HDV Small Clips

[Gabor Lacza]

I am an extremly amateur videographer and the JVC HD10U is my very first camera.I tried to learn from the forum and from books before I started to play around with the camera.Last week I went and did some shooting and edited it with Aspect HD.I posted 2 small clips one is 17 sec and the other is 43 sec long.
I am truly curious and looking for all your opinion what I did terribly wrong and how can i improve on those mistakes.
I love the shoots but I would like to hear your professional opinions...
1.clip
www.lacza.com/download/proba.wmv 13 MB
2.clip
www.lacza.com/download/proba2.wmv 29 MB

Thank you in advance
Regards
Gabor

[Alexandre Bartholo]

i just saw your videos.

1/ to my opinion, the color is to yellow, but that king of artistic touch is up to the one making the movie, so if you like it, it's a good.
on that subject my question would be : how did you manage that wolor ? did you play with the with balance, used a filter or did it in post ?

2/ the whites are very soft. on the first vidéo, i think it's just the good amount of softness, but on the second, there is some shot with an overdose of softness that became unpleasant.
same question, did you used a filter or did that in post. I think you used a filter, and if so, what kind is it ?

3/ to continue on whites, on both video, you have zones overexposed, on the first, there are less, so i don't mind at all, but on the second, there are a more, especialy on the roof of the castle, so you lose all information on that part of the image, that's sad.

4/ on the very begining of the first clip, the motion isn't smooth. i don't know if that's because of the encoding or because of the shutter speed of the camcorder. to avoid such things to happen, locking the speed is a good thing to do.

my advice would be, if you have time, and if you want to focus on the color aspect of your movies, do it in post.
while you shot, lock the speed you need, use nd filters, eventualy soft back or soft white, a polariser, and make a good with balance. then, you can always give the look you want in post.

sorry for my bad english.
i hope i helped.
Alex

[Gabor Lacza]

Thanks Alex for your comments....to answer your questions the original image was run through Magic Bullet Warm filter and that gave that little yellow look for the video which i really liked.While i made the video i only used polarizer filter.
On the second video where you said that there is overdose of softness and white i used an nd .6 filter..
Thank you for your advices i will keep trying to learn more and more...
Gabor

[Steve Crisdale]

Well, to me the yellow is quite interesting....

I liked the change of focal emphasis, and the subject is nicely framed by the 16:9 frame, and as a first effort you should be pleased with such a result.

The biggest thing you need to know is whether you're happy with what you've made - and whether you know you can do even better.....

BTW is that an Ian Cameron-Smith track you've used? Certainly sounds like it! One of the first things I did with the HD10 was some nature stuff here in Australia with a Cameron-Smith track as backing.

[Anhar Miah]

You got some nice shallow DOF shots in there that i liked, not sure about the whole yellow thing, made it look kinda dreamy, overall good work.

[Troy Lamont]

I'm very much an amateur also, but here's my $.02.

I like the look of 'yellowness' in the first clip, it does add a kind of a different look to it. I think it detracts from the second clip. I'd also like to see what the clips look like wihout it and the color saturation and exposure.

Not to be picky but I also noticed some of the white highlights in both clips. In the first clip mostly at the tops of the trees. I think the Warm filter may have decreased some of it. In the second clip on the shot of the building until you pan past it. You notice the iris closing and the white becoming more appropriate.

One of the things that I'm getting myself is a good fluid pan head and a nice tripod. I've got one picked out in the $175 range that should work nicely (Bogen/Manfrotto). It looked to me like the tripod you used was a little hesitant and wasn't as smooth as Alex pointed out. With my old Sony DV camcorder the standard video tripod I had was more than sufficient, but with the HD1, a better tripod is a must.

You got some nice shallow DOF shots in there that i liked, not sure about the whole yellow thing, made it look kinda dreamy, overall good work.

I second what Anhar said, good DOF. Mind sharing your technique?

Troy

[Gabor Lacza]

Steve,
thanks for your comments...actually to be honest i dont know the creator of the background music I found it on a music license site and loved it so i decided to use this for my little clip.
Anhar,
thanks for your comments as well.I love this shallow dof as well...it is actually funny that you used the word "dreamy" because if i remember well in magic bullet one of the look i used called dreamy look...
Troy,
thanks for your suggestion as well...i actually checked the tripod and it has some adjustments which i made on it and it works better now...i use a manfrotto 3046 with a 501 fluid head...
That shallow DOF was created by taking the camera a bit far away from the subject and zoom in on it it gives that great DOF.
Gabor