New New Reel
 

I actually recut my reel (due to music issues on the other one). I've expanded it a little and included a couple of other projects.

http://www.meydenbauerentertainment.com/NewReel.mov

It's a bigger size and higher quality file so it may take a minute to load.

Looking forward to comments.

Josh

Thanks for watching Oleg!

Yeah, it's a bit of an absurdist's comedy. Hehe. :D

I thought it was pretty funny. Kind of an armless Shawn of the Dead. The package joke dragged on a bit long, but I thought the rest was pretty well executed.

Oh, and the music added alot. Good job overall. You might want to think about saving that one for ChillerTV's Dare2Direct contest. 5-8 minute horror movie contest around Halloween time.

I have to agree about the music. It worked in the beginning, but didn't when they were running and shooting and everything after that.

Otherwise, some great effect shots, and the shots were good in general (except the one with the mic).

Was very fun, I kept expecting the guys in the suits to take off their glasses and have funky eyes or something, but that's just my own imagination.

Good work.

Oh, and congrats on winning.

Fine cut "The Paper" need critique
 

Shot and edited this one in just a couple of days. It is in the fine cut stage and I'm just looking for some critique before I finish it up.

http://www.rpmproductions.info/video...Paper_H264.mov

Thanks in advance,
Ryan

Looks great to me, nice colors and good camera work.

Regards
Simon

It's only 30 seconds long people. Come on, watch it. You know you want to.

Can I get some feedback please?

Sure. A couple things:

You did a good job syncing your cameras together and it looks like it was a good experience for you.

It seems like your camera crew had a little trouble figuring out what to focus on - a lot of the shots seem to wander and aren't very 'confident'.

I saw a lot of the back of the head of the keyboardist, which isn't very pretty to look at - I would have preferred some very tight shots of his fingers, and then a shot of his face, etc... not the back of his head, unless you're tight on that but really focusing on the guitar or sax or something beyond him, if that makes sense.

There was a shot of the drummer that would have been cool but again you can't see his face - it's behind a cymbal. That was a little frustrating. We like to see faces, and if we can't it is a little hard for our brains to enjoy the image. It's unsettling or something - kinda like hot chocolate without the marshmallows.

So - good job, I'm sure it was a good experience for you, but there are some things you can improve in the future that will help the final show out quite a bit.

Thanks for watching Loney, much appreciated!

Yeah I didn't have an experienced second camera (handheld) operator with me at this shoot, so I just had my mom do second camera. Part of the problem was that the Optura Xi (handheld) was having focusing issues and had to be plugged in, so it was hard to move with it. I am going to replace it with an HV30 when they come out though, so that and a little training should help a lot.

Haha, good stuff! Watching that was definitely render-time well spent on my part, look forward to seeing more from you. :) I agree with the Shawn of the Dead feel. Definitely a good movie to be compared to!

Argh, back to FCP, playtime's over. =D

Great idea! Funny!

Wow... great camera work. Great color correction! I am humbled by people who can color grade like that.

Your work is very good. I enjoyed the story line. Your use of audio is very good - I love the sound of the creek, the sound of the geese.

I'll make some suggestions for improvement, but they are mostly very minor.

The second shot in the film is of the front of the house shortly after sunrise. The house is overexposed. I think it's intentional (giving us that "sunrise" look), but even so, it's too much in my opinion.

The woman sitting in the house, sipping the coffee, wishing she had a man... we assume she is single, childless. Behind her, to her right (our left) is an electrical outlet with a child-safe plug protector in it. Single people don't have these. People with kids have these.

Your shooting is very, very creative -- among the best I've seen of this style. It is *almost* too creative, where every shot is of the "creative" variety. We see her reflection in a plate, or looking thru the newspaper at her, etcetera, etcetera. Let it breathe once in a while with a straight-on shot. That is how we (viewers) see the world, is eye-level, straight on. It's entertaining to see things from another angle (especially a creative one) once in a while, but not every shot.

Sometimes actors, especially young, amateur actors, feel like they should ACT, because they're being paid to act. So you ask somebody to drive a car, and all the sudden they're driving a car like a cartoon character, jerking the wheel to and fro... and nobody really drives like that. Likewise, your character asks herself a question (in her head) and scrunches up her face while she does it. Then when she decides she doesn't know the answer, she shrugs her shoulders. Personally, my life is a dialog. I think to myself all the time. I don't ever scrunch my face or shrug my shoulders when I ask myself a perplexing question. Tell your actress to think the emotion they're trying to perform. Don't act it. Don't look it. Just think it. We're doing everything else in the film to make people believe it -- we've written the script to lead up to it, we've shot it in a particular manner, we're using pacing to make it believable, we've got a particular music playing under it... etcetera. You, the actress, are not our only means for getting "confused" across. You are one of five. So don't give me 400% confused.

I enjoyed the story. I watched it a second time, and the beginning confuses me. I appreciate the end-beginning-middle storytelling fashion, but for me, it doesn't work in this story. I'd prefer to skip the "we've been together for four years" part, and just start with her wondering if she'll ever find a man.

I think this film would win photography awards in any competition you submitted it in. Congratulations on a job well done.

Great lookin stuff there. I am just going to suggest that in the talking head shot at the end, the guy is straight on to the camera and the lighting is very flat all over. I don't know if it's something that you can change now, or for future things, but I'd try and angle the body from the lense ( 30/45 degrees and let them just turn their heads to you ), Also I'd say to let their head come up a little so you don't feel like they're peaking up over the bottom edge of the frame ( that was supposed to be funny, but don't know if it came off that way ). I do a LOT of talking head shoots and I have about 10 years of hobby and professional photography experience before I hit the Video world and so that's kind of my bread and butter (good and bad). (also, try and separate out the person and the back drop if you can and zoom in a little bit). Don't know if you have a separate audio recorder so it may be difficult to pull the camera back but if you can pull cam back and zoom in you can shallow out that DOF and get a much nicer easier to focus on subject that will make listening to them easier for the viewer.

Just my .02, (it comes with a money back garuntee) :P