My First Trailer - The River

K

krish

Well-known member
Hello, I am a new user of DVX and bought my frist DVX100b (about 2 weeks ago). This is my frist attempt to create a trailer. I have absolutely no expereice from the past and am pretty much learning everything for the first time. I spent about 1/2 hour in taking the footage and probably another 2 hours on Vagas 6 to edit it. I appologise for the shakey camera in advance.

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/The River - Trailer.wmv


Cheers,

-Krishnahttp://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/index.php?module=main-gallery&gallery=283
 
You might want to tighten it up a bit. I believe the first 10 seconds are just blank with some b.g. sound. That's NOT an attention getter!
Also, it might not hurt to tell us SOMETHING more with this, since it's a trailer. It could be visual, audio, or text, but I feel we know too little of what this is about.
 
yes. you are right. this is my first cut so i will definitly fix the intro. Also as far as what its abuout to be honest its suppose to create a theme for a some kind of mystry. I am still working on the mystry part :) . Hope to have a better second version.

But i appreciate the input.
 
Here is my honest constructive criticism:
- cut off the first ten seconds of black
- the shots are shaky but I'm sure will get better with practice
- shorten the text clips (they were on screen for too long)
- think about maybe overlaping the text with footage slighty to get smoother transitions
- like "vidled" said - we need to know a little bit more about what its about to get us excited about it
 
Cool. Thanks. I appreciate the constructive criticism. As i said this was absolutely the first short that ever made. I will follow your advise and work the suggestions.

Cheers,
 
Krish,

Congratulations on your first post...

Now is time to learn a few things about your fellows DVXuser members. Vidled and Fd2blck gave you a good advise, I am glad you accepted, many people when post here for the first time or at any point at all, they don't take criticism very well and make excuses.

Your trailer is very simple with just a few clips and black spaces that last longer than what they should. Your started with the rain ambient sound and once you showed us an image, there was snow and dried road, odd. Your pictures seem not to be white balanced.

WARNING; since this is your first DVX (I am assuming) I noticed you like to play with the sun. Be careful because you can easily ruin your sensors if you point the camera directly into the sun for too long. Also, the shot of the river, I notice those glares and they don't look artistic nor accidental it just doesn't work.

Try adding contrast to your shots it will add depth to your image. Also, since you did not do it on the camera, try white balancing in post, if you don't know how to do that, ask us and we will help you with that. Have you seen Disjecta's work? He has done lots of outdoors tuff it will inspire you...
 
I take it you haven't yet shot anything for this film as per your post.

My advice, don't put your energy into a trailer that says nothing. Trailers are meant to sell a film, to give you a 2min gloss over of the story and the "feel". My suggestion would be to get working on something really small.. a really tiny story about something.. doesn't have to be big. But try and tell a story with your camera, no actors required. It will be much more satisfying and you will learn a lot more than trying to create a trailer for a ficticious film.

If it is going to be a short film, then I am very much against even creating a trailer, as it is rather pointless to pull out (approx) 2 min of footage, that could be a large chunk of story. But I am getting off topic.

It didn't feel like a trailer to me at all, cause nothing really happened, and nothing was really shown.

It felt like you went outside your house and shot some stuff... then edited a few shots to music.. which is fine.. but consider what a trailer is all about.

keep working at it. One major suggestion that will add production value at no cost, is put a nice widescreen matte over it. Boom instant production value (not much albeit, but every bit counts).

My 2 cents (CDN).
 
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Thanks Roman, i really appreciate this. I will try to work on some of he advise and repost my clip. I am totally ok with criticism as it will help me to improve.

Thanks for the tip on camera pointing to Sun. I just panned it once and immediately moved it away but i will be careful. I wouldnt want to loose an expensive camera within couple of weeks of buying !

Cheers
 
Hi Krish,

Well, good advice from the others who posted. What helped me to get a consistently steady shot with my camera, even while walking backwards pretty fast was to mount the camcorder on a semi-light tripod & close all 3 legs so that they're together. With my left hand, I grasp the 3 legs of the tripod (which are closed), I loosen all the pivots on the tripod so that the camera can tilt & pan freely & with my right hand in the handle guard of the camcorder, I start shooting. Both your hands should bear the weight of the camera & tripod combined. This way, my arms isolate the movement from my body, which results in extremely smooth shots, even while walking backwards fast, to shoot a wedding couple for example.
 
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