James,

I'm lucky to have a good friend that will do all audio and music
aspects for me (composing, scoring etc.). He used Cubase SX
and Wavelab 4 on our Lady X episode.

Keep in mind that freeplaymusic etc. is only free when you are
not making money directly from the product or indirectly (ie, it
screens at a festival where people must pay for a ticket!!).

There are numerous sites around the web (do a google search)
from new artists that try to get their music out there. A lot of
them will give there music for a indepedent movie if they get
credit (and probably a link to their site) for it. See it as a way of
two artists helping eachother out.

Was nice! How fast do those things actually go? As you've said
yourself, the most important thing is, is that the client is happy!
I would have liked it a bit shorter in length, but that might be
because racing quickly loses my interest <g>

I know I need to learn a better way to do the graphics and text. Some of the title sequences I've seen on the videos on this site are amazing. I'm using a program called Media Studio for my editing as it came bundled with my firewire capture card. And its pretty easy to use.

One thing I have learned is that the cuts and disolves are the best transitions. But why do the editing programs make such a big deal about having 87 versions of a barn door transition and such? I think the "gizmos" in the low end programs distract the beginner to much, it makes it harder to focus on just making a good video. Its too tempting to try and use all the "effects".

The Mini Trucks are powered by a 13hp honda motor and will reach speeds of 120kph or 75mph. Its pretty much like go-kart racing. But NASCAR has made the trucks very popular.

Indeed, FORGET the effects! Why those are there? For the mass
market that is buying all those little camera's and "making" little
homevideos. Someone probably thought way back that it was a
"cool" thing.

You wouldn't say from the video that those things are running
that fast. Nice!

I Shot My First Film With My Xl-1
 

Hi Everybody,

I just shot my first film with my XL-1. I shot the entire film in "Frame-Movie" Mode and edited with basic i-movie 2.

Check out what I was able to do with just an XL-1, a shotgun mic, my Corvette and my dog. Go to:

www.dreammachine88.com

Best,
Matt Gutelius
Fast Car Films.

Nice C4 Matt.

I've got one in black. :)

Once again, outstanding work. Had a very good behind the scenes feel, but still showed off almost as a music video in and of itself. I liked the fast cuts at the begining. The "get the camera off me" verbal was cut a bit short, but candit comments are always hard (how is it that just as someone says something brillient, someone makes a loud noise or otherwise ruins your audio in the background??)

Anyway, very inspiring, and as always with your work, the video quality was very good and fitting.

Thanks for sharing.

company demo reel...check it out.
 

here is a short demo reel that my company put together. we shoot live shows and make music videos.

Scrambled Visual 2004 demo reel

(right click & save as)


what do you think?

If you get rid of the spaces in between those [url] tags we'll be able to click on it :)

The video is really nice. The whole thing has really good pacing and visuals, very tightly put together. It's short enough so it holds your attention the whole time as well!

Same thoughts here. Nice, fast, looking good!

IMovie short video's from a rookie
 

"Silhouette In Flight"
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater10.html

"Silhouette In Flight part 2"
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater26.html

"Water Games at Sea World"
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater23.html
I recent won 3rd place with Water Games in a worldwide video contest.

"A Love Painting"
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater25.html
A short video of my wife and her Love bird Jade.

"My main video home page"
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/Menu17.html
You'll find some of my other work.

I moved your thread to our "see my work" section.

Great job on that reel. I enjoyed the layers you added to the video. What software did you guys use on it? Was that done on after effects?

I enjoyed the way that the reel ended with the slow-mo and the the beeping sounds.

:)

it was editing using only final cut pro 3. thank you very much all of you for your kind words.

Bad ass!

looks good, I noticed lots of slow-mo, I didnt really get the feeling of speed tho because of the slo-mo.

You might take some cues from a DVD called "Speed Tribe" its about Lemans racing, check it out!

http://speedtv.com/programs/147/
http://www.dance.com/speedtribe/st-video.html

I only noticed one slowmo shot I think and I liked that one
personally. Overal very nice, and nice angles indeed! Liked the
camera at the back of the bike too. Did thought it was a bit
too long for my taste though.

My first real paying job is now online!
 

This most recent paying gig, done to promote an upcoming technology levy for a local school disctrict. I had to yield some creative control in some of the portions, but all footage and editing was done with my new PDX-10, Frezzi Mini-Fill, Samson UHF One, G4 450DP and FCP4 and DVDSPro. All said and done just over 100 hours to film, capture, edit and output. Not the most exciting subject matter, but overall the district was very happy so I guess that's all one can ask for in the end.

http://www.fifeschools.com/news/newsitem/techvideo.html

Ryan

I've moved your thread to our "showcase" forum and merged
the two posts into one.

Although I'm on a 2 mbit ADSL line the movie is really unwatchable
for me (a lot of stuttering and waiting in the video) so I only saw
the first 20 seconds or so. Would be great if you could put up a
direct download link.

