Thread: New Member needs critique

Hello everyone, My name is Matt and I am new here on the forum and just wanted to post one of my first ever videos and get some feedback from you all. Let me know what you think of the editing and content.



Thanks everyone.

Hi Matt and welcome.
Nice idea for a video and reasonably well executed. Nothing to be ashamed of there. Clearly not a beginners video, more of an improvers, so here are some pointers that couild make it even better.

Firstly, the sound, whilst not bad, could have been recorderd more cleanly. This is particularly important when such a large part of teh film is language. When the girl first spoke, I actually rewound as it wasn't clear (to me) whether she was speaking a different language or I just hadn't heard her properly. A shotgun mic, just out of camera, would have worked well here.

Generally the composition was good. I particularly liked the opening shot where you very naturally turned it from a one-shot to an over the shoulder and followed that with the reverse angle over the shoulder. The one exception to the good composition was the final solo shot of the guy speaking English - there's no lead space, it looks like he's moving out of shot, away from us. I suspect you're familiar with the rule of thirds, but you didn't apply it here!

On the other hand I did not like the hand held look. There's really no need in this environment where you'd clearly have an opportunity to set up a tripod (or other stabilizer). The only justifications for hand held in my opinion are (a) to add action to an action sequence and (b) to make it look ike it was shot hand held. Neither of which are relevant here.

The other distraction - partly caused by not usng a tripod, no doubt - was that the shots were unintenionally tilted check out the verticals on the opening shots.

Finally, the colour was a bit bland. Some livening up in post would help.

But on te whole a film you can be proud of. Well done. Please post more.

Originally Posted by TimStannard

Hi Matt and welcome.
Nice idea for a video and reasonably well executed. Nothing to be ashamed of there. Clearly not a beginners video, more of an improvers, so here are some pointers that couild make it even better.

Firstly, the sound, whilst not bad, could have been recorderd more cleanly. This is particularly important when such a large part of teh film is language. When the girl first spoke, I actually rewound as it wasn't clear (to me) whether she was speaking a different language or I just hadn't heard her properly. A shotgun mic, just out of camera, would have worked well here.

Generally the composition was good. I particularly liked the opening shot where you very naturally turned it from a one-shot to an over the shoulder and followed that with the reverse angle over the shoulder. The one exception to the good composition was the final solo shot of the guy speaking English - there's no lead space, it looks like he's moving out of shot, away from us. I suspect you're familiar with the rule of thirds, but you didn't apply it here!

On the other hand I did not like the hand held look. There's really no need in this environment where you'd clearly have an opportunity to set up a tripod (or other stabilizer). The only justifications for hand held in my opinion are (a) to add action to an action sequence and (b) to make it look ike it was shot hand held. Neither of which are relevant here.

The other distraction - partly caused by not usng a tripod, no doubt - was that the shots were unintenionally tilted check out the verticals on the opening shots.

Finally, the colour was a bit bland. Some livening up in post would help.

But on te whole a film you can be proud of. Well done. Please post more.

WOW, Thank you for the extremely well thought out and written critique. I appreciate your insight and the knowlege that I have gained by reading your response. I do have some limitations in my equiptment that I try to overcome, Mainly a tripod and mic.

Thanks so much for your help and guidance.

You obviously added another language to your video by putting in the Dutch tilts. Unfortunately I found it a bit dull. I understand what the message was but the script and the way it was put across was very dull and stiff. The other thing was the poor sound, in a video where the spoken work is the primary point, I think doing a better audio recording was essential.

Originally Posted by Midnight Blue

You obviously added another language to your video by putting in the Dutch tilts. Unfortunately I found it a bit dull. I understand what the message was but the script and the way it was put across was very dull and stiff. The other thing was the poor sound, in a video where the spoken work is the primary point, I think doing a better audio recording was essential.

Yea I agree, I wish the audio quality was a lot better. I tried to boost the volume in post process, but with elevated volume come elevated white noise so I had to make a trade off. Reguarding the dutch tilt, I think I was leaning on something to steady the shot, I guess that came through.

Thanks for your comments.

Matt

Well it's one big learning curve for all of us. You can fix the tilt in editing very easily.