Dominica - The New on Vimeo

Shot over the course of 6 days in Dominica with the FS700+Odyssey7Q, GH3, and some GoPro Hero3's.

Let me know what you think!

Wow. Some incredible shots there. Great music too. Very well done! I'm inspired.

Man this is so awesome! That's awesome you were able to get the opportunity to shoot that kind of footage!

I agree, that was awesome. Very well done.

Thanks guys! I'm glad you enjoyed it. If you're interested, I also posted some info/BTS stuff on the FS700 board:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-nxcam-nex-fs700/523369-new-island-adventure-dominica-fs700-7q.html

It was quite the trip and I'm really happy with what we created from it. As I'm sure you guys know, us shooters get caught in that catch-22 where someone says "Hey, we need really great travel footage, can you show me what you've done before?" and we have to look down at our feet and say "well... I don't really have any..." So I'm not only lucky to have traveled to this amazing island and create this video, but I feel like I have a project that can open doors for more opportunities like it.

Yeah, I've seen more of the tops of my shoes than I care to admit...

Was that the F700 with you on the front of that kayak?

Yeah, I've seen more of the tops of my shoes than I care to admit...

Was that the F700 with you on the front of that kayak?

Haha, yes it was. Probably not the wisest decision, but it got us three shots that ended up in the finished piece. So it was worth it in the end!

There are some breathtaking shots in there, so vibrant and sharp, but there are also a few that look quite soft and dull in comparison, it's not that they are bad but the difference is quite noticeable at times. It almost looks like a mismatch in camera where the fs700 (shot in 4k and downsized to 1080p?) is outperforming the gh3?

Without knowing exactly the shots your referring to its difficult to say but I'd guess that the softer shots where the GoPro shots. Would be interesting to find out.

at 00:06 the guy on the bike and the shots from that guy with his backpack hiking in the forest looked noticeable softer.

at 00:06 the guy on the bike and the shots from that guy with his backpack hiking in the forest looked noticeable softer.

Hey Noa, yeah, both of those shots toward the beginning (bike and hiking) were on the GH3. Thanks for taking the time to check it out! It was interesting using a bunch of different cameras for the project, it was mostly due to the run-n-gun nature of only being there for a few days and shooting as we went.

From a technical standpoint, there are some other shots that we put in because we felt they worked on an edit/emotional level, even if they weren't the most pristine/perfect shots. The dolphin shooting was crazy on a bumpy boat with an 80-200 and they only popped up for a few minutes of our boat ride. That shot was the best cluster of dolphins but was back-focused a bit. Then the shot of filling the water bottle from the leaf, we were somewhat deep in a forested area, shooting at 240fps, so we lost a ton of light. I was trying to balance boosting the ISO (which I should have done) because we ended up having to lift a severely underexposed shot, introducing a lot of chroma noise (that cleaned up reasonably well in Resolve). Then we used Neat Video a little and H264 compression helped kind of clean up the rest.

The cool thing about this discussion is that I had to go back to see what Noa was talking about and I enjoyed watching it as much as I did the first time.

Nicely done.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching it as well, I just notice these kind of things :) the gh3 shots appeared to be out of focus, especially the first guy on the bike shot and I"m sure the gh3 can do better then that, even the gopro underwater footage looked sharper.

Yeah, the GH3 shots are a little soft, it's normally sharp camera. Don't want to point fingers but it was the director using the GH3 out the car window (bike shot) and on the trail (i was the one hiking), haha. Of course, like I pointed out earlier, I had some of my own soft shots, that's the nature of run-n-gun.

It's interesting to discuss this stuff because in the edit, we had similar discussions where I was usually pushing for the technical things ("we can't use that, it's a little soft!") but the director was willing to overlook slight image imperfections in favor of what else the shot gave us in terms of emotion, context, and story. Because in the end, I think a lot of people who watched it and felt inspired by it wouldn't be able to tell you off hand exactly which shots were technically imperfect.

