Hey guys--Here's a TV spot I just shot with my DVX100. It hasn't been color corrected yet but you will get an idea of what the footage looks like. I'd love to get everyone's feedback on the spot. It's for a device that allows you to change your view in first-person gamers simply by turning your head in the direction you want the view to change. Anyway, check out the website, it explains it better. Here's the link:

http://www.trackir.com

Click on "in use" and it's the first video on the top. You need Windows Media Player 9 or Quicktime to view it. I look forward to comments and questions,

Peter

Cool product. I'm new to video, but this commercial makes me feel a little dizzy because there are too many scene changes and the swoops are too fast. There is too much motion. Something is moving in every scene. Even the closing titles are zooming. The imaging looks great to me, and I dig women in white tops. I can't hear what the woman says at the end of the shoot. If it's what I think it is, I would prefer a younger woman, or perhaps two. Chuckle. Most gamers are younger. Overall, it's a pretty cool commercial.

Hey Peter,

Good job! I'm a sucker for anything that has to do with airplanes, so I loved it. I especially liked the hangar shot at the beginning. Did you use natural light or artificial? Looks like natural.

I, too, thought the lady was a little old...but hey, who wouldn't..um...ahem. Anyways, good job!

Wow...that looked great, very very nice shooting and editing. Cool product also, I don't know what else to say. :D

Very good work !!!! Bravo !!!!

Now, everybody wants to know what you use to shoot this clip: Dolly, Crane, Stabilizer?

Great work! As an occasional watcher of G4, the gaming network on my digital cable, I think it'll fit right in. The fast swoops and continuous motion are definitely a must to keep pace with the energy needed for gaming oriented programming.

well shot and edited. Really shows off the DVX and your skill.

very nice camera work, and quite the little product!

I thought it was pretty good. The motion makes sense for the product obviously.

Thanks for the feedback guys. For stabilization we used a portajib. Kind of overkill for the little DVX100, but I had access to one so we used that. The lighting is natural until she sits down, then we started lighting stuff (it got dark). Her voice is a little soft at the end, especially when she says "at". Originally we wanted to use the Basement Jaxx song, "Where's Your Head At?" and there is a cut with this song that is pretty kick ass, but they wanted about $20,000 for the song, which was way over the budget of the commercial (about $2,000). The cool thing is the lyrics of the song, the "Where's your head at?" refrain, matched up to her saying that, so we just had her lip sync with the music which worked surpisingly well. But, alas, record companies are greedy.

The commercial originally aired on teh Discovery Wings Channel for a show about flight sims, so that is the target audience. The response has been really good from the ad, so I'm hoping the company will decide to buy more ad time on different stations. We'll see.

Peter

Really well done, Peter. The lighting is great. Good color. Good composition of the shots. The hanger shadows were excellent. It was either early morning or late in the evening. Good stuff.

Did you shoot in 24p? If I had to guess, it looks like it's 60i.

And most amazing is the budget of $2,000. DV surely has forced some healthy competition upon the industry.

What did you cut this on?

Russell

Nice job Peter ..... amazing what one can do with some color correction and editing. Lighting looked great and I loved the opening shot .... that is what it's all about - grabbing your attention in the beginning.

Kudos for a job well done!

Love it, and i also put a link to the actual product and clip on my Tech forum... this is the kinda stuff we look at...

as for the production, well all i can say is thumbs up and good luck with your future endeavours as i can see that there WILL be!!

cheers
P

The shoot did start in the evening Russell, and we shot 24P Standard. I cut it on DV Xpress 3.0 and used After Effects 5.5 for the little end graphic.

Thanks for adding the link Peter, my client will be happy to hear of the extra exposure.

Well done Peter. You have done a great job with the commercial.

is this imagequality possible with sony trv950?

Peter:

I too am impressed with your spot.

Very nice command of motion and composition, as well as editorial choices, particularly in the opening (the approach).

The photography and exposures were dead-on, nice rich skin tones.

Viewing the QT file, I think I would have guessed this originated on film, or at least HD. Amazing that this is mini DV.

The overhead shot as well as the low tracking shot towards the windows is a perfect example of picking the right time of day to achieve a naturally lit effect that would otherwise require a very substantial lighting budget. Excellent.

My only thoughts are the use of the slide effect on two consecutive shots in the middle, which I found somewhat distracting; and the final shot of the actress delivering her line was a bit static in comparison to the rest of the spot (and the speed ramped drive in that starts the shot). I might have liked to see a quick cut punch in, i.e. shoot her with two slightly different focal lengths, then cut from the wide to the tighter one in the middle of the line, which would add some kick to the shot.

Overall though, you delivered a fantastic amount of quality for the dollar, and your client should be ecstatic.

thanks for the great review charles, you've made my day/week/year. and thanks for the great suggestions, always appreciated (like film school without the crushing debt). I look forward to having more work to share with the group and to receiving more of your great insights and observations.

Peter