Hey Matthew,

It's a strange demo reel. I found some of the shots were not that great. As a demo reel, the behind the scenes shots felt out of place, but I can see how there may be artistic reasons for it. The camera was shaky at times, and not good shaky. Some of the shots looked like old army royalty free footage, I wouldn't use those if you're making a reel showcasing your or your teams filmmaking skills.

The colour correction was bland, everything was flat looking. I'm not sure if that was on purpose, but it doesn't look good aesthetically. For example, the contrast ratio for the black and white scenes was way too low.

Some of the colour scenes were not that bad. Some of the scenes look like they don't need colour correction. But a lot of them do, for example...
http://tomchukfilms.com/blaps/preview.jpg

I wrote a short article on colour correction using curves if your interested. It will make the shots a lot more attractive.
http://tomchukfilms.com/articles/art_ccwc.html

Justin

Thanks for the replies. I guess I didn't mention before that I didn't write these commercials, I did however make a revision to the Sundown One commercial to add the little cowboy. The original script contained the same dialog word for word (except for the little segment about the Sarsaparilla) only it was about two people driving to the store and the video was to be from their perspective inside the car looking out. The client wanted to show other businesses and actually wrote into notes that they wanted a full shot of the car driving in front of Circuit City.

Television advertising isn't too popular here in Springfield, IL an most of the ads you see are more or less radio ads with moving pictures. Had I been given the opportunity to meet with the client, I would have steered them in a different direction altogether. It's a simple scenario of a client who doesn't know what to say, a salesman who doesn't know how to sell concepts and an advertising director who doesn't want to risk losing an account. I don't know if that makes any sense to any of you, but that's how it is for me.

As an update to this story, the client has decided to run the commercial, but they want me to reduce the pitch of the cowboy's voice and change the music to make it seem more old western than upbeat country. I think these changes could help, but the issue I have with the commercial still remains and according to those of you who have posted your opinions it's not just me who feels this way. While I was able to do some creative post work with this spot, the viewer doesn't know what the commercial is about and once they figure out that it's for a high end audio/video store they're even more confused.

Thanks
 

So, I guess I will cut it to a soundtrack.

Whoa...nice job Justin you really made that pop. Does your article apply to any editing software? I use Sony Vegas.

Nice bikini!!!

Thanks Oliver. For the article I used Premier Pro. I don't have experience using Vegas, but it should work assuming it has colour curves options.

I looked it up, and it does. Just looks a bit different but it's essentially the same.
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/557...317x432io1.jpg

Awesome, I'm going to read it and mess with it tonight. Thanks for the info!

New website with samples, behind the scenes etc
 

Hi,
I just finished a web site my production company, we operate in Vancouver.

www.thebestproductions.ca

Please take a look and tell me what do you think.
Through feedback is the only way to improve it...

Thanks for your time.

Herminio Cordido

Personally its not to my style, I dont like flash splash screens and the inner parts of the site have odd looking text and mouse overs. I tend to see that a lot with video related companies which is very very odd as its a very visual thing they work with day in day out. For instance Weta have a very bland looking site : http://www.wetadigital.com/digital/

If you have the budget I'd recommend speaking to a few web designers and see if they can build something that compliments your video work and shows it off to its fullest.

BMW Spec Commercial, directed by me.
 

So, I just got my Canon HV20 about 3 weeks ago. I wanted to try it out, so I shot a short BMW commercial with it. Nothing major, just a little fun. Comments and Critiques welcome.

Here it is at YouTube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7m7oC2KXQU&fmt=18

And in HD at Vimeo...

http://vimeo.com/904845

And if you care about details, a short write up about it on my blog...

http://danielbroadway.blogspot.com/2...cted-by-me.htm

Good work. I like the post work!

Body Care Commercial
 

this was for practice and fun. Shot on the HVX at 24p/480i, i chose this res since we knew that it'll end up on you tube. We used the senn 416 on a boom, recording at 24bit to the 702T. Sound was a little overkill, but was awesome practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELXA53nj6LM

A Beauty Salon 30 sec spot in Russia
 

A low budget commercial, I directed,
http://olegkalyan.ru/_Quicktime/komilfo_web.mov
Please share the comments.
CHeers!

That looks fantastic! Good looking people, good music, excellent editing and camera work... What more could anyone ask for? Great job!

First of all, you had some serious audio problems. The voiceover was really distorted. It was so bad I couldn't understand a single word he said.

Just kidding...!

You did a very nice on that. Very professional looking.