watch Spinner's Doc: "Milligram Smile"

Okay, guys....

I am putting it here for you to look at it and give as much of a critique as you can considering the quality of the upload. However, the fact that you can make out faces is a big improvement over what was on last night, even though I am still not real happy about how it looks. Once I get it on my website, I may just post a link to the myspace page. The suggestion to make it MPEG 4 is what improved the video.

The audio was my biggest concern and you will find that there are places where 'Jake's' voice completely drops out. I have him as high as I can get him with what I know about audio. I think I am a pretty good storyteller. I think I am a okay editor, that is for what I know right now. I would like to move from okay to good and still keep what I think is the way I look at telling a story. I even took the suggestion from the Silver Atlas short I did and added more of the music. (it has been a while since I had you all critique that one )

So, I offer up free reign to tear apart the audio. Tell me ANYTHING you feel is wrong with it; what you would do with it; what you wouldn't do with it. You don't get a good look at the video color correction so you don't have to give a critique there.

I have already gotten some advice, I can use all the technical constructive criticism I can get, so critique away. I thank and appreciate everyone who made a suggestion or gave advice to how to get this online and to those who gave suggestions on how to get my computer system up and running as well.

I intend to do everything I can to improve this before I send it off to two film fest deadlines (Hell's Half Mile & Detroit Docs: both due August 1)

I'll be removing this and replacing it with the best version I can produce and maybe I will be able to actually put it on my myspace page. The doc is 23:33 minutes long.

We who are about to die, salute you. The band is called MILLIGRAM SMILE. I hope you like it, Here it is....

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=14329055


-- spinner

I'm gonna do this as I watch.

The opening :

First thing I notice is that it's kinda slow. You need to grab the audience from the beginning. I don't know if the guys are setting up or breaking down -- If they are setting up, I'd do a quick series of edits with each instrument being put into place and being tested -- the amp being plumped onto the stage, the drums getting banged on, someone playing a quick note or two on the guitar, the band jumping out of the van (feet hitting the ground), the crowd getting riled up a bit, etc. I'd do the same if they're breaking down, but in reverse: crowd shuffling out into the night, equipment being broken down, guys jumping into the van, maybe discussing what all night fast food joint they want tonight, etc.

But that's a definite need...to grab attention. As it is, it's not attention grabbing.

The first performance:

When shooting a room full of people, I like to focus on faces. Especially in a concert type environment. One of my favorite shots that I've got was of a woman, beer in hand, eyes closed, bopping her head to the tune as the band played on stage. Seeing faces humanizes the moment. The faces don't even need to be from the same song, just lay the music underneath as people smile, rock out, laugh, etc. It'll give it a dynamic that it lacks at the moment.

Talking Heads:

Jake is looking the wrong way. He is on the left of the screen and should be looking to the right. That's not something that can be fixed and still get the same sound bites, so I would just say go with it. I'd also like to see more concert video played over the interviews with some music underneath. You did it more as the doc went on, but I'd like to see even more.

Editing:

It seems you don't have a lot of cut aways. You definitely need more. Like the faces I talked about earlier, or fingers on the strings, drumsticks pounding the canvas, etc. Quick edits with lots of cut aways would make the piece more dynamic.

So that's my two cents. If I were you I'd try to catch a couple more gigs on tape, get the cut aways, and just lay 'em over what's already there.

Good luck.

To correct screen direction on the talking heads (if you choose to do that), you can just flip the clip...it's actually the FLIP filter in final cut.

The quality I see is much higher than I expect from myspace...lower your expectations if you're going to release it on myspace. The resolution they use is so low, that mid shots to wide shots won't show face detail at all...to get good footage on there, you have to have closeups...lots of them...shoulders and heads for little windows. veoh.com and grouper.com do much better on their compression, but not too much better. You can try to make sure your blacks are truly black (color correction arrangement under the windows menu will give you a meter)...I eyeball that generally. But the compression will kill it anyway. No happy news here.

To improve the audio, get the microphone off of the camera and within a foot of the subject's mouth...perhaps invest in a wireless lavalier mic that you can clip on to the interviewee.

for live audio at a club, make friends with the cat running the mixer for the club and see if you can get a wireless transmitter hooked into the board to get pristine sound...and turn the Automatic Gain Control off, set your levels manually. One of the problems with recording live is that the drums will tend to drown out the vocals just when they hit...so you lose the vocals in spots to the beat.

Pink Guy said:

I'm gonna do this as I watch.

