watch "A" short film

Hey, this is a test for my new Canon EOS 500D
My first 500D film, presented in 720p 30fps mp4 with Reason composed backing track.
Slowed down with vegas, The video has some ghosting, which i kinda like, fitting the music? I think so.

This is for an art project, and i need to do the rest of the alphabet. Just want you to see my stuff & any creative comments would be much appreciated!



thankyou.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G81sWpvluhQ
http://vimeo.com/8667890

Milk said:

I know it seems that not much thought has gone into the filming of this short, and that's because it hasn't.

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We were just talking about this the other day: http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=20867&highlight=sucks

You might have better luck getting folks to watch and critique your experiments if you don't present them as being not very well thought out. Post your pride and joy AS your pride and joy and listen to all feedback. And if you already know most of the criticisms, then great...you're already one step ahead for the work you need to do on your next project.

thanks, changed

Critique? Well, if its just a trial then it's not really a serious production - buttt, if it is, here are the things that bothered me -

1) very few people are able to pull off the never ending shot, sooo - it will almost 90% of the time piss off your audience.

2) Bland colors - with the snow - white, silhouettes of figures - black. I would suggest slightly desaturating the image to detone the background elements in shot #1 - make it look intentional, and that’ll also bring out the contrast presented in shot #2 with the sun coming out.

3) Lose the transitions - transitions are a sign of amateurs - starwars is just about the only movie I can think of that used them - by some miracle it became a star wars cliché' - if you want to make a cheesy star wars movie - it has those transitions, otherwise... scrap them.

4) end the video around 2:40 or whenever it goes to black. Don't worry so much about your audio, it feels like you cut the video off at the end of the song - so the video draggggs on

Hope that may be of some assistance for future projects

thanks, can you exaplain please..

never ending shot? meaning slowed down? or no movement with the camera? or just too long?

2 i got, i did desaturate, maybe not enough.

3 do you mean the transition between shot 1 & 2 where they overlap?
or the effects, where the bass kicks in, where it blurrs out to credits or fades to black in the music pause?

4 i'm not sure what you mean by this, there is a pause in the song, where the video fades to black. Then the end bit, i agree (with what i think you mean) it doesn't sound like the music is meant to do that, lack of musical techniques and so on, so i'll take that on board.

for the second part, cutting off the video at the end of the song?
not sure what you mean by that i added part of the music from the begining to the end, so i could extend the time. do you mean that i should just leave the audio out and keep the picture?


thanks for your input!

Samiammi said:

1) very few people are able to pull off the never ending shot, sooo - it will almost 90% of the time piss off your audience.

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I agree with this to some extent, but only if the camera has not movement. A continuos shot can be achieved fairly easily with some camera movement.

To the OP i feel like the first shot might have gone on a bit to long, yet like i said if you added some camera movement it definitely would have added something to the piece. You could use a dolly or some sort of steadycam to get a good look.

good luck, and i look forward to upcoming projects

Well, in the end, its all up to your personal preference, but here is what I was getting at;

1) Never ending shot - you've got 2 shots in your whole vid - on average, in music videos, the rule is no more than 4 secs on a shot... and then cut to the beat - however, rules are up in the air - the never ending shot - like everything Kubrick does - very visual, and it stands out as something strictly kubrick - which is again, up to your preference if thats what you're going for, but as a warning, its not common, at least in blockbusters - indie movies are different, butttt, that could be the difference between having an audience at the beginning, and having an audience at the end.

2) Saturation is up to you, its the subtle factors that influence the picture, but right now, the structures are drawling some attention, and since you don't have a DOF adapter they're drawling some unwanted attention amiss the black and white action.

3) Transitions - yeah, if you have a cut, camera has to be perfectly still, if you're using an effect, it must be an integral part of the film and probably repeated throughout the picture not just covering up unfortunate camera movement. But yeah, basically any stock special effect - an avid user of any program will recognize

4) your music is pretty much a loop without any signifying verse, chorus, nor lyrics - soooo you can just fade it out whenever you choose. It can be as long or short as you choose. If its a music video for a client - do anything but go black for that extended period of time - to me, it signified the end and I was reaching over to click out of the browser when it started up again.

ahh thankyou SO much for clearing that up. VERY helpful i'll work on it! thankyou