very proud of my latest HVX video

I thought this was very well done. I like how at first it starts as a short story which builds tension and keeps watching and then goes into a video which i thought was tastefully down as well.
 
Solid work with seamless changes to black and white and still photography... which can be trickier than people think. Good directing of actors and cinematography.

The video goes south for me in post.

The fake anamorphic flair plug in did me in. Way overused with no apparent light source creating it... IE headlight or flashlight etc You wouldn't get a flair like that in a wide city shot either.

I understand that you are using it as an effect rather than a fake flair... I just think you overused it

Vignettes were a bit heavy handed as well.

It just looks like you dug into magic bullet look suite before you finished and went a bit overboard with the effects.

A little goes a long way and I wanted to focus on the cinematic devices you were using to tell the story but I was distracted by the effects.

Thanks for posting.
 
Very nice shooting and editing. One minor thing that you may want to change is the diffused vignetting when it goes into the guys in the BG's faces. The vignette color is a little bluish mostly on the left side also.
 
As you should be. I am sorry, but to be honest it is hard to get the song completely out of the equation. I am not someone that listens to Rap frequently and this song has the qualities to make it interest everyone. That said:

The pictures was a nice touch to add for production value and to allow for the friend's picture to be displayed. I really liked the long intro for the video... doubt it would be played on air because of it's length that creates such a long pause without music. In the intro, using the reverse made it hard to see the performers lack of acting chops, and the voice over was so good that it justified it completely. The V.O.'s narrative quality of the performance was good, the quality and voice tone was better, and the subject development was as good as I could see it getting. I guess the death of their friend was true. I love it how they had red faces from the cold which made it much more real and the talent relatable.
The Cinematography was good, no special moves other than a few that I saw, but I guess you didn't really have a crane, and for that it was good. I liked the placement of the camera, which was not too close imo, but it was close enough to make it a serious subject matter. I liked the shot from the outlook of the city, very on point for this genre. The editing was on-point truly as good as I could imagine it getting with what seems to be the coverage you had. I also liked the blue horizontal smears, though I would have liked to see you ad a few more different effects too. However the placement of them was not too obtrusive, but it would have been better imo to change it up a bit more.

All in all, I loved watching it and I am not one to watch this genre. So from my perspective I'd give it a solid 7! Very Good!
(10 being the best video you've ever seen with full budget in the genre)
 
Hey it put a smile on my face to watch this video. THe music video that actually spiked my first interest in film was called Adam's Song by Blink 182. Liz Friedlander, a woman, shot that music video. She did the picture pulling and jumping. I actually made my sr video after that music video. Mad props on the smooth transistions between the 2.

Here is that music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmLa_W_afH4
 
did you use trapcode starglow for the flare effect? i agree with the above commenter. way too much of it. also, it's more effective if you isolate it to one or two elements in the shot rather than having a ton of them flaring off of every surface. pick a light or a highlight, mask it and apply the effect to that spot only.
 
That was dope! The intro went for a tad to long for me but built the vibe...

What was the budget for something like that???
 
No offence dude, but the opening scene was so gory I had to cover my eyes...
Overall, very impressive flow, the slow mo, and other FX were also nicely done. Nothing spectacular mind you, you still got a way to go. I'd say you could have lit some scenes better, the HVX can give you amazing visuals when you light a scene properly (maybe you could talk this out with your DP). The girl at 3:23 was gorgeous. Why did she only had to appear for 3 seconds in a 7 minute video?
 
man that's kind of a B.S thing to say there bro: Nothing spectacular mind you, you still got a way to go.


Now when such is said you have to pony up and show what you have done that's better.



Overall this was a nice track and some good style. Liked the green screen card pull outs.. nicely done and timely. It does seem like someone loves Goodfellas like I do and it has that derivative quality, but that's not necessary a bad thing... cheers
 
yeah it was very well done imo aside from the effects, but I know hip hop ppl sometimes love that stuff in their vids, so it might've been beyond your control. I like when you see a back story before a music video, like when music videos first started being produced.

Who's concept was the story at the beginning? yours or the artists, and who wrote the dialogue? I liked it a lot, overall very impressive.
 
less vingette and that weird flare thing. Also not all rap videos need to have guns in them.

It is a good tune however, I was surprised. I am the number one hater of rap.
 
hey thanks for all the comments guys. good and bad. the key thing i'm taking out of this is really the lens flare issue. i just thought it was a nice stylized thing but i guess i did overall do it a little too much.

however..in regards to this comment: Nothing spectacular mind you, you still got a way to go...i agree with Justyn...show and prove brotha :) On my end I have directed several videos for major artists, on virtually all HD formats, 35mm and super 16 aswell some which are on high rotation on several music tv networks, in the US, Canada, the UK and even the middle east of all places. I basically did what was in my heart on this video and i think this turned out better than most of the hiphop videos on air right now, proof is that they're giving it high rotation on the tv networks. that being said i do think i have a ways to go but not like you insinuate a LOOONG way to go ;)

In regards to the intro, the concept was mine and i wrote it myself. the artist loved it so agreed to go with it and just recorded the voice over in his studio.

In regards to the "too many pictures" comments i understand what you mean however i do disagree on that point. The CONCEPT is telling the story in pictures...if you listen to the lyrics, every 3 lines starts with "picture a...."

In regards to the effects I do agree that they could've been done better. Visual efx are REALLY not my forte so i did the best i could with what i had.

Basically i like this video because it takes you out of the niche and cliche's of hiphop videos. I tried to do something different with it and the artist was happy to have something original. The video has gotten ALOT of hype up here in canada and is going to be airing on our music networks up here as of monday. The long intro however was only for the "internet version" and obviously wont play on air. we're submitting only the musical portion of the video.

thanks again for all the comments guys. and yes next time i WILL be a bit more sparing with my flare effects and so forth. advise well taken.
 
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