Show Your Work 2004

[Ryan Morris]

Your comments are greatly appreciated. After the first reply I was a bit worried about what peers would think, but I knew it was pretty good and everybody else seemed to like it. For me, the big issue and most difficult challenge after leaving a active studio environment while in college, is to get honest critical input on work from peers. So, thanks again for your opinions, keep them coming and I will be making a directors/portfolio cut! ;-)
Ryan

[Joe Pitz]

Hello Rich,

I liked the creativity in your videos. What source do you use for your sound tracks?

Keep up the good work.

Thanks

Joe Pitz

Fellow San Diegan

[Rafal Krolik]

In the spirit of sharing, here is the first draft of what hopefully will be a career change for me and the first steps of larger exposures for the guys performing......but than again, I'll let you guys here decide whether I should keem my day job :-)

http://www.rafalkrolik.com/youngcasanovas1.wmv

[Brian Huey]

Well I'm not going to be the one responsible for your career change but I'll offer my thoughts on the video!

Some of the shots are static for WAY too long, throw in some more shots of other things to break it up. Try cutting to short clips of in the club like you had at the beginning, or the girl in white dancing towards the end. A couple key times I'd recommend cutting to other shots is when they are dancing in front of the Hummer and part way through the shot you adjust the tripod and pick it up.

Right now: Static tripod shot in front of Hummer.....Tripod adjusted...Fade to the beach

I'd try changing it to something like: Static tripod shot in front of Hummer (with some cuts to the club in it)...Cut to Club (instead of seeing the tripod adjusted and picked up at the end of the shot)...Cut to beach.

Since you have Vegas I'd try using the color correction it has on the some of the shots like the outside stuff with the Hummer. Try and match the look of some of the similar videos on MTV.

Looking good so far, let us see the next draft/final version when you get it complete!

Cheers,
Brian

[Rafal Krolik]

Thanks a lot Brian. You are absolutely right . The more I view it, the more I see the need to break things up and that fade to the beach looks very bad.
Color correction in the hummer scene? Hmm, any particular examples you have on your mind? My immediate thought would be to do some contrast adjustments but maybe there is a better idea out there.
OK, back to editing "table".
Thanks again for you critique.

[Brian Huey]

I've barely used color correction stuff myself (I have Premiere 6.0 that doesn't have it) so somebody else can likely make more helpful comments. But, the exterior stuff at the very beginning of the Hummer pulling up and with the guys in front of the Hummer just looks like it needs a little something tweaked about it. I think it's because of the flat light from being overcast. Maybe try giving it a bit of a colder look by adding a little blue and then maybe desaturating it a bit, also messing with the contrast could help. I don't have MTV right now, but I have Snoop Dogg's Lay Low video on my computer and it has a bit of a cool blue desaturated look to it that I like. Try playing around with it and see what you can come up with!

I just watched the color correction stuff on the "Seven" DVD and it was amazing to see how fast the guy could switch around scenes and tweak the look of it. Really cool stuff and now I have color correction on the brain.

Cheers,
Brian

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Hey, I'd say the same thing...a little more cutting.

A few more thoughts:

Get more shots of the chicks in there. The one wearing the white with the black background is nice. Also, the beach scene is cool...maybe break up the whole thing with some extreme closeups of the girls eyes that dissolve into a sea shell or something? You've got a lot of med to extreme wide shots, so I would just get some closeups to break it up. The turntable thing is a little chessy - if you are going to use it - I'd put a half naked girl in there. Wait, i just re-watched it and there is a girl in it!

Just a little suggestion - videos seem to always be about color. If you can get some random shots of things that are prudent to the video, but have extreme colors - it'll be really good eye candy. Even if you shot a few more girls wear sexy colorful clothes.

I shot a music video one and used aluminum foil in an old storage building - the kind that have all the large pipes exposed inside. We covered all the pipes and weird looking pieces with the foil and pointed red and blue lights everywhere...it made it look industrial. Ironically, we ended up on a beach scene too!

Also, I would stay in 16x9 mode more through everything except the beach scene - the 4x3 doesn't work as well elsewhere. I know why you can't use it on the beach stuff - you'll cut off the guys.

