I'm thinking of adding "battle noise" in the background behind the music...

Good or bad idea? I'll try it and see how it sounds.

Thanks,

Mike

and I'm back...
 

so I havent posted here in a while. I just thought i'd drop in and show you guys some work. here is a new piece i did for a class project. i had to make an art video about my identity. i'm working to find my style, its somewhere between art video and film, im trying to incoporate alot of abstraction but visual effects at the same. hope you all like it. go to my new site design to see more stuff. peace.

www.rileyharmon.com

identity video
www.rileyharmon.com/temp/identity_comp.mov (14mb H.264 5min)

Mike

All right you asked. Looking at the intro I’m guessing you made it in some version of AE. First it’s to long for my taste; you should either go for more of a fast pace intro or slow intro. If you want it fast paced the moving lights aren’t enough. At least not right now. If anything in any kind of motion graphics you always have to keep things new and fresh.

If you want a slow dramatic intro, the movements of the lights are too sporadic. There ought to be a more thought out balance of where they move. I know I’m kinda bashing you, but from the look of the intro, your new to whatever program your using. So keep at it, either make it slow pace or fast. If slow the music is really what’s going to carry it, if fast always keep new things movin.

If you are to leave it as is I would make one suggestion, during the whole clip the lights are always moving, but as soon as the lights stop it fades out. Either push the fade back or make the movement a little longer, but keep the lights moving during the fade. Its long enough that everyone gets the title, no need for the lights to stop over it. It will look smother if they move during the fade.

My cent and ½

Jacob

As always, nice work...


ash =o)

Great advice... I had planned on making it shorter so I will probably speed things up. I was also wondering about how to end it, I'll try your suggestion and see how it looks.

Yes, I'm new to After Effects. :)

Yeah, I liked it too. Experimental is not really my thing, but you had some nice imagery going there. Reminded me of Steven Soderbergh for some reason. Nice work.

I liked it too, but I perosnally would have cut it down in 1/2 to get it to the next level.

Halloween Movie...
 

So here's a Halloween movie that we made for a competition.

http://www.billsfilms.com/storage/Halloween_Small.mov

^Right Click, Save As^ 32 MB, Quicktime, Sorenson 3, almost 9 minutes.

Made in less than 36 hours, in the freezing cold night.

Tell me what you think.


SB

I thought it was hilarious. I love your logo. Not sure about the music in the opening. Maybe change that.

How did you do the opening logo? Very cool! :)

Looks like you guys had fun...

It was a little long, and some of the edits need work...
Not bad though.

I don't "get it"....

I made this for a 36 hour film competition over at theforce.net. I wrote it, shot it, and captured it in one day, and then yesterday, I edited it, and rendered it out as well. The night we shot it was FREEZING cold, we were really rushed, and the daylight faded faster than expected. Good times.

The logo was made and animated in 3ds Max. Yeah, the movie is kinda long, but it had to tell everything that I wanted it to. I fixed some of the jumpy edits, and rendered out a 480p version, which will be uploaded soon.

Thanks for all of the comments, and yes, we did have fun.

Oh, it was shot with a Sony HDR-HC3, and edited in Vegas 7.


SB

Any feedback?

Generally speaking it was easy to follow.

The birds were too loud and repetitive.

The rumble drew attention because it was the only sound in the room.

We're using it http://dvestore.com/dvgeartalk.html
The new Publishpod from Brightcove is pretty snazzy. It's software that compresses your final movie into .flv and automatically uploads it your Brightcove account.

It's all still very new and a few features need to be worked on but everything is still moving along in the right direction with Brightcove- this stuff is revolutionary!

Cool. Very nice stylistic work. I agree with Brian, though. A little long.

i wanted it to be long because i wanted there to be this odd pacing and almost fractured time space, i feel that way alot, like ive "driven 100 miles in 10 min" also wanted the audience to get fidegty, tension and control over audience is fun :-)

thanks, what do u mean by different mono coloration?

Making skis in your garage: vid clip
 

Working on a grassroots ski company mini doc of sorts. Here is a quick edit from some footage last weekend.

5200K Bits/sec-75mb-Windows Media-2 minutes

http://www.fritzrips.com/FritzripsRandomVids/Bro.wmv

Independent UK Music Video DVD
 

I hope this is an acceptable post; if not I sincerely apologise and will completely understand if it's removed as it is a commercial posting.

Please check out www.ndividz.com, a new monthly DVD compilation of the very best low-to-no budget, independently produced music videos in the UK (UK only for now) presented in all their original high res glory, not in a little YouSpace/MyTube window.

Submission deadline is 15th November for the first issue, to be released December. Submission forms and rules are on the website.

Please note there is a charge for all videos that are included on the DVD but no charge for submitting them for review. Just wanted to clear that up so no-one gets upset when they visit the site and find that out! If the DVD is a success then the charge will be reduced or eliminated in the future.

If you're interested in subscribing (worldwide) or have any questions please email me directly (ianpstark@ntlworld.com) as ndividz mail is down at the moment thanks to a DNS problem.

