First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

Ramon Boutviseth

Ramon Boutviseth

Well-known member
Hey everyone. ;D I've been browsing around for 2 months now, watching everyone's stuff. & nowI've been inspired to do a little bit of work with my DVX100a. I've done some stuff that was horrible and was very shameful and not worthy of the almight dvx100a! I'vealso hesitate to post my films because of all the great work in this forum,"myer's park", "free your mind by matt", "richlee's music vid" someone's demo reel and alot others. I'm not a professional but hopefully I can get up there with you guys.

So voila, after two months of owning this dvx100a, I think I just leveled up! I'd just like to see what everyone thinks of it, mainly on the photography because I been striving. Let me know if some of the scenes are too overexpose.  Any other comments will be appreciated. I thought about buying all these extras for the dvx100a but I havent made anything yet. So I had to put that idea back. Most of the shooting was done with a cheap tripod & no filters. (Settings: factory) - I also use Magic bullet (bleach bypass) Overall It's still a work in progress that I hope to build on. thanks :)

(updated 29) Final Verison
http://www.studiorb.com/musicvids/finalverison_story.wmv

(old)
http://www.studiorb.com/musicvids/story.wmv
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

hiro, some advice brotha about big ass file size. keep in mind that some people on this form still uses dial up and when you have a file 40 something megs, their relucant to download it. So if you can please, make your files alittle smaller for the turtles out there. I'm downloading it right now and I'll let you know what I think. I'm a mean fella, :)
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

I dug it man.

As for the overexposure, there were quite a few straggling shots that looked a bit overexposed, one in particular where you did a split screen (it was on the left side). Time was at about 1:25. Then there were a few other shots that were completely overexposed, and easy to pick out because they were by themselves. And other than that, there were a couple shots that could have been a little overexposed, but artistically, they fit into the piece kinda well actually. Or so I thought.

And most of the other shots were very well composed and exposed. I was impressed. However, you should try compressing a little differently. It was an awfully big file for only being about 2 minutes long.

And when you render, you should make sure you're rendering in a progressive mode. It looked to me like you rendered in interlaced.

But hey man...alot of good stuff to work on. Is this gonna be a music video or something? Or is this just random experimenting with the DVX?
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

First and foremost, don’t be hesitant about posting your work.  Getting response and criticism is the only way to improve your skills.  You can easily decipher between people who are trying to offer creative criticism with people who are just trying to be mean.  But the majority of the people on this site seem really cool and helpful.  

An experimental montage project is always a good way to learn new equipment and explore your style.  The footage was pretty good considering that you used factory settings.  Certain shots looked flat and flushed out (I’m guessing that this is from the bleach bypass effect.  I’m also guessing that you were trying to create contrasts between the shots).  I definitely enjoyed the vivid color shots in your split screen sequence the most.  The only thing now is to keep shooting and editing in order to improve.  

Since you said that this is a work in progress, you’ll probably want to mix up the footage.  Maybe you could contrast the footage of the girl with some footage of a guy.  Anyways, on an additional note, you may want to smooth out some of the whitewash fades that you did; they seemed rather harsh.  But overall it was a nice little montage project.  

And for smier33:  The song is Oliver James "The Greatest Story Ever Told"
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

okay, I thought I was going to be watching a gangster rap video. This is pretty good for what you call a experiment. I like some of your compositions and the bleach bypass looked worked for me. I saw really nothing worng with it. All I got to say is keep on shooting and keep playing with your toy. The more you experiment the better you become. I actually like the song. It's a nice change for me, I'm used to the booty shakin stuff on BET which those videos suck. You have potenital my friend. Peace!
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

I agree with some of the above takes; Don't even be shy about posting work. This little community of DVX'ers is a great place for reviewing our work and getting HONEST opinions and support.

I liked this piece. It was touching. Your editing pace was right on target, the compostions were very nice and the choice of song supported the imagery.

It was overexposed in more than a few shots; I suggest defaulting your IRIS to underexpose at - 2 or -3. Also, check your ZEBRAS prior to recording as they can tell you where hot spots are showing up. (A key is to EXPOSE FOR THE HIGHLIGHTS).

This did not look Progressive; Am I right or............................?

Other than that? Very cool and keep shooting! Now it's going to be automatic and every piece will get better!
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

Wow, I liked it. It's great that you didn't use any filters. I often fret over my lack of gear (Like you, just the DVX and a tripod.) Keep it up.
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

Good work... I remember thinking..Damn, somewhere theres a groom who would pay to have a piece like this shown at his wedding reception as a gift to the bride. Sorta hit me that, way you know?
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

hello I really liked your video

Some of those shots - the natural backgorund lighting was very good - the song was great and it had a very nice emotional warmth to it - thanks for posting, it inspired me to go out and do my own little emotion piece ;D
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

I knew that was Carolina! :D

I liked the split screens -- similar to something I'm editing right now . . .
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