Oh, it's not a mistake that I'm mentioning more girls...cause the girls sell the video not the guys. No one really cares about guys to much - music videos are a place for the guys to go "hey, look who i can get in my videos". Other than that - they're just standing there looking stupid. The girls don't look stupid...they look nice and everyone wants to watch that!

Anyway, get more of the girl in white...I like the way you lit that shot and its to short!

Murph

[Rafal Krolik]

Christpher, I look at the video and see what you mean. You really think the turn table is cheesy? Maybe I can do something with that part. I do have one problem though, since majority of the girls that came to the shoot were pathetic, I have very limited shots of the good looking ones that actually knew how to dance. What was happening through the night is everytime I started shooting on the dance floor, the ones that didn't know how to dance and had the most cellulite to offer would shove the behind into the lens and make their attempts at gyrating...well, you would not atract anyone with what they had to offer. I'll try though. The colors will be a pain because as you have noticed, it was an overcast day and late summer thus all the leaves were deep green, the limo was black, the park was industrial. I might just do the whole thing in a high contrast, washed-out look.
Thanks for your comments.

[Dylan Couper]

I'm looking for some colouring advice for our Lady X project.
http://www.ladyxfilms.com/theater/e13/episode_13.shtml
The first two minutes of our movie are set in ancient Japan, and I'd like to make it look different than the modern setting, which is the rest of the movie. I use Vegas 4, and have tried the Film Effects filter, which is not what we are looking for. Tried, black and white, but it doesn't really suit it, as I don't want to lose the colour of some of the buildings and forests, which are nice.

Can anyone suggest some looks that I could try? Combinations of Vegas effects/filters? I wanted to do this for the Lady X competition, but never had the time.

Thanks

[Bryan McCullough]

Have you tried a slightly warm, or golden look? I've used that effect from Magic Bullet for a couple of times when I wanted to show an earlier time.

Also, and this is totally an unsolicited critique, but I think the '2 Days Earlier' super is not necessary. It's clear from the setup (guy by the water) that the castle scene is a flashback and having that much text on the screen so quick to the date introduction really threw me out of the moment.

Otherwise, great fight scene. Looks like you really got some great stunt guys.

[Alain Aguilar]

I would like to share with you our new trailer for John Melon. The short film will be available in April 2004. Visit the site and enjoy the full experience. You would need Flash and Windows Media to see the clip. There is also QT version (smaller). I would like to hear your feedback.

I used a XL1 with a P.S Techik adapter, for lighting I used some Kinos. I'm very gratefull for the technical advise from this forum. It certainly made my life a little easier.

Thanks


www.nothingmanproductions.com

the trailer
http://www.nothingmanproductions.com...lonpreview.wmv

[Kevin Burnfield]

I liked this one a lot.

I agree that you don't need the 'two days earlier' or the name of the castle title... I think it's fairly obvious it's a flashback.

I wouldn't bring in the initial title so quick or so big either and I think I'd leave out the graphic that sets the modern date. it's also obvious it's modern day although if you want to include the city I'd do it over the shot after the shot out the window.

As to the flashback footage I might give it the 'bleached out' Saving Private Ryan treatment. Or pick a primary color to tint the footage as well as blow out some of the highlight areas.

The action sequences might serve better if they were trimmed a little to take out the hesitations of the actors between strokes.

Qucker cuts might make it more 'tense' as well.

Good variation on the usual Lady X senario. Congrats!

[Rob Lohman]

Dylan: see some very detailed descriptions on what I've done
on my Lady X episode in this thread.

Basically I would stay away from the one button magic filters and
work with the color curves and color correction tools. Those can
be very very powerful.

What kind of look do you want? You can desaturate the look
without loosing some vibrant colours (so not go completely
black and white -> I did that on a lot of shots). Also you might
use the secondary colour corrector to adjust only certain things
or leave other bright colours as they are.

If you want shoot me an e-mail with a full size frame with a
description of what you want and I'll see if I can get that for
you on my Vegas 4 installation.

[Mark Grgurev]

This is a Star Wars Fanfilm that I have known about for awhile and a figured I would post it so U guys can check it out. It was made by a guy named Nick Hallam.

The film and the documentaries were all shot with a PD150p.

http://brokenallegiance.net/media/video.html

[Seth Peterson]

Hey all, I've finally got my short, "Outpost_Theta", up on the net. Check it out and let me know what ya think.

watch it at: http://www.brownfish.com/