Hope to see lots of your videos.

Ian . . .

Excellent idea, i will have one ready for you in january.. ill be in touch :)

Glad you like it! Look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Ian . . .

My first time recording to DV!
 

I did it! I am so proud of the image quality! Unfortunately, youtube totally messed up the video! But you can still see my efforts here.

If anyone knows of a good site that host free videos with good image quality, that would be great!

The real version (before compression and so forth), looked amazing, I was very satisfied with it.

Please leave any constructive criticism and suggestions here. Also, if you have a youtube account, please rate it and leave a comment.

Thank you,
~Gabriel~

Hi Gabriel,

Just got thru looking at you first video. My first comment is to get it off of youtube. The recompression they do on your video is an insult to anyone's work. I recommend putfile.com. Its free, no recompression, unlimited uploads up to 25mb each. Next I want to recommend that you experiment with Windows Media Encoder 9 to get better quality for the web. It's free also.

Now for your video. Nice choice of music. I'd recommend less movement of the camera. Pick your shots carefully and frame them tighter in the camera. Everyone has a different techniqe but I treat it like I'm taking a photograph. Eliminate everything from the scene except the main topic. That is what the viewer will focus on. Maybe others will chime in on story line etc.

Your video is a good first attempt. Now its time to learn and hone your shooting and editing skills. Keep looking at some of the videos in this site's "over water and land" section for inspiration.

Regards,

Thanks for watching. And thanks for the advice. I forgot to mention tho, that the footage is all raw. I did not edit it, I just put some music to it and called it good. Sorry for not saying that earlier.

I have also taken stills before, I love it, and I wish that it was not so expensive. oh, and one other thing I forgot to say, the squirrel footage was hand held and was at max zoom.

Thanks for viewing it!
~Gabriel~

Spoof of James Blunt's 'You're Beautiful'
 

Here is a spoof of James Blunts "famous" music video that has no point to it that we decided to make in our spare time.

Shot with a Canon GL 1, composited (not perfectly though ;) in After Effects, and edited in Vegas.

http://www.billsfilms.com/films/yourebeautiful.html

Tell me what you think.


SB

I don't get it.

There's nothing to get. A spoof is supposed to be funny-this ain't. It's actually monotonous, unwitty, boring. I've already seen other spoofs on that song and they were at least kinda funny...Now, as far as the image,not bad at all.

A lazy sunday remake that is gaining popularity
 

About 9 months ago me and my college friend remade completely; shot-for-shot the original SNL digital short entitled Lazy Sunday. Since we put it up on youtube, its been getting a substantial amount of attention from people (mentioned in the LA Times). So here it is... Shot with 2 DVX100a's over a span of about 4 days. I am the guy with dark hair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPF1RNZ9FYI


-Max Sitnikov

If you want to parody that song, at least use the parody version of the lyrics too...

"My Cubicle" is a much better song. :D

The video quality looks great. Having been a skiier for the past 24 years I'd be interested in seeing the finished doc... I'm sure it's a temporary thing, but the music was kind of overbearing in my opinion..

Production wise very close to the original, performances of Chris and Andy just cant be touched though... not sure I understand why you chose to remake it. Was it a project for school or just some bored homage? =o)



ash =o)

boredom but mostly a craving for magnolia bakery cupcakes. We filmed this before the remakes actually started coming out and even met Seth Meyers while we were filming it (our video actually got to SNL and he recognized us). So that was cool

Letters from a Madman
 

Here's a three minute thriller I made a while ago. I would welcome any comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlu1Wc-7TN4

School Snow Trip
 

hey i'm in year 11 at my school and i was asked to film my school snow trip and was wondering if you guys could just take a quick look at the video and tell me what you think. Thanks

This is the link

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...oid=1275561205

Hey Sonny. Well, pretty good for a fledgling effort. Keeping in mind the context of what the video was for (to document a school trip), I'd say that the good points were creative shot choices, even some good use of DOF, and good editing to the music. The only things that really stuck out to me as not so great was the use of colorization to give the video an effected look. Just let the shots do the talking. You had quite a few shots where the subjects were back-lit, but I don't know what your options might have been for positioning your self so that the sun was behind you. The air-guitar/lip sync part was pretty painful to watch, the kind of thing that is sort of an "inside joke" that only friends and family will enjoy (but then again, the context of the video has to be considered).
I think you're choosing really good angles and shots, especially if you were looking to a career for outdoor travel shows or something similar. I also liked that your editing was "tight". You didn't linger too long on any one shot. If you want to up the anty on your next project, try to work on getting all your shots looking the same color wise, through both shooting and color correction. I bet you school loved the video.

Fun stuff!


ash =o)

lol yes many inside jokes, yeh the school did love the video. thanks for an in depth review CJ.

That was spot on man! Some hilarious sh*t you guys made, just as good as the original!

What about this was a spoof? It just looks like a weak knock-off, with a randomly inserted piece of masterbation humour. A spoof is supposed to change the original text to make fun of it, not just copy it.