My final student project! Please critique asap its due soon!

[asteele10]

This is my final project. I still have to film the first and last scene so its not completly done. PLEASE PLEASE watch and critique. The premiere is this Saturday 12/19.

http://vimeo.com/8243167
Password: Bic

Please critique:
-The pacing
-Cuts
-Split screens and transition motion
-Quality
-The piece over all
-Etc.

When I watch it in quicktime there is some obvious interlacing. I shot it all 1080p. What am I doing wrong?

I also still need to color correct. I'm going to be using Apple Color for the first time! Can anyone recommend some sort of color correction that would make it look cool? I'm a CC noobie. I may not have time to learn Apple Color so might just use FCP's. What do you think of that?

Thanks!!

[asteele10]

So I realized that the interlacing is because I didn't do the pull down. The interlacing looks very obvious on a big HD tv. Is there a way in cinema tools or FCP to do the pull down to my entire video file? I didn't do this ahead of time. It will be my first time using cinema tools as well.. Thanks!

And how long would the pull down take in cinema tools?

[seanmcleod]

Hey man, first things first, great selection with the Grass Roots, love them! When the first couple notes came in I was like WOW... Now the piece itself is very well executed. Your visuals for the most part are well shot and framed. The pacing is done well for the music you've chosen... the transitions and split screen are also very well done. That is to say technically speaking you've got a very solid piece. The only issues in regards to that would be a couple of spotty focus moments and the low light stuff doesn't look terribly great but definitely not unsalvageable. I think where you really should concentrate, as should everyone, is this story, obviously it seems like we're missing the ending here but although this lighter seems to be going through all kinds of peoples hands, I'm not really sure what the point is... is anyone who touches it doing something bad? What is the arc of the story here. The other thing is in terms of the pacing of the story, as cut everything is ramped up and it's more of a music video than a film. What I would think would help would be to give the view peaks and valleys, moments where you ramp up the action and music, but also scenes where you take it down, show the gravity of the situation when the guy is shooting up in the bathroom. Allow for different emotional responses as this lighter goes through it's life cycle. As it is now the whole thing comes through like a speeding train, and any comment or statement you may be trying to make is lost in the process. In any event I do think you have a quality piece that you will be able to mold into something that has more to say than just look at my technical skills!

Great job overall though! Also props on getting a variety of people in the film. Gives it a bigger feel. Wanted to make sure I mentioned that. Teach will be impressed.

[mkeep]

I love the music and the split-screen effect fits in with that feel nicely. I don't really get the concept either to be honest, and there are some things that could have been shot differently, but it's too late to worry about either of those things, and I like what you have as-is.

But, I would tighten the edit way up. Ideally I would only want to hear the song all the way through once, or even a shortened edit of it. The song is so upbeat that the cutting should try to match that tempo. There are some parts where it feels like people are walking too slowly (the priest, and the girl after him) but you can probably tweak that by just cutting more during those parts, or actually speeding those shots up a little.

There are some parts where I feel like I'm seeing too much in between point A & B (people walking too much, opening doors, etc.). It would be good to focus more on the key moments where things are happening with the lighter or a handoff is taking place, and pare the other stuff down as simply as you can to still tell the story. I think this has the feeling of an almost action-like montage in the middle of a feature, and some tighter editing could help push it in that direction.

The most impressive aspect is possibly the sheer number of actors and locations you've managed to get together. Cutting out some of the fat might also help to emphasize that factor, so it feels like we're constantly changing from person to person, place to place.

I also think it could benefit from some kind of funky color correction that pushes it into almost a slight '70s feel that might go nicely with the music and overall vibe. And the split screen work, while great feels slightly off in parts. It might be cool to add some snap zooms or freeze frames into the mix on those parts to give it more of that '60s/'70s feel.

Anyway, good stuff.

[asteele10]

Awesome thanks guys. Keep it coming!

The movie/music video is about the life of a lighter throughout one day. Does it feel like one day? The first and final scene have talking. The main character buys the lighter and in the end it comes back to him, outta fluid.

I will try to edit it a little quicker. Did you ever get bored? Any more help with the color correction? Thats my last step and I haven't done much.

Also, can anyone help me with my interlacing problem? it might no be noticable here but it is on a big screen!

Thanks and more feedback is appreciated!

[asteele10]

Ok heres the full version. I still need to CC and do a few other things. There are some sound issues.