I hope I don't come off as being negative, I just am giving my view on how I experienced the film because you did ask for opinions :)

I shoot in a run and gun environment every week so I know how difficult it can be and in that respect I can understand the softer focus on the dolphins which is a get it now or never shot and even if they where soft, they did match the other fs700 footage, the soft gh3 shots however where not taken under the same time pressure so it looks more like a operator error because the gh3 is capable of much sharper images.

The content and overall feel of the film is most important ofcourse but for me these softer shots, especially in combination with these rich in colour, sharp footage from the fs700 did distract and once that happens my attention shifts to any new footage that has the same issue and then you lost my attention.

And I didn't mention it before and now you probably will start to find me annoying :) is that I didn't like the voice over, don't know if it's the way he said it or just the voice itself.

But again, not saying it's bad, the fs700 nature footage looks just wonderfull, it's just a few things that got me distracted.

I hope I don't come off as being negative, I just am giving my view on how I experienced the film because you did ask for opinions :)

I shoot in a run and gun environment every week so I know how difficult it can be and in that respect I can understand the softer focus on the dolphins which is a get it now or never shot and even if they where soft, they did match the other fs700 footage, the soft gh3 shots however where not taken under the same time pressure so it looks more like a operator error because the gh3 is capable of much sharper images.

The content and overall feel of the film is most important ofcourse but for me these softer shots, especially in combination with these rich in colour, sharp footage from the fs700 did distract and once that happens my attention shifts to any new footage that has the same issue and then you lost my attention.

And I didn't mention it before and now you probably will start to find me annoying :) is that I didn't like the voice over, don't know if it's the way he said it or just the voice itself.

But again, not saying it's bad, the fs700 nature footage looks just wonderfull, it's just a few things that got me distracted.

Haha, I don't find you annoying at all! Like you said, I asked for opinions. I think it's great to have open talks about our work. Too often we just give "likes" and little pats on the back, so it's good to have some critical responses.

The voice over is one aspect of the video we've actually gotten the most critiques on. We're actually working right now on trying to see if we can get a voice actor to lend his skills, as the guy in the video right now is a friend and doesn't have a lot of VO experience. The tough thing is that the project was unpaid (our travel expenses were covered, but we didn't get paid for anything), so all extra music, VO, copywriting, etc. has been pro-bono from people we know.

I hope I don't come off as being negative, I just am giving my view on how I experienced the film because you did ask for opinions :)

I shoot in a run and gun environment every week so I know how difficult it can be and in that respect I can understand the softer focus on the dolphins which is a get it now or never shot and even if they where soft, they did match the other fs700 footage, the soft gh3 shots however where not taken under the same time pressure so it looks more like a operator error because the gh3 is capable of much sharper images.

The content and overall feel of the film is most important ofcourse but for me these softer shots, especially in combination with these rich in colour, sharp footage from the fs700 did distract and once that happens my attention shifts to any new footage that has the same issue and then you lost my attention.

And I didn't mention it before and now you probably will start to find me annoying :) is that I didn't like the voice over, don't know if it's the way he said it or just the voice itself.

But again, not saying it's bad, the fs700 nature footage looks just wonderfull, it's just a few things that got me distracted.

Its getting increasing difficult to get people to critique and suggest ways to improve. On one hand I'd joke that its always better when others people work is being critiqued but that's really not true. Without knowing all that went into making the video the critique may have less meaning to me, but there's also a lot that can be gleaned from the conversation so I for one really appreciate not only the people who take the time to make the initial critique but also for the follow on dialog that hopefully others will participate in.

Haha, I don't find you annoying at all! Like you said, I asked for opinions. I think it's great to have open talks about our work. Too often we just give "likes" and little pats on the back, so it's good to have some critical responses.

I agree, I think the social aspects of VIMEO and YouTube have turned what started out as a great place for real feedback into a popularity contest where the authors of content dump them into as many forums to get as many views as possible. Sure it nice when a lot of people view your work but if they don't leave any comments then you don't know what, if anything, they like or dislike about your work. I remember back when we were all trying to figure out the different ground glass adapters for mounting DSLR lenses on the DVX100 and having great conversation with Philip Bloom and others who went on to greatness...

