Was Asked to Shoot Commercial...

[Brock Burwell]

Just to keep everyone up to date, I got the metabones adapter in and it's fantastic. It's so great to be able to use my Canon glass on my Gh4 and being able to get that extra light is amazing. This is a really great purchase.

[Brock Burwell]

In case anyone is curious. I'm closing in on finishing up the 1st of the 4 videos.

To refresh you all. This was shot on a GH4 with CAME TV Single for the moving shots (12-35mm), a Metabones XL Adapter with a 70-200 2.8 and I think there is a Sigma 35mm 1.4 shot in there somewhere.

Feel free to rip it to shreds. It needs to be as good as possible, so I want constructive criticism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRN...ature=youtu.be

[Jon Fairhurst]

I really like the story, the vibe, and the music. The message is nice and clear: "Come here to pursue your dreams; we create meaningful friendships here."

The only thing that doesn't work as well for me is the interviews being in black and white over a black background. It's not in keeping with the smiling, friendly mood.

I had a similar situation on an interview/b-roll piece a couple of years ago. We shot over black, but the b-roll (which was in slow motion) was bright. Some felt that the slow motion was disruptive. They were wrong. What was disruptive was cutting from dark to white and back.

Try watching the piece without audio. It feels like everything is going great between coach and student. The moment the student appears in black and white, it feels like he's about to tell us that somebody died.

I'd recommend that you try the edit with color. The mood is colorful, so that would help integrate the footage. Another trick might be to move the talking heads to, say, the left side of the screen, do a smooth, curved mask and put some b-roll on the right. This still might not work given the black background, but there might be a creative solution to minimize the black background and make it feel natural.

Or you might try it with audio-only from the interview. You might need an additional shot at the end, such as the student (over a natural background) slowly turning to the camera and giving a smile. (Slow motion works great for those shots.)

I know that it would be painful not to include the interview footage (which was lit nicely), but sometimes an author has to cut their favorite character or scene for the overall sake of the book.

The mood of the story and audio is bright, colorful and joyful. Deliver that mood from the first frame to the last.

[Mike Watson]

There are some seriously great shots in there. Good job. Very tv-commercial worthy.

I agree about the B/W interviews. I also agree that B/W interviews make it look like somebody died.

You need a shot of the kid playing soccer in a game.

There are too many shots of people standing around on a soccer field. The shots where there is no movement bore me. Overall, there are too many shots of people standing around and/or doing non-soccer related things on a soccer field.

The shot of Will at :03 is too long, and when he awkwardly looks away you lose my buy-in (and we're only 03 seconds into the spot).

The shot of Chris at :21 is too similar to the shot of Will at :03 and I actually thought you'd used this shot twice the first time through, but this might just be me.

I'd really like to see a shot of Will studying or in class or doing something school related.

Overall, it seems like you told the story of a kid who plays soccer for a school and showed no shots of the kid playing soccer and no shots of the kid doing school stuff

[Gary Huff]

Agree with everything said so far. Also, you should only show us each interviewee (in color) against the black drop a single time and don't go back.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Storytelling at a high level is a deep challenge and a fantastic skill to acquire. The learning never ends!

Mike makes great points about the lack of action shots. Looking away at :03 is a great example of the micro-messages that each shot can contain.

And I like Gary's solution of single short shot of the interviews in color and not going back. It confirms who is talking and minimizes the over-black look without resorting to tricks in post. It's a nice, simple solution where a single clip serves its purpose.

The key message is friendship. Rather than add shots of a single player moving alone on the pitch, I'd strive for action shots that emphasize people interacting as friends. This can be on the field, in the classroom, or about the campus.

One thing to look for in edits is that the eye shouldn't move far across cuts. Your video keeps the focus point consistently near the center of the screen, which helps keep cuts from feeling jumpy. Action shots make this more challenging. Let's say the player shoots the ball from left to right. The next clip should have the focus point near the right as that's where the viewer looked last. This is where storyboarding can come in handy as you can plan clips that give you enough coverage. It's hard to keep track of the focus points when shooting in the moment.

Of course, one can purposefully move the focus points from corner to corner across cuts to make things jarring (like in the opening scenes of Persona), but that wouldn't be appropriate for the feeling of this piece.

BTW, not only is the dialog very good, but the audio quality sounds great as well. The timing of the audio edits feels just right. The student and coach come across very authentic in their joy. Those are the hard parts that make or break a story. Excellent job! Add the right b-roll and you will have a 100% professional result.

[Brock Burwell]

Thanks for the great advice everyone.

I'm going to go back in and change the interviews from black and white to color to help keep the mood uniform throughout.