One note from the opening. If I'm not mistaken you are using the
THX sound. This is probably not "legal". Just so you know.

legality fo THX soundbite
 

You know it's interesting that you bring up the THX soundbite, that was one of the creative decisions made outside my control as was the intro logo and the use of some stock footage shot by others where there were some quality issues from lower end cameras. The argument is that the THX sound was within fair use because it was so short and used without the THX logo. Anyone have a concrete answer? Also, what advice would you have for someone in my position when a client wants changes right near the end of a project, I mean outside of just pulling the plug or causing a client to be really dissatisfied? Thanks!
Ryan
Ps. sorry about the streaming issues and I think I'll be sticking to more exciting and more self directed/controlled work in the future

I think it isn't legal for two reasons:

1) you are using the "music"/"sound" without the logo (I'm pretty sure it is meant to be together

2) the piece isn't being made by THX standards

Most probably you will need a license to use it anyway. If it is
something the client wants then it is their responsability as well
I'd say (which perhaps could be written down with a signature
to cover and legal action against you). But if you want a more
definitive answer on that, make a thread in our Taking Care of Business
forum. Some people in there are a lot more qualified than me
to answer such questions.

Clients wishes are always a difficult thing. I don't do video work
for clients (yet), but have to deal with them in my professional
work (building websites) quite often. We always write a
specification about what is going to be build and how. The client
has to sign this. Within reason we will allow people to deter from
the spec, but only up to a point. If there are too many changes
they either are going to pay (which happens usually, or the
changes just simply don't get in) or the project is cancelled (never
had that happen).

Ryan,

First I'm very impressed. Your sound is good your lighting is good and the piece is cut together well. I thought it was a little long, but I assume your client wrote the script.

I was particularly impressed with the closing scene where your host is standing by the bus. She is obviously in the shadow of the bus but lit up perfectly. Did you use HMI lights for this?

If I were you I would find a cheap stock sound effect to replace the open or create one yourself using a sweep and some reverb(maybe make it go the other way: high to low) then offer it to the client. "You could purchase this from my SFX library for only $20." If they say they would rather go with the sound stolen from THX, then you should smile, with a gleam in your eye that says I love working for you guys, and ask kindly if they would mind having their lawyer write you an indemnity.

Maybe I'm over reacting.

Re: legality fo THX soundbite
 

The movie was very nice. It was very good at communicating the plethora of ways that Fife has incorporated technology. And good for them. The only improvement I can think of is with content: I would like to see how students in Fife are doing academically compared to that district before the introduction of all that technology and compared to surrounding districts and national averages--is the integrated technology really helping them?

But overall, very well done.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ryan Morris :
... The argument is that the THX sound was within fair use because it was so short and used without the THX logo. Anyone have a concrete answer? ...-->>>

(I apologize if the tone is aggressive, please don’t read/take it that way)

Yes, it’s illegal. The TXH logo/sound is a copyright of THX, Ltd. They allow cinemas, multimedia creators, hardware manufacturers, etc. to use that logo/sound as an indication that the product has passed THX certification. Your video, from what I understand, did not. Just using part of their copyright makes it no less illegal.

Fair use is incredibly misunderstood. Fair use, in my not professional understanding (disclaimer-this ain’t legal advice coming from a lawyer), allows you to show the THX logo/sound if you are, for example, making a documentary about the movie process and certification standards. Fair use allows you to quote from a book when writing a review or critical paper on that book. Fair use does not allow you to use the THX sound as part of a logo.

Quite frankly, schools need to pay more attention to the law (most of them, after all, are public institutions and if they get sued, the taxpayers pay and less money will go towards education). Stuff like this and especially theater departments--way too many film their productions without paying the appropriate licensing fee and that’s if they even pay for the permission to perform that play or musical.

Yes, copyright is broken. Yes, the RIAA is making a foul out of themselves by suing their customers. But copyright is the law.

Trailers for a video I'm working on...
 

Here are two short promos for a video I'm creating for some friends down in Naples Florida. Nothing special or anything but I'm learning I guess...

The first one....
http://www.bmxbums.com/videos/naplestrailer.wmv
http://www.bmxbums.com/videos/naplestrailer.mov

The second one...
http://www.bmxbums.com/videos/naplestrailer2.wmv
http://www.bmxbums.com/videos/naplestrailer2.mov

Like? Dislike? What can I do to improve? The cheesy "film" effect in the first one is horrible. It was my first time playing around with the Cinelook plugin. Although I wasn't really aiming for anything to be extremely genuine looking. Just something different that I've never played with before.

Liked it at first I thought Oh! How original the faded look and all was that it. BAM you hit me with some good music, very good biking and I did like the cuts from your point of view.

Meaning I should have just watched it and see what the outcome would be and not say I’ve seen it.

I liked the crossover, but the music was a bit too much for my
taste. Overal it's nice work. The worst part where the slow
motion pieces. Those jittered all over the place and looked very
bad in my opinion. Rest was fine.

