My first project with the 7d!!!

Comments, suggestions welcome. I had trouble with the outdoor "main" shots. I'm not sure if it was because of the clouds, or the guy holding the reflector was inconsistent.

CDBartending Video on Vimeo

[Tom Chaney]

Well done.

The sky line at night is very nice.

[Michael DiFilippo]

There are just a few things that over all I think would make the video feel more natural. The woman uses her hands a lot which is a good way to show the emphasis of what she is saying but the framing is providing so much headroom my eye gets caught up there and when she moves her hands they go out of the frame or are about to, adjusting the camera a little lower would have been great, Also centering her in the shot really allows too much room on the side, I like the idea of having the people off in the background but it is very direct. Also some of your shots do not look steady pans start out nice and then slow down or feel a little rocky, same with your focus. The shot where the two people are at the table and the bartender walks over with the drinks, the window is totally blown out, most likely you could not have helped that so perhaps changing that shot would have been better.

Its a great video though I'm sure they were very happy with it

[Zack Whittington]

Awesome! Thanks so much for the feedback!

[Ben Tolosa]

Originally Posted by Zack Whittington

that didn't seem to work...
how'sssss this!

CDBartending Video on Vimeo

Hi Zack,

Very nice job. Could you share with us which settings you used on you 7D (iso, shutter, 24p or 30p, aperture, etc)? Which lenses? Which shotgun mic? Did you use a dual sound system? What about lighting?

I appreciate it!!

Nice job :)

[Buba Kastorski]

Please fix 0:47 - 0:50, looks like a jump cut, i would also change and lowered BG track

[Zack Whittington]

Originally Posted by Ben Tolosa

Hi Zack,

Very nice job. Could you share with us which settings you used on you 7D (iso, shutter, 24p or 30p, aperture, etc)? Which lenses? Which shotgun mic? Did you use a dual sound system? What about lighting?

I appreciate it!!

Nice job :)

Thanks, here's what I remember about the shoot.

Lighting: All natural, shot during the day. I used a silver reflector on the speaker. Inside, the light came from the windows except I forgot to turn off an incandescent which gave an ugly color cast. Learning!

Settings: The iso was low (100) as possible, but may had to up it for the inside shots. 1/40 shutter. I don't remember the apertures, but I bought a Fader ND which was great to give me a wider aperture outside.
It's the best I can afford, and does pretty darn well. 24p, except went to 60 for the wine pour.

Lens: Nifty fifty. Canon 1.8 Mk II. Love this lens, but focusing is a pain in the butt!

Sound: NTG-2 going straight into the camera. No double system. Hopefully, getting the H4n soon.

Background Music: Something I threw together in Garageband.

[Zack Whittington]

Originally Posted by Buba Kastorski

Please fix 0:47 - 0:50, looks like a jump cut, i would also change and lowered BG track

Yeah, i didn't know what to do about that. The guy standing in front of the ladies on the couch was gesturing like a mad man, and it was very distracting. I had to cut some out, rather than have it one whole shot. I'm not happy about it, but felt i chose the lesser of 2 evils.

[Marc Burleigh]

Hey Zack, well done on your first project. I'm especially impressed that you can throw together music yourself in GarageBand. Makes the rest of us non-musical types look piss-poor.

A couple of things, as a viewer: the Chicago skyline shot at night was nice, but I felt you should have just panned up to it rather than drifting off to the left at the end.

That jump cut is not good. Having your talent talking at that point would have been better. Or some other shot (that's why it's good to get a lot of cutaways in a scene, just in case). You could have even left the guy gesticulating -- that would have been better than the jump cut.

Agree that the framing could have trimmed off headroom above your talent. You could have also asked her to take off the bracelet that swings around and clicks as she talks.

Your shots of the barman outdoors, the couple receiving the drink indoors and the old lady getting a drink in the sofa were all shot around the same height, and with the same composition. Would suggest you vary that (but it has to be said that it's really great to see you using sticks for all of them).

