Some feedback on my first music video?

Really enjoyed it. I think you did a great job of it. So no critics. Nice work!

Looks good. Nice visuals. What camera/lenses did you shoot with?

Looks great. Lovely use of light.

Can you give a quick rundown of some of the gear you used?

Looks great.. Is that a r3d you were using and what did you edit on?

im not the type to ego stroke, everything is of my own opinion but no offence intended:

This was a decent video in terms of consistency and quality.

story wise i felt it lacked a lot, there wasn't much to engage me if I'm honest, I liked the song.

I don't think it is TV commercial quality, but it wasn't too far off, it just failed to engage me from start to finish.

acearchie said:

Shot a music video at the end of last year and it has finally been released today.

https://vimeo.com/85154610

Looking for as much feedback I can get on any aspect.

Cheers!

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As a first attempt it's really quite good, but one thing stands out...Transitions....You haven't used any which makes the video a little ( can't find the right word) ...chopped if you prefer...some smooth transitions when changing scenes would really help. Sound quality is very good too...On the whole if you practice a little using transitions, I'd say you are on the right track ( no pun intended....)

acearchie said:

Thanks for the feedback.

The story was intended to be quite open and some people have found it to be interesting enough so maybe the content wasn’t quite your cup of tea? I agree that we could have had more of a narrative but given the constraints on budget and timings it was easier said than done.

When you say it’s not 'TV commercial quality’ is that in terms of the production or the story itself?

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I would say that for me it was the story and production, I think theres alot of tricks in editing that you need to learn or instill, but thats your taste and as i always say "if the clients happy, everyone else can go do one"

The shot with the guy in the chair, I loved it, it to me was creativity, however the lighting for it i feel could have been better, perhaps gold reflector on the red to bring it out more and maybe some gelled back lights or something, it was just kinda flat, but again the shot was creative.

if you dont mind, could you critique my first proper music video, the budget was spent on renting BMCC for 2 days the rest we haggled for free, My friend directed it but i did the cinematography and editing..
Its no where near your quality, but I love honest opinions so that i know where to improve on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1WSnRa1r_U

acearchie said:

Do you literally mean cross dissolves, wipes, etc? If so I think that's a style I am not so keen on myself and a lot of the videos that enjoy feature straight cuts and jump cuts.

Thanks for sharing though.



Having watched your video when you say tricks are you talking about effects and the like? If so it would have pulled away from the brief of creating a natural raw video.



There is a reason behind the silhouette so that shot had to be like that. It is intentional that there is very little detail on his face.



Straight off, stylistically I can tell you that this isn't the sort of video I am normally into. It was hard to pick out a strong narrative to follow through the piece and I couldn't justify some of the editing choices.

If I'm honest, I wouldn't have been able to tell it was shot on the BMCC. Knowing the great DR that camera has it seems that you have blown a lot of the highlights (in post? in camera?).

The grade is very strong and unnatural and again it just comes down to a different stylistic approach wanting to create a dream world I suppose. Given the brief I might have attempted to recreate a dream world in other ways. I'm not sure if it's intentional but the grade seems to change in the same scenes between the beginning and the end.

Some of the edits are a bit quick and not consistent. When the words flash up it seems out of the blue and is also a bit fast to take in what's happening, especially with the busy frame. I think the scene at 1:12 is slightly out of sync as well. 3:52 sticks out as well as there is no drum beat but clearly the drummer is playing. Same in the next shot as well.

Some of the handheld shots came across as a bit shaky, what rig did you use?

Shot selection seems a little limited IMO as well. It seems mostly to be wides and mids with not too many CU. We probably have very different shooting styles but I have realised that coverage is very important especially if the song can change after the shoot!

It seems we took the same approach of putting the money on equipment and then begging/borrowing/stealing the rest! It can be a lot of fun doing it that way but it is very stressful!

Since posting this video a teaser has been released for two further videos I shot last year so I'd love to know first impressions!

YouTube: video

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Very nice feedback thank you! your right in not alot of close ups, I missed that completely, The grading does need watching and something im not very good at.

Just learning to edit with raw was a pain in the backside, I hated the image that the Blackmagic gave me, I didnt have much control over lighting inside I left that to director and technician, Outside was extremely hard to control lighting, I was using a samyang 14mm with no ND filter which the lens itself is awful in sunlight it overexposes like a mofo, I have since sold it and bought the sigma 18-35 f1.8 which is miles better.

Having learned about the BMCC since shooting with it, its not a camera i would purchase or rent again, its irritating with its battery and the menu options are abysmal (not being able to delete footage!) I hate the image it produces aswell.