The opening :

First thing I notice is that it's kinda slow. You need to grab the audience from the beginning. I don't know if the guys are setting up or breaking down -- If they are setting up, I'd do a quick series of edits with each instrument being put into place and being tested -- the amp being plumped onto the stage, the drums getting banged on, someone playing a quick note or two on the guitar, the band jumping out of the van (feet hitting the ground), the crowd getting riled up a bit, etc. I'd do the same if they're breaking down, but in reverse: crowd shuffling out into the night, equipment being broken down, guys jumping into the van, maybe discussing what all night fast food joint they want tonight, etc.

But that's a definite need...to grab attention. As it is, it's not attention grabbing.

Click to expand...

One of the things that I am finding is: when you shoot a band, you are at the mercy of their schedule. You're not going to get feet hitting the ground when the band is late and the only thing they want is to get the equipment inside. And sometimes the shots can't be used. When a band is setting up, another band is tearing down. You can be there, but you cannot be in the way, doc or no doc. For them this is work, you can't slow them down. I am, however, coming up with a better shooting strategy because I was not spending the whole day with the band, just the time that I could. (I can see this feet hitting the ground in my head, I think I would reject that, but its worth looking at)

The first performance:

When shooting a room full of people, I like to focus on faces. Especially in a concert type environment. One of my favorite shots that I've got was of a woman, beer in hand, eyes closed, bopping her head to the tune as the band played on stage. Seeing faces humanizes the moment. The faces don't even need to be from the same song, just lay the music underneath as people smile, rock out, laugh, etc. It'll give it a dynamic that it lacks at the moment.

Click to expand...

When shooting a band, I focus on THE BAND. I am all about the crowd's reaction, but when you are doing something for the band, they need to see themselves, especially for what I am going to be doing. Many of the shots were from other songs, that is something I think you have to do. (I'm kinda glad you didn't see where I did it )

Also, sometimes, and this seemed to happen alot, sometimes the crowd just.....stands there....with their arms crossed. Not that they don't like the band...they just....stand there I can't make that look good. I think focusing on faces is fine, my version of that is that I don't so much mind people getting in front of my camera. That is what its like in a small venue. One thing I do need is an on-camera light.(yeah, I still need that...)

Talking Heads:

Jake is looking the wrong way. He is on the left of the screen and should be looking to the right. That's not something that can be fixed and still get the same sound bites, so I would just say go with it. I'd also like to see more concert video played over the interviews with some music underneath. You did it more as the doc went on, but I'd like to see even more.

Click to expand...

"This is where we differ, my friend," --Jules, Pulp Fiction

Jake is not looking the wrong way, in my opinion. I have seen this shot used often in many places, in productions with budgets much bigger than mine. The problem is that what I usually see is white space behind the subject. What is all that white space for? I think if the shot is framed well and is interesting in terms of what is around the subject, the shot works. Anyway, you will probably see shots like this alot from me. Having the subjects all look in the same direction, in the same way is boring. I like the shot. I will probably do more of them, hopefully improving how it is used.

Editing:

It seems you don't have a lot of cut aways. You definitely need more. Like the faces I talked about earlier, or fingers on the strings, drumsticks pounding the canvas, etc. Quick edits with lots of cut aways would make the piece more dynamic.

So that's my two cents. If I were you I'd try to catch a couple more gigs on tape, get the cut aways, and just lay 'em over what's already there.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

It was always my intention to have more cutaways, but you have to shoot what is there, when it's there, if you catch it. There were alot of factors as to why I had so few. The main one being that the secondary camera was very far away (my bad, stupid mistake) and had no operator(not my bad ). I don't like to get in the way of the audience and the band would not stand for that, so I tend to try to stay out of the way. I will say, however, with the next band I do this for, I will be pushing HARD for more access, which is something that this band would have benefited from. In the future I will also push for a camera MUCH closer to the subjects as well, but the bands are always concerned about additional equipment on THEIR stage. I don't believe in my camera becoming part of the show.

I shot these while I was still fully employed, so my schedule was a factor as well. That's not an excuse, that's just how it was. I don't make excuses, I just try to improve what I have done in the past. I wanted to get more shows but things did not work out that way and then Jake got ill. That's just how it happened. In the future I will push for more shows, though I don't know what I think about what will surely be the bands 'magically changing costumes' in terms of cutaways.

Thanks for the critique

-- spinner

knightly said:

To correct screen direction on the talking heads (if you choose to do that), you can just flip the clip...it's actually the FLIP filter in final cut.

The quality I see is much higher than I expect from myspace...lower your expectations if you're going to release it on myspace. The resolution they use is so low, that mid shots to wide shots won't show face detail at all...to get good footage on there, you have to have closeups...lots of them...shoulders and heads for little windows. veoh.com and grouper.com do much better on their compression, but not too much better. You can try to make sure your blacks are truly black (color correction arrangement under the windows menu will give you a meter)...I eyeball that generally. But the compression will kill it anyway. No happy news here.

