Church Volunteer edit, critique please
 

my g/f is a youth minister and they wanted to try and get more volunteers for her group as well as the children's group, so this is a lil edit showing the congregation what joys there are being a volunteer

church volunteer on Vimeo

Some good shots there and gets the idea across, but there's a few points I would mention:

1. Leave off the zoom - it's over-used and is distracting. Frame the shot and leave the zoom alone unless it's absolutely necessary to change it.

2. I find the wash (fade to/from white) transitions distracting as well but maybe that's just me.

3. Take time to set up shots - the waste (trash) bin in the background at 00:46" could have been avoided as could the clutter behind the subject at 2:01" - by just lifting the offending items out the way if necessary or by a slight change of camera angle.

4. A tripod could have been used to good effect in some of the shots where the subject is static.

There are many positive points in this film - I like the way the scenes shot against the window have been exposed, and the audio is reasonably well done.

Just my 2p.

I would agree with the above. In 90% of all shooting I would recommend moving the camera, not the zoom.
Also, with striped carpets like the ones in that room, you'll be better off manual focusing. Cameras love to focus on stripes.
Nice exposure and editing. Colors look good and clean - exactly how you'd want a child care area to look.

wrd,

thanks colin and adrian

Janson, your video reminds me of my very first video. That is because my first video was of children in my church's youth ministry program. It was used for the exact same purpose as yours.

While you gracefully accepted the comments about your video, it can be difficult to hear when you are just starting out, so I commend you for your great attitude.

I agree you should keep your finger off of the zoom. Don't worry, the overuse of the zoom is normal and most beginners have the same issue. It can feel dramatic when you are shooting.

The single best advice I have ever received regarding video is as follows:

Use your camera as if it were a still camera. Frame your shot, then push record and keep it steady. When done stop, then frame your next shot. It is when you are stopped that you zoom. Zoom in or out, THEN hit record.

If you are recording an event such as a church service, etc, obviously that rule cannot apply if you are doing a single camera shoot. But you get the idea.

i see, thanks jeff

If ya'll have time, I'd like to put something of mine out there for critique. I'm pretty new to all of this and have spent most of my effort shooting for the local newspaper's video site. So, its kind of run and gun stuff.

Taylor 3rd Grade Class to Safety City on Vimeo

Thanks in advance for any criticism.

Dave

Critcism
 

I agree with the above.

Well I think it looked very serious and professional, maybe when you interviewed Gary, Jennifer and Sparky you could have been using a tripod or something ( little shaky sometimes ) But, except from that i thought it looked very professional.

Love how you kept the voice when you changed scene to another ( when the girl drove the car for example )

I'm not that good in english and it's 3 am so i hope you could show consideration to that :)

You're correct about the tripod. This story just kind of happened. I went their to film my kid at the event and just ran into these people and took advantage of the situation. I'd normally put a lav mic on them for better audio but, as I said, it just kind of happened.

Thanks for the kind words. I've been shooting video for about 4 months now and always appreciate kind words and criticism.

Very nice video. Great work. I would suggest taking out the shot of the girl with her fingers, she appears to want to pick her nose, and it is a bit hard to watch...the closeup would have been perfect otherwise. Shot of girl driving out of driveway is overexposed, street is blown out...but you must already know that. Sometimes I know we have to work with footage that is less than perfect....

I liked your editing and shooting, definitely agree this appeared to be professional overall.

Your use of lower thirds was excellent.

I think the majority of your interviews came off well considering it was hand-held, and with the exception of the one officer they were perfectly fine, unless I missed others that were too shaky.

It came across as a nice soft news piece, and you have some skills, for sure...keep it up..Let us see more if you have any more stuff to share.

LOL. Ya, I agree the finger shot with the little girl was tough. I took it out of the video I gave to the teacher because I was afraid it was going to embarrass her. I also agree the one shot was washed out. I have just started thinking about color correction and things like that. Using FCE, I am somewhat limited in what I can do with color correction but it has some helpful features. The biggest challenge for me in the color correction world is how you know whether or not you've got the color right. Its probably personal preference as much as anything but I'll keep looking around the web for advice. Part of the challenge here is that the XH-A1 has soooo many "features" that I'm struggling with knowing which ones to use for different shots. Audio is always a struggle for me. White balance is something that I've just started thinking about. And I still struggle with focusing. I'm trying to stay away from auto focus since everyone I've read says its not a good idea. But the A1's LCD display doesn't help much its so small. Maybe someday I can through on an external monitor and not be so tied to the eyepiece, which is a challenge when you're doing a shoot where you're the videographer, audio dude and interviewer. People sometime get puzzled when I ask a question and am looking at the LCD to make sure I at least have them in the frame and the audio meter is not pegging. Maybe someday I'll be famous and have a whole staff of people to take with me. :-)

All the videos I've done are on my Vimeo site: David Gibson's videos on Vimeo. The earliest one was even before I bought the A1. It was shot with a handheld camcorder.

Thanks for taking time to critic. I do appreciate the comments. They give me something to think about.

dave

I think the washout at around 45 in is OK because I doubt you have that many effects to work with and you need to make do with what you have, but it needs to dissolve into the next shot rather than just cut into it quickly so it's not a fade to color. If you're going to fade to color, it needs to be real fast, only a few frames, so it flashes into the next shot. But other than that it's pretty good for a first try.