The voice over is one aspect of the video we've actually gotten the most critiques on. We're actually working right now on trying to see if we can get a voice actor to lend his skills, as the guy in the video right now is a friend and doesn't have a lot of VO experience. The tough thing is that the project was unpaid (our travel expenses were covered, but we didn't get paid for anything), so all extra music, VO, copywriting, etc. has been pro-bono from people we know.

Josh the one thing I'd say that doesn't have that much to do with the video so it might be a bit OT, but you should be paid for that video. Sure as Noa mentioned there's some small room for improvement but it had a good message and was visually compelling, enough that it should drive business for the client who commissioned it.

I know that over the past four or five years, especially here in the US a lot of people are having to reinvent themselves. I can't tell you the number of people I've run across who were shooting architectural/property/real estate videos with Red's and Canon C300's for a couple hundred dollars..

There was real value in your video and you need to sell it. Sorry, I don't want to sound preachy, maybe there was a lot of alcohol and sex and it was the best time of your life, but you have to be able to point out the value of your work and get them to pay for if, even if its only $500.

Having said that if you go back to shoot more and you need a volunteer, count me in : )

Thanks for sharing Josh. I enjoyed the piece and think it had a lot of emotion.

Too bad you were in the position of being a no-pay content producer. This is all too often the situation these days. We here like expensive cameras, mics and lenses but finding folks to pay us to use them is so very often an afterthought...from the client's end.

In my opinion, the only area for improvement would be more planning to get a more cohesive story and shot list. While the raw emotion is there, the images seem kind of thrown together a bit. But, this would have to accompany a real budget to get it done correctly.

Are you submitting this to the tourism entity on the island? I wonder why anybody would deserve this for free? If this project is for no pay, why would any in the future pay?

Just thinking out loud here.

Just to quickly clarify the "unpaid" part: the marketing company that does marketing for the island's tourism board was hosting a competition, looking for photographers, filmmakers, bloggers, etc. to apply for a free trip to the island--all expenses paid. Teams were two people each and they were sending six teams. The director and I thought it would be a great opportunity to go on an adventure and make something from it, so we applied to go. We were picked as one of the six teams from over 1100 applicants. And here is the thing: they are picking a "winning team" from the trip, and that team gets $5000. It's also worth mentioning that we retain ownership of anything we created on the island, so the tourism board/Dominica doesn't own the video.

Even if we were selected as winners, this video is obviously worth much more than $5000. Hell, that wouldn't have even cover my shooting rate, let alone the director's, my gear, our editing, color, sound, etc. but I do have to say that the marketing company was opening an opportunity and by no means did we have to apply for the trip. We wanted to do this. Like I said in an earlier message, it can be hard to get work in a certain style without already having examples of that kind of work. A lot of my "bread and butter" work is corporate stuff, internal business videos, animations, etc.

Now, I do a good amount of paid work, I freelance full-time, so this is my job. I understand the implication of doing free work, but I also understand the benefits of having a project like this in my portfolio. As much as I hate "it will look great in your demo reel!", it's true that I have been contacted about a project only to be turned down because I didn't already have examples of that type of work.

Sorry I haven't responded to some of the other comments you guys had, I just wanted to get this typed up so you have a little bit more information regarding the context of this video.

Cool Josh. Thanks for the added info. Best of luck in the competition.

mini update:

So, like I explained before, this project was created through something called the Dominica Film Challenge. Other teams were involved and did their own photo or video project, but one team will be picked for a $5000 prize. If you could go to this page and scroll down to the little up/down voting area, then click the up vote arrow, I would really appreciate it!
Dominica Challenge | Trent & Josh (http://d.pr/WYXG)

Thanks again everyone who has watched the video and given feedback/critique!

You have got my vote :)

You have got my vote :)

Thanks, Noa!