The slow motion....Yes it is horrible. I never noticed it untill I already uploaded the clips onto my server. What happened was somehow my export settings were set to deinterlace everything. I fixed it a couple days ago but now my server keeps timing out when I try to upload the fixed version. Try the wmv versions if you can. I don't think they were deinterlaced. Thanks for the feedback.

show-reel De Dag
 

www.wimm.be/showreel

This is a trailer I made last week. All the images you'll see are shot with an XL1S. Editing was done with FC4 on my G4 dual 1.25 G.

Last year I made 16 documentaries for a commercial belgian television. Due to the succes of the serie I have to make another 20 documentaries, starring international stars this time.

The start of this new serie will begin in march.

Enjoy watching this show-reel.

I liked the reel. You had some good images and shots in it.
However, I didn't like the voice and I thought a lot of his lines
shouldn't be in there, like:

"amazing camera work"
"breathtaking images"
"and shots you've never seen before"

That's something you should show the audience, not
tell the audience in my humble opinion. That's also the
advice you hear a lot for screen/scriptwriting.

Let the pictures and sound/music talk for themselves! Also, I
think you should've sticked to calling it a Trailer and not show-
reel. A showreel is a short video that you show to people who
are interested in your work. A trailer is meant to create interest
in a product (in this case the show) instead of someone's work.

Anyway, I liked the pictures!

XL1 (not XL1S) on Animal Planet
 

For anybody interested, the show "Mad Mike and Mark" tonight on Animal Planet is entirely originated on vintage Canon DV. It's all about photographing lions, elephants and cheetahs in the African wilderness. Enjoy,

This is currently also playing here in Japan. Just goes to show you don't need the biggest and latest to get good shots.

Couple new shorts
 

Hey everyone, I haven't been to the site in a long time - due to a computer crash losing the favorite forever - but luckily I've stumbled back upon ya'll.

We have a few new shorts at www.american-ocean.com since I've been here. "It Happened One Ass..." a short that should be cautiously shown, please - please, oh please - heed the disclaimer. We also did a little commercial parody with "Blue Dog's - The Test"... check 'em out but don't let your milk get spilled.

Yeah, we know we're not the most visually stimulating film makers out there, it's hard enough to get actors to come out of the woodwork for free, let alone a crew that knows what they're doing! I know some of ya know what I mean...

One Ass wasn't my kind of movie. I thought the commercial
was better, especially the last part with the "nice client". Heh.

I do think audio is your weakest link for sure. I had to krank open
my sound to almost full with all of the stuff I watched. Also
on a lot of shorts (especially One Ass) it looks washed out and
if there is little contrast (if somebody put some veil over the lens
or so). I saw this in The Italian trailer in a couple of places as
well while the rest there looked a lot better.

Thanks for your reaction Rob.


As you noticed my english is not that good, so thanks for making me clear the difference between a show-reel and a trailer.


Bye!

I spent three weeks videoing in Africa, unbelievable,

Thanks!
 

Your comments are greatly appreciated. After the first reply I was a bit worried about what peers would think, but I knew it was pretty good and everybody else seemed to like it. For me, the big issue and most difficult challenge after leaving a active studio environment while in college, is to get honest critical input on work from peers. So, thanks again for your opinions, keep them coming and I will be making a directors/portfolio cut! ;-)
Ryan

Hello Rich,

I liked the creativity in your videos. What source do you use for your sound tracks?

Keep up the good work.

Thanks

Joe Pitz

Fellow San Diegan

First attempt at music video
 

In the spirit of sharing, here is the first draft of what hopefully will be a career change for me and the first steps of larger exposures for the guys performing......but than again, I'll let you guys here decide whether I should keem my day job :-)

http://www.rafalkrolik.com/youngcasanovas1.wmv

Well I'm not going to be the one responsible for your career change but I'll offer my thoughts on the video!

Some of the shots are static for WAY too long, throw in some more shots of other things to break it up. Try cutting to short clips of in the club like you had at the beginning, or the girl in white dancing towards the end. A couple key times I'd recommend cutting to other shots is when they are dancing in front of the Hummer and part way through the shot you adjust the tripod and pick it up.

Right now: Static tripod shot in front of Hummer.....Tripod adjusted...Fade to the beach

I'd try changing it to something like: Static tripod shot in front of Hummer (with some cuts to the club in it)...Cut to Club (instead of seeing the tripod adjusted and picked up at the end of the shot)...Cut to beach.

Since you have Vegas I'd try using the color correction it has on the some of the shots like the outside stuff with the Hummer. Try and match the look of some of the similar videos on MTV.

Looking good so far, let us see the next draft/final version when you get it complete!

Cheers,
Brian

Thanks a lot Brian. You are absolutely right . The more I view it, the more I see the need to break things up and that fade to the beach looks very bad.
Color correction in the hummer scene? Hmm, any particular examples you have on your mind? My immediate thought would be to do some contrast adjustments but maybe there is a better idea out there.
OK, back to editing "table".
Thanks again for you critique.