Last week my wife and I visited England and took a few tours. I shot some video and edited together a 12:35 length travelogue set to music. Anyone can see it at this URL:

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2716052

The raw footage was all shot on a JVC hand held camera. Editing was done on a Sony Vegas 6 system. As you will see, this is not your typical home movie. Comments welcomed.

Just took a look at your travelogue. It was great to see the old country again. I am originally from England, so know London well. I haven't been back there since 1986. Lots has changed and lots has stayed the same. It it nice to see a visitors view of London rather than the normal, made for bringing in tourists kind of view. A couple of comments on the film, after all that is what you are looking for. I watched without sound to focus totally on the images. I do this normally as a sanity check on the content. The first thing I noticed is that there are too many transistion types. The crossfade is good, the spin is good to introduce the stills (gives it a kind of 3D effect), but I think the split reveal is more distracting than it is beneficial. Second thing, I think a few more close ups interspersed in the footage may have made it a little more dynamic. I am not implying that the footage was boring by that, I just think you would be happier with the end result. One other suggestion for the future, that wouldn't neccesarily work for you because of the fact you use a music track. Try including some headshot narration. Simple stuff like "We were told about this little off the beaten track spot called XXXXX by one of the locals" will help you remember where you went and why. Or, a short snippet of a local resident talking about why they like living there.

All the best

Colin

An interesting observation. I'm an American (who lives in Germany) and my wife and I watch a lot of British Television. You're right, it was a different take. I also appreciated your other comments. Quite valid input. Had I been out to make a more professional presentation that would certainly have added to the production value. As it was, we were on guided tours, I had no tripod, only my cheap camera, and was rushed to get shots between wind squals and rain showers (smile). All in all, though, we found England a lovely country and the people were very friendly. London, however, was very, very expensive (but the trip was worth every pound).
Cheers

Unfortunately, I couldn't play it. Not sure if it was my settings or the link. I did try a video from ifilm, and when asked how I chose Windows Media Player, 300K and it played fine....I have Macromedia Flash 7,0,19,0 installed..

I sent the link of the "Billie Does Britain" to the owners of the Travel Company that provided one of our tours and told them that, if they liked it, I would make them a custom version highlighting only their tour portion. They said yes they would, so I re-edited and customized it, added captions where appropriate, and sent them the new link. They have embedded the revised video (now renamed "The Stones 'n' Bones Tour") on their website to promote that particular tour of the same name. That page is: http://www.astraltravels.co.uk/uk-lo...video_tour.htm

I wish to thank the folks in this forum for their feedback, which inspired me to re-edit the material and turn it into something useful that someone could (hopefully) gain some benefit from.
Cheers!

It is great that you have turned your travelogue into something others can share in. A little initiative goes a long way today. Congrats again.