I need to learn more about RAW handling, Also VFX is not my strong point and i hated it in this video if im honest, but alot of this was client brief and they were happy so thats all that matters.. right? haha

I used a monopod and the cage handle since that was all we had.. I didnt stablilise any of the shots (I prefer a more raw feel to the camera), I am intending on renting a glidecam HD4000 next time though.

When I said trickery I mean as in transitioning from one shot to another, but again its down to taste, your video is obviously better than mine and had we the same video we would both shoot differently, your style is much more subtle than mine i feel.

are you based around london?

I thought the preview was good looks like some good stuff coming up!

Since you asked for feedback, I say the following with nothing but intention for you to use in improving your skills. (I don't believe obligatory compliments are helpful at all to someone wanting to improve their skills at anything).


-your photography is definitely better than average. you make very good use of natural and/or artificial lighting and your exposure and color is near perfect in my eyes. however, your shot composition would be better suited for dolly, tracking or tripod stationary shots. it seems you were going for the more organic steadicam look, but your framing is for the most part too controlled and intentional to make this look natural, if that makes any sense. perhaps if you were a bit less "aware" of your framing, your camera moves wouldn't feel off. but as it is, you either needed to lock the camera down completely or use a weighted stabilizing rig to get the right look to suit your shot composition.

-the man bobbing his head on the couch, while being a nice shot, doesn't make a whole lot of sense in terms of a narrative. you either needed to include him in more shots, or cut him completely and focus only on the girls. i also didn't like that he was bobbing his head at all. it seemed cheesy and at times looked a bit off beat.

-your cuts were a bit slow and you could have utilized the rhythm of the song better in choosing where and when to cut. you may not like dissolves, but this is the sort of material where dissolves work beautifully. particularly near the end, a slow dissolve would have been great with the flickering light. also, slow dissolves look great with steadicam footage in my opinion, because you don't have to worry about unintentionally creating an implied meaning when 2 fixed shots overlap. just because you favor straight/jump cuts, it doesn't mean they work for all subject matter. your photography suggests a classical filmmaking approach, whereas your cutting suggests a more striking, action oriented theme. dissolves would have looked great in all forms. id suggest playing around with dip to blacks and additive hard light transitions.

-overall, your material felt contrived and pretentious to me. the whole gay/lesbian theme in music videos has moved past the point of edginess and its just a tired subject now. and since you left your narrative so "open" (i usually see this as just an excuse for not having a good storyline to begin with) you leave the viewer to assume that the simple fact that the two women are together is the main focus. there needed to be a much more clear storyline to avoid coming off as someone simply saying "hey, look, two women are romantically involved, isn't that edgy?"



I think overall, you demonstrate that you have your strengths and weaknesses. I'd say focus on your DP work, as that seems to be something you have some good talent in. No one outside of independent videography is a one stop shop when it comes to video production. part of being a good filmmaker is knowing when to rely on others for certain aspects of the production. once you get over the disappointment of not being able to call everything your own, you will find that your work can be much improved by simply letting others do the bits that might not be your strong points. until then, just keep working and improving what you can and always stay open to criticism.

by the way, your teaser for the video with the girl in the car looks quite nice. clearly you have a knack for photography and color.

acearchie said:

Could you clarify for me? I didn’t actually use a steadicam at all on the shoot so I’m not entirely sure what shots you are referring too! Thanks for the great comments though.

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what i mean by this is that i could tell you weren't using a steadicam, but you probably should have. your framing was good, but because your handheld camerawork wasn't smooth enough, the deliberateness you put into your shot composition was constantly being thrown off. basically I'm saying, if you are going for the modern "walk about" shooting style, thats fine, but the more focus you put into how your shots are framed, the more stabile you need to make the camera. it doesn't need to be like a ride in the clouds, but a cheap counterweight balancing system or renting a dolly and flexitrack would go a long way to fully utilize your vision.

I think that is the hardest thing at this point as the budgets are so small that we can’t afford to ‘hire’ people in meaning that we would have to get people working for free which instantly makes it hard to work out who is going to help and not hinder the production.

Also as you start getting to the lower down roles there is less incentive to work for free as the project becomes less and less ‘yours’.

I’ve got another three videos coming up so hopefully I will be able to take everything everyone has said on board and come up with something quite different!

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this is true, and i certainly don't advise you to be yet another person in the industry trying to get free work out of other talented artists. i think in these cases, you just need to keep doing what you're doing, which is asking for critique and looking for ways to improve your work that you might not have noticed yourself. you don't always have to agree with what someone else is saying, but its always helpful to get others perspectives on your work.