To improve the audio, get the microphone off of the camera and within a foot of the subject's mouth...perhaps invest in a wireless lavalier mic that you can clip on to the interviewee.

for live audio at a club, make friends with the cat running the mixer for the club and see if you can get a wireless transmitter hooked into the board to get pristine sound...and turn the Automatic Gain Control off, set your levels manually. One of the problems with recording live is that the drums will tend to drown out the vocals just when they hit...so you lose the vocals in spots to the beat.

Click to expand...

The version you are seeing is the THIRD version put up. This one isn't anywhere near how bad the first two were. I am okay with this one....kinda....

I DID make friends with the audio guy. Obviously, he was new, because the audio he mixed from the board was UN-useable. And it wasn't the quality of my little camera either (I have a smaller cam that I have used which has gotten good sound from the board) This small cam got not bad audio in the first two songs, (though I used my big cam for that) without being plugged into the board so I know it was the guy who was mixing. He was asking me how it sounded

...and I never use the auto gain

Thanks for the critique

-- spinner

I thought it was great! (Guess who's buying their CD next...)

Spinner, that was fantastic. Excellent work!!

Loud Orange Cat said:

I thought it was great! (Guess who's buying their CD next...)

Spinner, that was fantastic. Excellent work!!

Click to expand...

Thanks! LOC

....and be sure to let me know the next thing you have completed

-- spinner

Everyone has touched on the critiques I would have given. It was a very good job.
Next year I am starting on my own production company. (Working 6 days a week right now to get the money together).

I know you have put a lot of work into this. Good Job!

Hey Spinner -
Good work! If I were to offer anything, it would be to suggest adding some cutaways to make the visuals more active. I understand you were limited in access to filming the band. Can you get ahold of any photographs they might have to lend you that you could use? For instance, photos of the guitarist after he got out of the hospital and was recouperating. That's all I can find to say. I like it and look forward to seeing you in Bay City! Fingers crossed for us both!

Media Hero said:

Can you get ahold of any photographs they might have to lend you that you could use? For instance, photos of the guitarist after he got out of the hospital and was recouperating....

Click to expand...

No, I don't have any photographs, but I did come up with a trick to make it look as though I did have a close up or two. I even added those this morning so it looks alittle better...

...about recouperating pics, well, I know that this is sort of closing off an avenue but, I think that a person should be able to deal with an illness on their own. I would think that a person would want to get better without some camera documenting the fact that they can't get out of bed by themselves. Would you want someone taping you in those hospital gowns?

I am sure that there will be acceptions and I think it would be best to work on a project to project basis, but I wouldn't even want to be all over someone when as they were dealing with a serious health issue.

(Hey! Did you submit "Shooters" to Hell's Half Mile? Heck, yeah! see you in Bay City!)

-- spinner

I liked your camera work with the band when they are playing, your cameras do very well in low light, the colors are nice and sharp even in that dark venue.

Editing work looked good, and your audio mixing was well done too, about the only thing I would do is get their album and overlay that with some ambient club noise when they are playing. But then I'm a sneak and a cheat when making movies!

Towards the end I was impressed with your "one-cam-cut-shots", is that a zoom technique in the editing software?

Now I want to go shoot a doc! One thing to remember, keep the fonts on the left side, these video hosting sites all have their graphic in the way on the right!

Neil

People say alot about the Canon XL series and how they are great in low light. All I know is that I love my DVX and the way it handles low light. (comparable cameras, I think its just personal preference.)

Yep! the one cam shot was done in post.

Hey! Thanks for the tip about the text on the right hand side. I didn't even think of that when I was positioning it. The right is where everyone puts the logo. I'll try to keep that in mind when I do the next one, though I will have to figure out where to watermark future projects...

-- spinner

Dude I've watched about half and am enjoying it... At one point it sounds like the audio went mono (close to the beginning) I'm no expert, but I had that happen to me once and I was able to splice the bad section of audio and make it both the left and right audio track so that it sounded proper coming out of speakers... I can probably go back and remember how I did it if you have issues...

Also I tried to go back to look at something in the vid and it started over... but it looked like you had one of their gigs occuring December 2007 (which... well... I don't think has happened yet)

OK trying to watch the last half... I will say I am really enjoying it and makes me want to try a similiar project for a friend of mine...

I am not sure how it went mono, but yeah, you are right.... If you have any suggestions as to how to fix that, I would love to know a trick or two...