But can someone help me with the interlacing, glitches, and flashes of black? I haven't had my GH1 for long but I have put together some videos which look fine and don't have these issues. I think I did the same thing i did for them as i did for this...? Thanks!

http://vimeo.com/8321647
Password: Bic

[thisisapocalypse]

Nice piece - I like it, I agree with some of the other posters that you can tighten the edit up, it should be quick and slick since you're using split screening often (and fyi, this is some of the best use of split screening I've seen, you've got a knack for it) - I like that it's not too heavy, not too serious, but just interesting and a day in the life piece that stands on its own rather than being force-fed a message about life. Are you and undergrad or graduate film student, out of curiosity?

As far as deinterlacing, you've got to do this to your clips beforehand, so you may have to go back to your source footage and redo it and put it back in the timeline, I don't know of any way to do it after the fact.

Are you using a PC or a Mac?

That said, how is your project going to be shown to your professor? I thought it looked fine on my screen, although I can understand that it would be noticable on a big screen.

In the end, if you can get it fixed, do it...but most importantly, you've got a really nice short here and in the end if you don't get it deinterlaced...I don't think it's going to have much of an impact on how enjoyable this project was, you've got some very nice shots here - a few could use some work as others have mentioned, but most of it is very nice and it carries us through the shots that aren't as great - a nice work here, that lighter had a busy day, for sure, it works as a 1-day piece, I don't see any problems with believing that it was just one day - just tighten this puppy up and you're good to go, and it's quite good as it is - I wouldn't worry too much at this point (I know that's easy to say since it's not mine) because it's genuinely enjoyable stuff here, and that puts you in the top 1% for student shorts!

[thisisapocalypse]

Where did you shoot this by the way? A number of shots look like Boston.

The steady shot at 0:45 by the way is...awesome. I can go through and give you suggested cut points if you want, like one of the others said, there are a few times where we see too much from point A to point B, tighten it up (cut all but what you need) and it will have even more impact.

Also, did you use more than 1 camera for this?

[asteele10]

thanks man. I'm a last year undergrad. I had it shown on a projector and it looked real bad. I read that your supposed to use compressor to do the pulldown before you edit the clips. I didn't do that for this but havene't done that for any of my pieces (see my recent post Boston Grafitti). These videos never had probelms..?

And ya i live in Boston and go to BU. I only used my GH1 with the stock lens. I will try to speed it up a bit and leave out a little more. Keep the feedback coming, especially with the interlacing probelm. Someone suggested I can export from FCP differently to fix the interlacing problem...?

[asteele10]

I'd really appreciate it if someone can help me out with the whole interlacing thing..

I edited this piece and it all looks fine: http://vimeo.com/8339824

But for some reason this has serious interlacing problems and some glitches here and there..Can I export my sequence to compressor or do i have to do each clip 1 by 1? Thanks

[thisisapocalypse]

Really nice work and super impressive, especially as an undergrad project. I'm shooting a feature here in Boston starting February, if you are still going to be here and would be potentially interested in running a 2nd camera or just helping out on some of the scenes, just let me know (send PM), we'll give you screen credit, I'm impressed with your work! This film will have a bit of a different style than what you've posted but, like I said, I'm impressed by a number of your shots.

We're going to be shooting with GH1(s) - Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Olympus, & Zeiss lenses + Anamorphic adapters.

[thisisapocalypse]

Was thinking about this, please note I have no idea as to whether or not this would work at all - but you might try changing the timeline to 1080i/59.98 and rendering out the whole thing to an .mts file, download the trial version of cineform's neoscene and try to process the entire edited file with neoscene converting to 24p with pulldown removal...I do not know if that would work but I'm thinking that since the GH1 files are already 1080i/59.98 in a wrapper, if you don't change this and keep it as the same file type maybe it would work, it's worth a try since it's a free trial download. May be worth trying out NeoHD instead since you ge a 15 day trial with that instead of 7 days with neoscene and they both have the HDLink program which is what you need to do the conversion with pulldown removal.

[asteele10]

Thanks for the love man. I wish I had time to make each shot perfect. I wrote, filmed and edited the whole thing in one month. My first scripted film you could say.

I'd definitely be interested in helping you out. Where are you located? Message me the details and what the film is about. I go to school part time now so I have free time to work on projects.

I'll try your idea once I'm back at school and have access to a computer. Thanks man.