Thanks for the comments & critques! I'll use them to better my dvx100a using skillz. Sorry about the big file. I'll post the link to the smaller file here. I compress it with the WMV encoder that came with Window media player 9. It didn't offer me the option to de-interlace. Ok its done encoding. The file-size is down to about 15mb, I hope it isn't too bad. let me know if u guys need a smaller file.

http://www.studiorb.com/musicvids/story_small.wmv


A little bit about the video, It was intended for a music video, but I had such an short amount of footage *50 mins* to edited and It was so frustrating to work with. I finally gave up after 4-5 hours of staring into the monitor with a 30 sec of work. I just wasn't feeling it, so I put them together randomly. I think my problem is planning, I don't plan my shots, everyone was improvised with my directing. There isn't much of a story to it either so I'll have to work on that. The main thing I was concern with was the photography, I wanted the subject to be the main focus and the background to be blurr. I figure the only way to achieve that was to set everything to manual, because I knew that if i set everything to auto, I wouldnt be able to pull it off. On the technical side, most of the stuff was shot on factory settings in f6 24PA.


smiera - It was intended for a sappy music video. I like to do those. The song is by Oliver James "Greatest Story ever told" from the soundtrack of "What a girl wants" the chick flick. My gf introduced me to the song. It's not all that bad, I waiting for someone to bash the song lol, im glad you guys liked it.

JDK- yea i was very hesitant to post my stuff. But I'm glad I did, everyone's cool about it. Everyone seems professional here, atmosphere is little bit different from studentfilms.com
I'm glad you like the shot with vivid colors, I got lucky because it was the day after it rained. The weather is always nice after the rain.

bluespider- thanks for watching. Nope, not a hip-hop video! I doubt she will shake it for me!

john- thanks for the tip, I just now figure what the zebra was. The video was shot in 24pa edited in Premiere 24 timeline. I think it was the way I compressed it.

Jim Brennan-glad you like, I'll post the complete video soon.

mino- I like doing these kind of videos, I wouldn't mind a little cash on the side for doing what i like to do. :)

Young-H._Lee - I been keeping up with your chinatown series. Pretty impressive work. im glad it was inspiring.

David Jimerson- the idea was inspired by that new hanson video "penny and me" and little bit of that fox show 24 lol.

thanks everyone!
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

First off, great job. It's good to see people taking the initiative with their cameras and shooting fun stuff. I hope that the future is bright for you and you can eventually begin recieving income from doing something you love. You show potential. And, everything said above has been right on, so no need to re-iterate.

If I may give one shot idea, take it or leave it. (It's YOUR art) :)
There were a few shots that seemed as if you were going for that home candid style within this (I'm thinking about a shot near the beginning where she's in a kitchen or something and has a scarf to hide her face, peeking out from behind it). This particular shot gave me the feel of her being filmed by someone close to her, a boyfriend or something, and she's not wanting to really be on camera, so she's hiding but it comes out all cutesy. (Oh man, Did I REALLY just use that word???)
Anyways, if that's what you're going for you could accent the feel with some saturation decrease, a little grain, a little shake, some film dust & scratches, etc... Kinda give it that old 8mm home video style. I'm thinking of a video that Chris Sims did recently (not sure of the name of it) with a chick on guitar that has that kinda reminiscent feel going for it. Maybe that would give you a good reference. (Shameless plug for my idol from a mac head) :)

Anyways, don't feel like you have to take my advice or anything. I'm glad you stepped up and posted and congrats on joining a great community. Looking forward to watching you grow. Great job

~Matt
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

Nice first post. I agree with most of the above comments. An inexpensive accessory that you might find helpful is a gray card. It can be used quickly to give a reference for exposure, when shooting with natural light; this can be a real time saver. I also find that a few frames of the gray card at the head of each take can make density and color correction much easier when it is time to edit.
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

I was expecting after the first 10 seconds that a logo would come up saying something like, "Hallmark, cherish life" or something like that

Hahah
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

LoL.

Update guys. I've been taking everyone's advice into consideration. I now shoot with zerbra on, and underexpose all my shots. The zebra feature is so helpful and rewarding! I went out again, and shot some more footage. I've decided to make a music video out of it, since I can't stand leaving work unfinished. So,..... the song is longer.. like 4 min, and there is a guy in video. and what else, I added some old-film look to some of the footage (the tabletop scene) and magic bulleted everything lol. the file is 25mb, I apologize if that's too big. I couldn't make it any smaller without losing quality. Let me know what you guys think. few things Id like to know, if the beginning is too cheesy... heh. It was my idea.

http://www.studiorb.com/musicvids/finalversion_story.wmv
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

hiro,

Your self-quoted "cheesy" beginning is great! You had me anticipating slow-mo footage of the two pushing each other on a swing set. LOL. The guy / girl footage ended up balancing together pretty well; it's a more complete product now. The compression definitely brought down the quality; but it was still very "watchable". I enjoyed it man, keep on keepin on.
 
Re: First Post: Xperimental with Dvx

was that dude you? This is much better besides some quick cuts you have. It could be my slow laptop. Keep working at it bro.
 
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