Andreas Addiction
 

Beautiful imagery, Andreas. I did notice one small thing. It looked like your 16:9 mask moved at about 2:27 into the dance video.

And for what it's worth, I agree with Keith about the Dance2 video. I don't get the impression that the guy hollering at her crushed her spirit at all. If you want that to be the message, then I think you have to recut so that she doesn't dance anymore after he yells.

The only other suggestion is there were some long shots in Dance2 that appeared very dark on my computer.

It's still great work. I'm anxious to see the DVD when your finish. Keep us posted.

Mickey

Thank you.

Yes, the mask moves. the intent is to spit the view in 2 and run one side in normal motion and the other one in slow-motion.
Somehow the quicktime and some other things made the 16x9 mask flip out. But when I render full DV quality it works.

I didn't feel I would change that just for the .mov I renderd.
(sloppy and lazy) :)

Well, you seem to have gotten the message so why do a recut?
If you take it in a way that he crush her spirit that's your choice.
If you want to take it another way that's fine too:) I feel it came across as good as as it could. (she is a dancer not an actor)

I know some bits in the dance appeard to dark, we had a monitor with us and on the monitor (TV) it worked a lot better. So on the final DVD on a real TV it will be better. More contrast (with brighter parts). We did struggle with the light conditions. I always felt we had to little light to work with, but I did manage to keep the gain out of it.


Thank you for your comments, I'm noting them in my mental notebook!

Take care Mickey!

This is an amazing collection of files - many thanks for posting them - inspirational stuff!

I'd say most kids use music from cd's they've bought or downloaded in their videos...most kids I know...being that i'm 16..don't go and sell these videos...they are all for fun

I've got two "movies" for ya. Feedback?
 

Oh, alright (I suppose that should be "all right", technically, but I like this spelling better), I see--over the past week or so, while DV.com was down, I wanted to post some of my material here for your viewing (dis)pleasure, but couldn't decide which forum was best for it. I'm not doing broadcast or theatrical video, but it seems others in my position are also comfortable posting here, so what the hey?

I'll keep this simple. I've got two little movies to show you guys, and I want some feedback. Good, bad, indifferent, I don't care, so long as it's feedback. One could say I've got an ulterior motive for desiring this feedback, but telling you what it is could potentially taint your perception of said films, so bear with me.

I could go on and on and on about all the incredibly obvious problems with these files. All the blatant errors I made, all the stupid things I did, and all the less important things that I simply don't like, but that would take all of the fun out of criticizing me, wouldn't it?

My only disclaimers are as follows. No, there's not supposed to be audio. I'm working on it. And yes, I know the second one doesn't have a point. I'm working on that, also.

Everything else is fair game, so go to town.

These are just ordinary, run of the mill Quicktime files, encoded with SV3. Hope you can see them.

http://www.gyroshot.com/movies/Ninchairs.mov

http://www.gyroshot.com/movies/HorrorClips.mov

Those of you who also belong to the community at DV.com can find an equivalent thread at http://dv.com/jive3/thread.jspa?thre...00254&tstart=0, should you so desire.

With the horror one the first thing that stuck out to me was that you NEVER moved the camera... it was a locked down angle every single shot. Camera move, good.

You used the 'walk into the camera and black out the picture' transition more then once-- tough to get away from.

I only watched it once but the picture looked pretty good and the lighting in the basement shots looked like it worked.

The chair ninja thing was fun and you did move the camera but a lot of times in action fight sequences you'll see a lot of quick cuts that highten the tension and make it all seem more exciting. might want to try that.

I always say "steal from the best". Pic your favorite martial arts fight from a film and steal as much of it as you can as far as angle, transitions, shots. You'll learn a lot that way and the next time you do something like this you can change it up with your own ideas.

Excellent, excellent, gettin' some response! Appreciate it.

That "walk into the camera" thing, well, yeah, I was afraid that'd be a problem, but damned if I wasn't too lazy to come up with something interesting. :)

As for my static camera, that was intentional. I had meant for the locked down shots to be contrasted with some actual moving ones of a sort, thus making the difference between two particular locations in the film more apparent, but I haven't shot that stuff yet, so this crap has to stand on its own. And, in retrospect, I suppose I could always just move the camera DIFFERENTLY to accentuate the comparison, rather than be so overbearingly drastic.

