Critique me (both explosion vfx and sound replacement)

[CmdrWard]

So I just finished a video and was wondering what you guys thought of it, what did I miss, and what didn't look quite right.

the main vfx are: a title attached to the alarm clock, some sparks from me working on a box, replacing the orange muzzle of the pistol with a black one, and a car explosion near the end
the main sfx are: some spark sounds, total sound replacement for all of the outdoors scenes (too much wind noise in the original footage), and the explosion sound effect.

thanks,

[slimbob]

Good idea and I liked the sick humour (ie) end bit .

With regards the technical editing I agree with what Paul says (ie) repeated dissolves and no sound outside.

However you have done a better job than I could of done so I have no right to criticize ..... just my opinion.

Liked the overall idea .....if only it really happened like that compared to the car-jacker killing people and getting 2 years !

Cheers

[TimStannard]

Worst bit for me was the repeated dissolves on an identical camera placement - just uncomfortable.

Agreed - especially when it was handheld so not quite the same camera position.
Using dissolves from one shot to another from a fixed camera position is a standard technique for showing passing time but something has to move position.
In the past this might have been something rather obvious likethe hands on a clock or the shadow of a sundial. As audiences have become used to this it is often the person who is shown in different positions. A common example is showing someone waiting - the shot is framed in such a way as to allow the actor to be in at least two positions within the frame that do not overlap - so they fade out from one position as they fade in to a different one. I rather like this device.

[Midnight Blue]

I won't cover the things already said. The titles are not lined up with the clock. So don't look like " a title attached to the alarm clock"

[CmdrWard]

Thanks for all the input guys!

you can hear 'room sound' - but not a hard one, a very absorbed sound - dead and dark (best I can do with words)

Yeah I understand what you mean, that's a good thing for me to keep in mind since I thought it would just be the same.

Needed outside sounds - birds, a bit of ambience

I actually did add bird ambience to it, though I might have turned it down too low.

Editing needs to be a bit tighter

Thanks for pointing that out too. I have noticed that I tend to leave too much footage in when it doesn't help the flow of the video.

Sadly, the whole handheld thing was unavoidable since the camera I was using couldn't be used on a tripod, but have upgraded to the canon t2i so I will be able to take care of that problem.
And I thought I was being clever with the fades, so thank you for pointing that out so I know not use it as much in the future.

thanks! and if you think of anything else, let me know
-Ward

[Stripe]

I didn't notice the dodgy dissolves until I looked back, so that tells you how much I know/care lol - the message got accross so ok, you just want to do it better now.

As you'd mentioned explosion, I was really looking forward to that, almost more than concentrating on the storyline - lesson not to focus the audience on one particular event? Although this is a critique, so that doesn't apply, but I like to learn these types of lessons.

The explosion was overdone, a small interior hit followed by a large bang is probably more standard? I'd say 60% of what you had would be more real?

The mobile phone sound was very high in the mix and didn't sit well with the soundtrack eaither, maybe you also got excited by these events? It probably pays to be subtle and play down these types of events, I think it gives more impact if you know what I mean? The loud tones almost insult the viewers intelligence, whereas a low volume tone would have us feeling happy we knew how it set the bomb off - you had the arm action anyway.

I'm blabbering - but learning

[CmdrWard]

The explosion was overdone, a small interior hit followed by a large bang is probably more standard? I'd say 60% of what you had would be more real?

The mobile phone sound was very high in the mix and didn't sit well with the soundtrack eaither, maybe you also got excited by these events? It probably pays to be subtle and play down these types of events, I think it gives more impact if you know what I mean? The loud tones almost insult the viewers intelligence, whereas a low volume tone would have us feeling happy we knew how it set the bomb off - you had the arm action anyway.

The explosion was actually intentionally overdone, though it might have been a bad choice. I mainly wanted to make it clearly obvious that I blew him sky high.

And that is a good point with the phone sound. I didn't think that one through all the way and would probably have made it more subtle if I had noticed