I'm going to only cut to the student in studio once, but I still may go to the coach twice. I like the idea of cutting to him early in his lines to show who is talking and then at the end for the tag line. Does that make sense to do?

The shot of Will looking away Mike mentioned at :03, I'm going to adjust so that it doesn't show him looking away.

I did get some action shots of Will practicing, but unfortunately they don't have games any time soon so I can't get any in game footage. Even if I did, I'm not sure if I would use it. I would include the shots of him practicing, but I'm not sure if I like that. I can definitely be convinced though.

[Mike Watson]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

BTW, not only is the dialog very good, but the audio quality sounds great as well. The timing of the audio edits feels just right. The student and coach come across very authentic in their joy. Those are the hard parts that make or break a story. Excellent job! Add the right b-roll and you will have a 100% professional result.

I kinda tore the spot apart with my critique, and overall I agree with Jon, it's very good, and I didn't make a big enough deal of that. The editing and the mood of the music and the VO is great, and the spot overall is quite good. Always room for improvement. I've never put a spot on TV that I didn't think "now, if I had it to do over again..."

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Brock Burwell

I did get some action shots of Will practicing, but unfortunately they don't have games any time soon so I can't get any in game footage. Even if I did, I'm not sure if I would use it. I would include the shots of him practicing, but I'm not sure if I like that. I can definitely be convinced though.

If he's practicing with the team, great - especially if there are shots of people smiling and interacting. If he's practicing alone, that's not as good - especially if it were a wide crane up shot! You don't want a theme about friendship but shots that show isolation. That could give opposite messages that can give the audience an uneasy feeling. (He wants friendship, but he's all alone... How sad... But he's smiling. Has he deluded himself? Something's not right...)

If you don't have more clips of the player, even clips of random students smiling and interacting could work if they are placed at the right moments.

How sensitive are we to the signs of friendship? There was a study where researchers played a one second laugh between friends and another between strangers and even people from remote cultures could tell the difference.

New Study: You Can Tell If People Are Friends By Listening To Them Laugh Together : Goats and Soda : NPR

[Nate Haustein]

If you can get the team to scrimmage themselves with home/away jerseys, most viewers wouldn't be the wiser. Some long lens stuff of him passing and reviving the ball with a fancy move thrown in. I agree needs more "soccer" shots. Perhaps some slow motion XCU of ball dribbling/kicking/net swoosh anyone? Just ideas. Looks nice.

[Brock Burwell]

Originally Posted by Mike Watson

I kinda tore the spot apart with my critique, and overall I agree with Jon, it's very good, and I didn't make a big enough deal of that. The editing and the mood of the music and the VO is great, and the spot overall is quite good. Always room for improvement. I've never put a spot on TV that I didn't think "now, if I had it to do over again..."

Well I asked for constructive criticism. If I wanted someone to tell me how great it was, I would have asked my mom's opinion haha. Thanks for the advice though.

Below I included a revised version.

I made some revisions that were suggested here, but I don't think I will be able to get out and shoot with these guys again so I'll have to make due with the footage I got. I do have some shots of him practicing, but they are of him dribbling and practicing alone for the most part. I don't know how to fit those in. Suggestions on that?

Is this version better?

Chris and Will v2 - YouTube

[Mike Watson]

I'd cool off the interviews a bit. They're kinda orange.

I'd cover the last bite with a campus shot with a lot of people in it.

Your mom says it's great and I'm wrong.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Mike Watson

I'd cool off the interviews a bit. They're kinda orange.

That's putting it mildly. The skin tone is really off, and the faces are much too dark. You need to make them pop against the black. This is going to require some heavy grading, including the use of power windows on the faces (which shouldn't be hard because there's hardly any movement).

You need to significantly increase the brightness of the interviewees while not adding noise or color shades to the black background. I don't know how easy it will be to separate, but you could potentially end up having to key the b.g. too if you can't pull too much without it being effected.

[Brock Burwell]

Had a feeling about the interviews.

I'm not exactly sure how to do power windows, but I can try to look that up and see if I can learn real quick. Thanks!

While I'm at it, mind taking a look at the next commercial in this "series" as well to see what could be adjusted with it? I put the website and our logo on the bottom to see which one looks best. My boss likes them both, but I don't know if they both need to be included in the final version. Suggestions on that as well would be helpful.

P.S. - you guys are awesome.

Mordecai and Eli - YouTube

[Brock Burwell]

Originally Posted by Mike Watson

I'd cool off the interviews a bit. They're kinda orange.

I'd cover the last bite with a campus shot with a lot of people in it.

Your mom says it's great and I'm wrong.

That's a nice idea of the campus shot at the end. I'll try that to see how it looks.