Travel agency promo
 

I normally only shoot weddings but have been asked to shoot 1 minute basic company clips which will be sold in combination with a company website.

This will be sold to small company owners that have just started their business and want something simple but effective to get their business started on the web or maybe existing small business that have outdated websites.

The setup is very simple, I visit the company first for an hour, see what they want to showcase, then plan a shoot for about 4 hours on location where I also record a short speech from the manager that will be used as voice over and try to have the edit ready latest the next day.

The company has to write the scenario so preparation time is very minimal for me, once I"m shooting I use that scenario as a base to see that I have matching images that go with the voice-over. It's not easy to shoot though as I have to improvise on the spot but to keep costs down I have to work in this way. The website and video combo will also be sold at a low price which is why the company is asked to do the preparation on paper.

Below is the result, I was quite nervous as these shoots are outside my safetzone but now I have done one I"m very excited to start on the next project, which will be for a small local cinema.

This was shot with thePanasonic gh4 in 4K and with a 12-35mm f2.8 lens (the dark presentation part with the powerpoint projection was done with a 12mm f2.0 and 75mm f1.8 as it was way too dark to shoot at f2.8) and I took some risk by using the cine-d profile with contrast -1, sharpness -5 and saturation -1 and I had the luminance level set to 16-255, in post I applied a yuv curve which basically added some more contrast.

I was not that happy with the standard profile that I normally always use as it was ok for weddings because it made the image "pop" a bit more but I didn't like the skintones that much and I wanted something more flat for corporate shoots, I did some testing the day before and the described cine-d profile looks much better to me.

I recorded the interview with a Tascam dr60 with a at897 mike attached to it, there was some some sound from passing cars in the background but the background music masks this a bit.

I have one question though, what do you guys think about the level of the background music, is it not a bit too loud? On my pc with separate speakers it sounds fine but on my laptop it feels like its overpowering the voice-over too much.

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Hi Noa,

I liked it - I would have changed the second shot (seems repeated), for a close up shot of the manager, to give us a feeling of who is talking (maybe more than 2-3 shots in), and then he explains his business with the aid of the b roll - that would also mean we know who he is when he appears at 00.56 - it took me a while to realise it wasn't just a VO.

Sound mix was OK both on my pc with studio monitors, as well as a laptop, but I think you could improve the VO to make it a bit deeper - maybe a touch of compressor and EQ.

Colours were excellent - I wouldn't worry about the powerpoint part too much, as you viewers will not notice!

Well done for going outside your safety zone! We all need to do that more!

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Thx Paul for commenting, the first double shot of the store exterior was to first show the entire store front but then to have a second one highlighting the families name which is shown above the door. To show the manager earlier is not possible anymore, the first part of the text he reads by looking at a paper (you can see the paper in front of him on his desk) so he looks down for that first part and we agreed that just before he would start reading the last 2 sentences he had to look up into the camera because my intention was to only show him at the very end of the film. I thought it was a nice surprise to see that the voice over was actually the manager.

I had been thinking of adding his name and title so people know who he is but here it's actually not about him but about the message he is bringing which is very clear. The person who wrote the voice-over part did a good job writing a to the point text.

I"ll leave the background music as it is. I have checked some other devices for playback and it's only my laptop that seems to make the background music sound louder, I will experiment a bit with the voice as you suggested, I don't have much experience in this but thought the at897 did a very good job, much better then expected actually. I also had a zoom h1 placed right in front of him on his desk and the at897 was placed about 40 cm further away yet it recorded a much clearer and richer sound. You don't see both mics in the image as right after the recording I removed the mics and recorded a small part without touching the camera's position and then masked that empty space over the microphones so they disappear in the edit eventhough they where clearly visible, some kind of houdini trick :)

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Hi Noa,

I liked it too, but I agree with Paul about the second shot. I think this is one time where a zoom into the name would be excuseable.

The music level sounded OK to me too.

Nice one!

Dave

Re: Travel agency promo
 

From the outside I have a few more shots, I"ll test to see if can include a closeup but stationary shot where I might do a zoom in post on, it's 4K so that is an option.

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Made a few changes, replaced that second shot with a panshot and added a lower third at the end when the manager was speaking. Didn't touch the sound yet, audio is not my strongest point so while I will experiment a bit with it the version like it's online now will be delivered to the client as they already gave their approval. They where very happy with the results. In 2 weeks I"ll be shooting a promo for a local cinema, will be fun.

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Changing the second shot has improved it no end. Well, I think so anyway.

Dave

Re: Travel agency promo
 

with "no end" you mean it didn't improve?

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Nice Noa

Colour was good and skin tones perfect ... there is nothing wrong with the audio level while you have a voice over. To me it doesn't take over at all!!

The English language is weird ! If Dave says "it improves it no end" what he MEANS is that the new insertion is WAY better so yes! a BIG improvement is indicated.

Much better than doing weddings !! No stress and no long and tiring hours either!!!

May I ask what you get paid for that as a say, hourly rate compared to weddings at an hourly rate ( if you did a wedding for the same amount of time would you make more or less?).... would that be an option instead of spending 12 hours +++ at a wedding?

Chris

Re: Travel agency promo
 

EXACTLY Chris!

Sorry Noa, Your English is so good, I forgot it is not your native language.

Dave

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Ah ok :) Not that I would mind if you didn't like it, I also feel it's better now because there is a bit more variation between both shots.

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Looks like the video embedded in the first post has been deleted from Vimeo?

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Yes I had to reupload again and asked admin if they could remove the original video in the first post as I don't want the companies name to be picked up in google through the title of the vimeo embed link so that it doesn't lead back to this website, didn't think of that when I named it. I have given it a more common name now. Below the updated version.

Re: Travel agency promo
 

Nice, I like it.... now if only I could understand what the guy was saying in the video :)

Re: Travel agency promo
 

I always heard Dutch isn't easy learn for anyone that has English as native language, funny thing though is during the presentation at the travel agency (where you see all those people in a group) there where the owners of Hotels in South Africa present. and they speak Afrikaans which is a West Germanic language derived from Dutch dialects spoken by Dutch settlers. This means I can also understand what they are saying if I listen carefully :)

After having watched this video many times I am very satisfied I did choose the gh4 to take with me, in another topic someone said the gh4 is a photocamera that happens to do video and with the experience I have build so far using this camera I can only say that this remark was very shortsighted. If you see what features this camera offers in such a small package at such a low pricepoint is amazing, panasonic at least doesn't rip their clients of by offering crippled camera's at higher prices to protect even more expensive camera's. The videopart of the gh4 is certainly not an afterthought.

I am slowly getting to know this rather complicated camera and it's certainly not a camera like the ax100 that you switch on and hit record, I"m happy I got the skintones right this time as that was a complaint I had when I started to use the camera, cine-d is a good starting point to grade your footage further.

The only thing which makes it more difficult to use is the 2.3 crop, my 12mm was just ok but I intend to wait for the 7-14 f2.8 from Olympus but rumors say it will be around 1800 dollar which could be right because their current f4.0 is already a very expensive lens. Or maybe the panasonic 7-14 f4 would do great as well, not exactly cheap either and I find f4 kind of limiting.