A little promo I did for a sailing holiday company in Spain, edited entirely in Vegas and using NewBlueFX Colorfast (and one or two others here and there). First full job with Vegas under Win 10 and it performed very well. Shot with Panasonic GH4 and AF100 cameras and a GoPro 4, Glidecam, PocketJib, Panasonic 12-35 and 35-100mm f2.8 zooms for shots on the water and Voigtlander 25mm and Rokinon 85mm primes for land based shots.

Minorca Sailing - YouTube

Looks spectacular - love the masthead shots.

Some of the titles do get a little lost in busy or light backgrounds.

I am available for the next shoot! How about June? The idea of a resort based on sailing in that large bay is very appealing, especially as we head into winter here. It hailed this morning... and we had over 9" of rain in Washington's Olympic Peninsula in the last 24 hours. That's just 150 miles from here.

Thanks Seth - apparently the next shoot IS next June! I'll let you know ;-)

You're quite right about a few of the titles. Actually, when I look at them in Vegas or at the original rendered version they look quite clear but I suspect YouTube processing might have brightened some of the highs as there are a few places that look much hotter than in the version I am looking at. I originally had the titles on solid banners, then semi-opaque, but the client wasn't keen. And the client is always right, right?!

Maybe it's just me but the colours looked really weird on my monitor! I guess it was meant to look like that but if I was going to want to go sailing there I would want to have see saturated true colour to entice me?

Gosh, a narration would have been so good here along with some live sound ..I really (as a client) don't appreciate moving lips but no audio except music ... a great narration would have done a more powerful selling job IMHO

Shots however were stunning and pretty much perfect ... 10 out of 10 for the camera work it was really superb!!

Thanks for the feedback Chris. In what way do the colours look weird to you? I am seeing quite nicely saturated colours here (without being obviously overly manipulated!). I agree that YouTube has done something to the colours but not to the extent that I'd describe them as weird :-)

Re audio, the company's client base is global and there just wasn't the budget to do a voiceover for all languages. Changing the text is obviously a significantly easier and less costly task. I did record a lot of ambient audio to add in post, but to be honest it didn't sound great so we scrapped it. Aside from too much wind noise (despite using a Rycote and dead cat) there was also the constant sound of speedboats, rescue ribs, instructors yelling, walkie talkies and, worse than any of that, the owner of the company barking instructions to the boats telling them where to position themselves for shots.That did my head in! I do wish I had captured some of the restaurant sounds, also the sound of the sea lapping the shore for the closing seconds.

All good feedback, Chris. Appreciate it.

i agree with chris - stunning shots - but overtly saturated for my taste.

Might the transcoding on YouTube made it a tad bright making the text hard to read? Nice production, made me want to go sailing.

Hi Ian

It probably is the effects for the NewBlue plugin ..I looked at their demo and their processed footage looks much the same ... I guess that's the "cinematic" look as opposed to the "video" look? I think it's purely a matter of personal taste ... I shoot on Panasonic as I love the sharpness and great colour compared to other cameras.

Lack of narration is totally understood ..it's not your job to have to try to squeeze in a professional VO from your budget. The captions work well anyway!

Hi Ian,
I usually put a thin black edge around white titles - or any colour titles , come to that - to help make them stand out from the background, especially a light one...

Hi Robin - yep, suggested to the client! The most they wanted was a light drop shadow, which is actually more prominent on the version I am looking at compared to the one in the link.

I love the colouring in this, reminds me of a Kodak film look.
Did you have a reference when doing your grade Ian?

Actually it was all done by feel - I was mixing footage from a GH3, a GH4, an AF101 and a GoPro Hero 4, all shot in varying light and weather conditions, so my first hurdle was to match them as best as I could (with hindsight, I wish I had just used the GH4 and the GoPro, but the client was keen to see 'proper' kit - you know the type!). I did the matching using the excellent NewBlueFX Colorfast.

For the grade I built something up using MB Looks which I then applied at master video track level. The key element in this was the desaturation of the reds (or rather their shift towards orange) and adjusting the sea colours to be closer to petrol blue. That's where that Kodachrome look comes from I suspect.

I also cheated and added a bit of NewBlueFX Rack Focus on a few shots (I do that rather a lot in my videos actually - I think it does wonders to turn an average shot into something much more interesting). On one clip, however, I now see that I got it horribly wrong and something in the image is half in focus and half out as the camera jibs up - it's minor, but annoying!