Of course, even if I wanted to move the thing in these shots, I'd have been hard pressed to, as that's my fat, goofy, awkward ass you see on camera. Lesson learned? Find some good-looking friends who can act.

"Steal from the best", eh? Sounds like fun, I'll try it out!

In a funny way I liked the chairs idea it seemed odd at first yet I started to laugh at the amusement that you brought to the table.

Thank you

Feedback:
The ninja chairs was too slowly paced to hold my interest for long. Edit it more, maybe speed it up.

The horror on needs some tighter editing, and music. And it needs to be lighter. Use some dissolves between shots.

Hey, I liked the "horror" one. The other one didn't hold attention because it looked like an excersise in "let's see what we can do" type shooting. Remember, it's about a story and related to the people you're telling to watch your film...at least create a little back story to the first one...something to flesh it out.

Ok, so the horror one had some nice locations. It visually kept me interested because dark locations that are lite well always make me watch. It also had some nice camera work - just like one of the previous posters said...no camera moves....it's nice.

Also, I liked the widescreen format much better...I LOVE widescreen actually. Always use that if you can in my opinion.

Ok, so I would tighted up the editing all around like the previous post said...and remember....just layer story over it...lots of layers of story.

Murph

Heh...matter of fact, it WAS an exercise in "let's see what we can do" shooting. I kinda like the idea itself--people fighting chairs--but some sort of a POINT would be nice, I agree. I'm working a story into the new version (I wanna see if I can't improve upon the same concept).

Sportbike Racing Feature - Trailer
 

Hello all. I've just completed my first "real" production. The trailer is now available and I'd like some feedback.

The production is a 20 minute promotional video done for a local gear shop. This trailer is a good overview of the feature. This project was done after about 2 months of practice in Vegas. It's definately a "starting point", and won't compare too well to the outstanding work I've seen from some of you - so don't laugh too hard. I've got lots of room for improvement.

The text overlays in the trailer are pretty basic and boring. They were originally put in as a rough edit - I planned to redo them in After Effects, but the deadline came up before I could get into using AE. The next feature will definately have some better compositing.

Anyway, here's the link to the official site - you can download the trailer from here.

http://clubracing.pixelpointfilms.com

Thanks for looking!

I liked the use of Green Hornet by Al Hirt. -Favorite song from kill bill- though, the song continued energetically even after scenes with energy had ended.

I thought it was kind of cool for being shot on the fly.

Way to go!

Don't be too concerned about others being critical. The thing that is important is that you took an idea and created something that didn't exist and completed it.

Most small films never get completed.

Good job!

Cool video!

Way to go!

I've done a couple shoots in the school library and know exactly what you mean about feeling like an idiot. One thing that might help is that, although it feels like everyone is talking about how much of a moron you are, they're actually having fun. You'd be suprised how many random people will jump at the opportunity to watch the finished video that they saw being shot in the library that one time. And the craziest part is that they don't ever remember those "idiots" making a movie, they remember the fun... which is what its all about. Those we-made-it-in-15-minutes movies are always good for a couple laughs down the line too :).

I always welcome constructive criticism, which it seems you're going for here. Others can point out very usable mistakes and improvements, but usually you are your own BEST critic. You will kick yourself for a lot of stuff along the lines that others aren't concerned with. That's how you develop your own style.

Now for my critique :)...
One good practice to get into, especially with videos like yours, is making the viewer have to figure out what's going on. This can be as simple as opening with a tight shot or two before revealing everything that's going on in the scene. It makes the viewer think "What does this have to do with anything? I'd better watch more to find out."
Instead of the wide shot, you could have opened with a close-up of your pencil/paper, then your facial expression, then reveal to the library setting. It moves along faster and more naturally. Think of it like this, when you walk into a room, you don't notice the entire room right away. You notice the squeeky door, the diagram drawn on the chalkboard, the kid in the corner picking his nose, etc. Then you notice the entire room. Start taking a mental note of how you look at things, then edit the way you see.