl. Focus should be on the fruit bowl, everything else can be soft and it wont matter. Double window at the front is badly blown out on the RHS and to a lesser extent on the LHS, I think it's to do with the angle of the blinds, a simple tilt up would get over this.

Double bed has the white curtain blown out and therefore taking the foreground of the bed with it. I think if you had of drawn the curtains about a third of the way you would have got over this. Rest of the room is OK.

So, we're back in the living room. You've got rid of a lot of the sofa but still have an overexposed shot, colours are reasonable so I think WB is OK, it's simply over exposed.

Next external scene on the slider is good.

Moving on to the event.

Opening scene is good, well lit and exposed, good panning speed.

The next two night scenes are good.

Next scene of runners has great perspective, a great angle, however, I would argue that the focal point is too close. I would have it set at about 10M out, this way the runners are running into and out of focus. At present the leaves directly in front of the camera are in focus, nice and sharp as well, but, they don't really matter because they're not special enough.

Next, the solo dude, great pan, kept very central in the frame, but his face is way over exposed, that's the part that matters, correct skin tone is parramount.

Runners coming around the tree, great perspective, tail end is well cut after the guy comes into view. Sunward side of runners body is over exposed but doesn't matter a toot due to running speed and clip length.

Medallions, good focus pull, effective.

Next group, focus is nowhere and it's effective. Whites are blown out a bit.

Guy with no shirt, skin tone isn't quite right, runners white shirt is blown out.

Runners in the water, leg skin tone is out, over exposed but the visual perspective is great.

There you go.

You asked about tips, what I'd reconmend you do is learn how to read the light, I think I've said it to you before. Learn the charaistics of the camera eg, experiment with fixed scenes, like the waterfall, shoot and reshoot, jot your settings down, when you get it right, create a setup file for later use.

If you struggle getting focus, try an external monitor or using lower F stops. Have a read up on the thirds rule, you can get an app for depth of field calculations.

As I've said, your panning, composition and perspective are good.

Good luck, keep at it.
Al

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Thanks Alan, I really appreciate it.

I'm glad that you had better things to say about the event shots, as that is my most recent work, so it must mean that I'm improving!

I might get outside with my camera this week and put together a little compilation of shots, keeping in mind what you have said.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

P.S. the pan of the solo runner, he has sunscreen all over his face, hence the odd skin tone =)

Re: 2012/13 Showreel
 

Hi Jody,

Yep you're definately on the improve, keep it up. :)

Re the solo runner, you're off the hook......

Al