Okay be gentle: my first music video

[Daniel J]

You can watch the short video here:

http://www.pandamotion.com/Movies/Magnum%20Musician-Magnum%20Musician.mov

This video was produced for a friend for a comptetion. He played along with the recorded song.

Lights: If you are prone to envy, you probably shouldn't watch this video. You will catch a glimpse at my sweet lighting setup i used.

Sound: He recorded the guitar later using garage bound and that is why it is fairly poor.

24p?: Here is my big issue. I shot this in 24p to my recollection not 24pa. I imported it as regular 60i ntsc footage and placed it in a 60i timeline, but when I exported using 24p settings It looks off. The video I showed online was exported as 29.97 so you could see the issue. I have been researching this searching forums, adam wilt, fcp manual, cinema tools manual, but I can't seem to wrap my head around this.

4:3 or widescreen: I shot the whole thing in 4:3 and I was wondering what you all thought. It would take ten minutes to bump it up and down and resize for 16:9. What do you think?

Thanks, -Dano

[Jeff Anderson]

Well you get bonus points by not putting it on youtube and asking how the video quality was, so thats a good foot to start on at least :)

Dont know on the 24P sorry I cant help you with that one.

4:3 look good for me - you seemed to use the frame well so I say stick with it. I think too many of the full body shots especially would lose their composition. But toss the mask on it and see what you think - if it looks good then go with it.

Now for the meat of it - I liked it overall. It was well put together and you made good use of the lights you did have. It kinda gave it that kid in his room rocking out feel by using the practicals like that as very few aspiring rockers keep a good 3 point set of lights in their room. The editing worked well for me too. Here's what I didnt like: those boxes flying around on the screen. I'd lose those. especially the black ones. I'd also have like to have seen more than just some kid in his room playing the guitar, give it more of a story than that. I also didnt like the end that went to the clouds - seemed really out of place and looked fake in a video that was all very realistic looking. Just a fast zoom to his hand on the guitar wouldve worked better for me.

Overall I think it looked nice and hopefully does him well in competition. And thanks for not sending me to youtube :)

[Daniel J]

Thanks jdajda. I was shaky on the cloud thing too throughout the video. I was just trying to mix it up. I had never even heard the song until the shooting day, and that happened to be the same day we picked a location.

Now about those boxes... I just threw those in to mix it up as well. The big black one is actually to cover a pretty nearfatal error. Those little lcd screens have gotten me more then once. Their was a water bottle on the bottom right in those wide shots. If you look closely at the other shots that are wide you might be able to see how I covered them up using fcp, multiple layers, 4 point garbage mattes, and edge feather. Thanks again.

[ryan brown]

24P normal footage is imported/cut/and exported just as 60i footage in FCP. (i.e. 29.97)

When you get into 24PA - - that's where things need to be adjusted.

[Daniel J]

So the video that I made is suppos to look like that? There are 2 frames every once in a while that are interlaced. Hmm... I guess I will have to look more into the 24pa workflow, thanks.

[Nathan.Buxton]

it looks good. only one thing bugs me: your friend doesnt look that exciting playing the guitar. He has that shit-eating-grin on his face the whole time and stands and bobs around... should have moved around a bit and had fun and given some ENERGY into it!! but it still looks decent! well shot for sure... the lighting isnt even that bad it works...

[Robbie Comeau]

interlace....ewwww nice video tho