Felt the overall video was too long. Maybe the script could have been tightened up?

Also, the drinks menu thing looked a little cheap, being just printed on paper with stock party balloons and such. You fielded it nicely in frame, but it made the business look cheaper than it should be. If the client didn't have a better book to show, maybe you could have scrolled some text across the screen with a fade suggesting a better-made book?

This is just for web delivery, right? Something you could maybe try is to zoom your existing footage of the presenter talking sometimes. At the level of compression you have here, I don't think you'll notice a 20% zoom, and it would bring her closer to the camera to emphasise some points -- and to vary that shot of her.

You could have also experimented in slowing footage down (especially the wine pour).

Finally, although the sound was clear, you will hear a big difference capturing sound separately, without the auto gain. Right now, to me, the VO track is a bit crackly and trebly, with varied sound approaching saturation at times. Sound should not be grabbed on the 7D. In a pinch, or simply as a backup that you could compare to, you could have tried an iPod, using the voice memo feature, either hidden or with a microphone (it is auto gain, but seems to be a bit cleaner than the 7D).

Still, congrats on getting the project done. Having a paying client is always a victory....

[Zack Whittington]

Originally Posted by Marc Burleigh

Hey Zack, well done on your first project. I'm especially impressed that you can throw together music yourself in GarageBand. Makes the rest of us non-musical types look piss-poor.
>>>:)
A couple of things, as a viewer: the Chicago skyline shot at night was nice, but I felt you should have just panned up to it rather than drifting off to the left at the end.
>>>Good point.

That jump cut is not good. Having your talent talking at that point would have been better. Or some other shot (that's why it's good to get a lot of cutaways in a scene, just in case). You could have even left the guy gesticulating -- that would have been better than the jump cut.
>>>Thanks for the insight. That had been troubling me.

Agree that the framing could have trimmed off headroom above your talent. You could have also asked her to take off the bracelet that swings around and clicks as she talks.
>>>ARgh! I know, I should've asked her to take it off.

Your shots of the barman outdoors, the couple receiving the drink indoors and the old lady getting a drink in the sofa were all shot around the same height, and with the same composition. Would suggest you vary that (but it has to be said that it's really great to see you using sticks for all of them).
>>>Spot on.

Felt the overall video was too long. Maybe the script could have been tightened up?
>>>Completely agree. I asked her to time it out to a minute. She said she didn't want to feel rushed. The day of she was improvising, etc.; I cut out a lot of "ummm"s, "how about"s , "you know"s.
I'll press my opinion stronger next time.

Also, the drinks menu thing looked a little cheap, being just printed on paper with stock party balloons and such. You fielded it nicely in frame, but it made the business look cheaper than it should be. If the client didn't have a better book to show, maybe you could have scrolled some text across the screen with a fade suggesting a better-made book?
>>>Agree. I sort of did that with the second book. It looked cheaper than the first.

This is just for web delivery, right? Something you could maybe try is to zoom your existing footage of the presenter talking sometimes. At the level of compression you have here, I don't think you'll notice a 20% zoom, and it would bring her closer to the camera to emphasise some points -- and to vary that shot of her.
>>>Good point. Didn't think of that!

You could have also experimented in slowing footage down (especially the wine pour).
>>>I did, but only by a small percentage. 75% i believe.

Finally, although the sound was clear, you will hear a big difference capturing sound separately, without the auto gain. Right now, to me, the VO track is a bit crackly and trebly, with varied sound approaching saturation at times. Sound should not be grabbed on the 7D. In a pinch, or simply as a backup that you could compare to, you could have tried an iPod, using the voice memo feature, either hidden or with a microphone (it is auto gain, but seems to be a bit cleaner than the 7D).
>>>Completely agree. Christmas can't come fast enough...

Still, congrats on getting the project done. Having a paying client is always a victory....

AWESOME! Thanks Marc, and to everyone else for the great feedback!