So, no reference as such, although I had a clear idea of what I was aiming for.

The great thing is the client is delighted, their web visitors are up significantly and their sales for the 2016 season are better than ever! So much so that I have been asked back in June to shoot some more land based material. No arguments here :-)

Thanks Ian,
Very interesting. When describing your process I can now see every step in the finished coloring.

Yes, the "petrol" blue tone is what I find attractive and liken to a Kodak type look.

The dropping of the reds is the first thing I normally do after matching lift, gamma and gain, IMO, I think its the easiest way to change the look of your footage from handycam to something a little more professional.

That is great about the ongoing work :)

The coloring is interesting, but there are blown highlights all over - faces, sails, hulls, etc. Do you check scopes? histograms? YouTube compresses like crazy, but they do not "brighten" or cause hotspots.

Thanks for the feedback Mark.

I'm not sure I agree with 'all over' but yes, there are some (and only a couple that actually bother me). I do check the histogram when shooting but I don't use other scopes at all. Poor on my part, I know.

I will add that when I look at a local copy of this video at my desk it seems much better exposed so I remain convinced that some aspect of YouTube processing (not necessarily the compression) has done something to raise levels in some areas.

Thanks for the feedback Mark.

I'm not sure I agree with 'all over' but yes, there are some (and only a couple that actually bother me). I do check the histogram when shooting but I don't use other scopes at all. Poor on my part, I know.

I will add that when I look at a local copy of this video at my desk it seems much better exposed so I remain convinced that some aspect of YouTube processing (not necessarily the compression) has done something to raise levels in some areas.

Even the title opening clip, which looks down on the sail boats, is dominated by blown highlights - the sails and the hulls. They are 1/3 of the frame, and also the subject. White is one of the dominant colors in any sailing video, so hotspots are a major issue.

I have uploaded scores of videos to YouTube and I have never experienced any change in luminance or contrast; I have never heard of anybody complaining about it until now. Many contributors to this forum, who are evidently more finicky than you (and me), have uploaded their videos to YouTube and have never blamed YouTube for causing overexposure or increasing contrast to create blown highlights and hotspots.

The video as a whole is very nice and professional; well-cut etc. I wouldn't comment on it if this were just some casual vacation clip. But it is seriously crippled by overexposed highlights. I think vivid reds (as someone suggested) are less likely to signal handycam video than blown highlights.

The scopes I was referring to were in an editor - check them in post for the video you have created to see what is going on.

I guess we are going to have to differ in opinion on the definition of 'seriously crippled' :-)

I won't argue with you about your experiences with YouTube. I can only report back what I am seeing at my desk. When I look at the YouTube version it is noticeably brighter than when I look at the original. Whether it's YouTube causing the issue or some other phenomenon I have no idea, all I can tell you is that I am experiencing it. If you prefer to believe I'm misleading you in some way then I'll have to live with that :-)

I'm certainly not disputing that there are hotspots in the video and that these could have been prevented by a more skilled and experienced camera operator, editor or colourist. I think where we aren't agreeing is the extent to which it affects the overall result, but I totally understand that different people view things through different eyes so I respect your opinion. If it has spoiled anyone else's enjoyment of the video then I apologise and I will try harder next time.

Useful feedback. Thanks.

Ian, I"m afraid I have to agree with Mark. There is something going on with your video that is not right. I too see a lot of blown highlights. I downloaded your video and loaded it into edius which confirmed my thoughts, the ire value of your clip is between -5 and +120, when I brought that back between 0 and 100 most details that where gone in the blown highlights recovered again and made it look a lot better, if you want I can send you a before and after frame but the difference is quite obvious. I"m sure that I could recover even more if I had access to the raw unaltered video but that ofcourse depends how blown out some parts where to start with, from what I have seen a af101 doesn't deal so well with highlights.

I hope you don't mind me downloading your video but I just wanted to confirm what I was thinking.

Hi Noa,

Absolutely no objection at all!

The thing is, I'm not disagreeing that there are blown highlights - what I am saying is that they aren't as noticeable when I look at the original. You're right about the af101 and highlights - it does need a lot of care and attention that's a bit tricky when you're on a boat :-)

I don't really want to revisit the video just yet as I'm rather too engaged in new work but at some point I will certainly attempt to re-render it given your and Mark's comments.

Thanks for the feedback and for taking the time to look.

Nice one Ian! Love seeing Vegas used for more than just hobby work.