The date is wrong, but was caught. This is not the final version of the doc. I made a number of corrections and I am happy with the result.

Now, comes the hard part: I have another band to start doing one of these for. I have to...well, I want to make sure that what I do for them is unique to their band. The last thing I want is for everyone to have a cookie-cutter version of a doc. I am hoping that what happens is that I'll have different places to shoot. Different ways of shooting.

Let me know what you are doing for your friend PM me if you want....

Thanks for the critique, I can use all the suggestions I can get....

-- spinner

spinner said:

One of the things that I am finding is: when you shoot a band, you are at the mercy of their schedule.

Click to expand...

This is true, but trust me...you can always get what you want. I work for a small local news team that really holds no importance to anyone but our audience (non-English speaking immigrants), so I know the feeling of not having the time (because I shoot multiple stories in an 8 hour day) nor the cooperation (politicians look down on us, the public is too busy for us, company owners and department heads have better things to do) to get what I want, not to mention need.

I think it's dubble-tuff for you as the photog and the director (I know, I've been there to) to get all the interesting shots and still make sure you're telling the story. But don't be discouraged by the fact that the band cares not for your desires -- get what you want no matter what they say. If you want the feet thing, be there when they pull up, hit the ground as the van comes to a stop, then as the first feet are popping out of the van and hitting the gravel -- you got it! If you want a dutch angle of them walking on stage, be in the right spot at the right time and -- you got it! Basically what I am saying is that you have to be quick to document things as they are happening, and it isn't too hard to do (I am closing in on 300 lbs, and, like I said, I do it every day). You just have to think three steps ahead of yourself. And always remember, Brilliant Shots are like lightning, they never hit twice -- but Great Shots are a dime, a dozen and persistence is key.

spinner said:

When shooting a band, I focus on THE BAND.

Click to expand...

Okay, so don't shoot the crowd so much, but give me something interesting to look at -- the lead guitarist's snarl, the lead singer's booty shakin', the drummer's head bouncin' as he pops the snare drums with his chops. The more details you show, the more we feel like we're there.

I once went to a small gig here in Austin with about ten different people. Afterwards, everyone had something different about the performance they liked. One girl liked how cute the bass guitarist was, one guy loved the sexy dance the female back up singer kept doing, one guy loved the way the lead singer handled his guitar, etc.

There are so many things going on at even the smallest of gigs, and your job is to show as much of it as you can.

spinner said:

"This is where we differ, my friend," --Jules, Pulp Fiction

Jake is not looking the wrong way, in my opinion.

Click to expand...

Breaking a rule, is breaking a rule no matter how much money you have...ask the guys from Enron. BUT that being said...

spinner said:

I like the shot. I will probably do more of them, hopefully improving how it is used.

Click to expand...

...rules were made to be broken, right? If you like the shot, then by all means, shoot it that way. But if I can be allowed to make a small suggestion -- if you're gonna break the rule in one interview, do it in all of them so there is consistency. If they're all "looking the wrong way" then it comes across as "it was meant to be like that" -- when only one is shot like that, it comes across as "oops, bad set up." Also, try to work with the angles, that shot wouldn't look as bad (to my rule book thumpin' eyes) if the camera was at an angle. Or work with the depth of field, stretch the distance between the camera, guitar, and interviewee, make that guitar handle go out of focus so that it isn't as distracting.

spinner said:

I will be pushing HARD for more access, which is something that this band would have benefited from.

Click to expand...

I was gonna mention that. Really PUSH for full access. Especially if you're doing it for free or for a tiny fee. The bands have to be willing to open themselves up a bit in order to get the best product imaginable, and it does benefit them greatly.

I did not and do not mean to come across as overly critical -- there are few things I know in this world, shooting great video in situations that don't lend themselves to great video is one of 'em. I'm only trying to help.

I agree with what you are saying

Most of the things you suggested, I have done. I appreciate the critique

Something interesting about access...

I followed a tour for my bigger documentary about 2 years ago. I got a leave of absence from the job for one month, followed the band for 3 weeks. The band was a national act that I contacted as one of the subjects for my big project.

They gave me ALL ACCESS. That meant I had access to backstage, the bus, I had dinner with the band and everywhere the band could be, I could be. Milligram Smile was okay with this. The next band I have begun shooting, well....I am going to assume that they don't know me yet. But I have already talked to them a little about access and I will be emphasizing it the next chance I get.

I think that bands have to be careful of who they let backstage, especially with the on-stage tragedy of Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott only 3 years ago. Local bands I would think not so much, but they still have to be careful. As they become familiar with me I think it will become easier...

-- spinner