GO HARD (MUSIC VIDEO) T2i Shot In Abandon Apartments/Vegas Edit

Before I start, I wanna say the content was tight. Lyrics are good. Your talent has personality.

Couple of critiques. Mostly with the shooting. A lot of that slow-mo was clearly undercranked from 24p. You should have definitely re-shot your intended slow motion shots in 60p. It's only but so many times you can see that jittery slow mo and not get nauseous, because 'everyone' does it. If you have a T2i it's simple, so you really have no excuse.

Secondly, he's dark. Too many people forget to take this into consideration. With the car shots and a few of your other shots, he's way too dark. The background is perfectly exposed and while he's not completely unidentifiable, it would have added so much more to the video if we could have fully seen him throughout the whole thing. It didn't even look like it was an artistic attempt to underlight him. It looked like bad lighting (at points, not the entire video).

You've got the editing down pretty tight, especially with your cuts and your effects. Nothing to really say there. For the most part, good music dictates it's own edits anyway.

Only other thing that irked me was that I didn't see any variety. While I enjoyed his performance, every good music video features at least three good locations (which of course takes more effort from your talent, which he may or may not have been willing to do), but if he wasn't willing to, then I really wish there had've been some kind of progression through the video. Or some sort of story? Just something to liven things up and not make people feel like "oh it's another rapper in front of a camera", like some people will undoubtedly think.

Still, a really solid piece as is. Something I could definitely see on VEVO. :-P Nothing's ever perfect!
 
@rawk i uesd natural lighting it was a burnt down apt with to roof gone and im going to look into the 60p slow motion thank u for taking time out your day to view my work
 
somewhere. chuck d is sitting just shaking his head. wondering "man, what the f#@k happened to rap...?"

all things considered. a pretty watchable video. but man. i just have to know. is there some secret governing body within the hip hop community that forces every artist to say and do the EXACT SAME THING as the artist before them? its almost like there is a checklist to these things:

tattooed guy. pants down to his pubic bone. shirtless or wearing a wife-beater? - CHECK!
same guy. with a group of other dudes standing behind him, doing pretty much nothing? - CHECK!
same guy. talking about all his money. yet standing in a run down house. driving a $2000 car? - CHECK!
lyrics mentioning how tough, hard or o.g. they are? - CHECK!
repeated reference to bitches and niggas? - CHECK!
gratuitous slow motion and/or low-tech effects? - CHECK!

seriously. of all the hip hop videos ive seen posted in the last couple years. i recall about FOUR that dont contain nearly if not every item ive just listed.

im not dissing your video. you did a fine enough job. and the artist probably dictated the content. but come on man. do the genre a solid and next time some guy brings something like this to you. tell him "nope. thats already been done. like 137,314 times. lets think of something else"

i realize its a discussion of differences in target audiences. and hip hop videos clearly are not for me. but its like if some alternative guy came to me with a song where he sings through a bullhorn and wanted a video of him hanging from the ceiling in a grungy warehouse full of roaches. id say "no man. im not going to do that. trent reznor, tool and 4000 other bands have already done that."

i guess im just not down for copy-catting. and cant get my head around why the hip hop genre seems to thirst for it.
 
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Hey man, you definitely got skills with your cinematography and editing. Good pace, clean cuts, steady camera movements and good exposure on majority of your shots.

My only critiques...
-Maybe a lil overboard on the "strobe" effect between shots. Fits the genre, but I think they could be cut down and replaced by some good b-roll footage that advance the plot
-If you got the t2i on deck, I want to see some low depth-of-field shots thrown in there. They really do add drama to ur shots especially when u have the right background. Since u are using natural light, you need to throw a neutral density filter on ur lens so u can lower the aperture

My questions...
-How are you doing all these effects with Vegas? (like the static TV channel changing effect at 2:38). I use Vegas as my editor and am good with straight cuts and editing for action but do not know how to do any of the fancy music video-esque effects yet


John Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1yLgUtfMIc
 
wgzn said:
somewhere. chuck d is sitting just shaking his head. wondering "man, what the f#@k happened to rap...?"

all things considered. a pretty watchable video. but man. i just have to know. is there some secret governing body within the hip hop community that forces every artist to say and do the EXACT SAME THING as the artist before them? its almost like there is a checklist to these things:

tattooed guy. pants down to his pubic bone. shirtless or wearing a wife-beater? - CHECK!
same guy. with a group of other dudes standing behind him, doing pretty much nothing? - CHECK!
same guy. talking about all his money. yet standing in a run down house. driving a $2000 car? - CHECK!
lyrics mentioning how tough, hard or o.g. they are? - CHECK!
repeated reference to bitches and niggas? - CHECK!
gratuitous slow motion and/or low-tech effects? - CHECK!

seriously. of all the hip hop videos ive seen posted in the last couple years. i recall about FOUR that dont contain nearly if not every item ive just listed.

im not dissing your video. you did a fine enough job. and the artist probably dictated the content. but come on man. do the genre a solid and next time some guy brings something like this to you. tell him "nope. thats already been done. like 137,314 times. lets think of something else"

i realize its a discussion of differences in target audiences. and hip hop videos clearly are not for me. but its like if some alternative guy came to me with a song where he sings through a bullhorn and wanted a video of him hanging from the ceiling in a grungy warehouse full of roaches. id say "no man. im not going to do that. trent reznor, tool and 4000 other bands have already done that."

i guess im just not down for copy-catting. and cant get my head around why the hip hop genre seems to thirst for it.
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