Opinion: Hired a videographer, I thought he sucked. What do you think of footage?

Just for a frame of reference.....we paid $200 for our video. Shot on BMPCC and 5DMKIII...dude edited it and everything. https://vimeo.com/94976459

So I'd say your $200 certainly didn't go as far as my $200 and he was certainly overpaid for what was given to you. That's my 2 cents
 
This thread gave me an idea for a "band selfie stick".

Put the camera into the mount/have it extend over the audience like a telescopic, flexible flag pole.

View via wireless app through phone or tablet and remotely control zoom and (hopefully) remove most of the pole from the shot to show the band on stage. Or maybe shoot in 4K and crop it out in HD.

uhh, maybe, I don't know... just throwing a basic premise out there. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

edit: considering this more, seems if you had a GoPro or equivalent wide-angle camera on a pole or stick that could be viewed via wireless, it wouldn't necessarily have to go "over the audience"...just up near the ceiling at the edge of the stage and pointing down.
 
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Screenforme said:
For my own work, I shot this a few years ago with the same camera, one camera, over about 30 minutes, basically the same situation...
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It's a good video, but unless the band played the same song more than once, I don't believe you when you say this was a single camera. Having them play it more than once is a totally different situation than recording a band in a live setting with a single camera.
 
roxics said:
It's a good video, but unless the band played the same song more than once, I don't believe you when you say this was a single camera. Having them play it more than once is a totally different situation than recording a band in a live setting with a single camera.
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Actually, this really is only one camera. They did play the song once, I just went to the other side of the singer for the verses/choruses, etc.
To clarify, The rest of the song/video is cut with shots from the rest of the set. So, no, they aren't playing that song during the cutaways, I just edited it to appear that way.
 
I wanted to jump back in to say that the depth of maturity and self-awareness it takes to say "to be honest, we ain't a great band" is pretty amazing. Also hurts a little, cause to be part of something and aware that it's not as a good as it could be. . .well, you got me right in the feels. And my feels are mostly blackened and withered by this point.
 
There's been 5 pages worth of comments devoted to this video. Does it really deserve that kind of attention? Would I waste 5 minutes of my time dragging this discussion on any further? I think not. Frankly, I already feel bad about the 5 minutes I wasted watching the thing.
 
EDV said:
There's been 5 pages worth of comments devoted to this video. Does it really deserve that kind of attention? Would I waste 5 minutes of my time dragging this discussion on any further? I think not. Frankly, I already feel bad about the 5 minutes I wasted watching the thing.
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Well aren't you special.
 
Josh Bass said:
I wanted to jump back in to say that the depth of maturity and self-awareness it takes to say "to be honest, we ain't a great band" is pretty amazing. Also hurts a little, cause to be part of something and aware that it's not as a good as it could be. . .well, you got me right in the feels. And my feels are mostly blackened and withered by this point.
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Yes, that was pretty disarming. And I'm usually very well armed :) But in the end I always come down to: "at least you are doing something". So many people talk endlessly, or plan endlessly, or dream endlessly without ever putting out any work. At least this guy is playing in his band, and making music; so maybe it is not the greatest or whatever, but it beats the alternative: "nothing" which is what you get from the all-talk-no-action crowd. Two things are required to make any progress: do the actual work, put out a product, and be honest (at least to yourself) about any shortcomings. As to the video - meh, I've seen worse; but then again, I could get a random friend to do equivalent quality job and only pay for the pizza we'd all have after the gig, instead of shelling out $200.
 
Wow, i feel like i'm in some "Twilight Zone" episode where everyone is posting samples of the "better" videos and yet none of them look any better (often even worse). For that reason i would love if this discussion turned into "what makes better" debate as clearly one's better is not another's. In essence the conversations should be what makes some art higher caliber then the other.

In terms of $.
In essence you got what you paid for. Yes, maybe some amateur could come in with their RED package and slider, jib and what not and then even edit the footage for you as he's trying to build their reel but noone with experience would take camera op gig for $200. Sorry, but saying that it's only 1h of work doesn't cut it. For this kind of work i still charge half-day rate and i'm often upfront with the client telling them that if they are just looking for someone to hold a camera they can find plenty of guys who are cheaper then me.

In terms of art.
The OP's footage is better then the other examples. The other examples are trying to be something they are no: we see examples of someone "trying" to execute expensive lighting, another example of someone trying to make their work more "expense" with some cheap camera move, in other examples someone is trying to up mediocre visuals with tons of film effects. Basically someone trying to cover up inefficiency and inadequacy. The OP's footage on the other hand is not trying to do any of that. You have hard core grungy song and footage that goes with it - yes, it's shaky; yes, sometimes it's badly frames; yes, sometimes it's all over the place but all those questions support the music and if skilfully edited can give internet audiences honest vibe of the band. The OP seems to be offended that the footage wasn't more polished but then the question is is he understanding what their music is about?? Is he trying to be visually polished while their sound (i understand the video's audio is bad but it gives general jist of the music style) is as far as being polished as possible? I'm confused here as clearly the OP's form and meaning matches and the debate goes into why it shouldn't...... ?
 
Often times I find your words on here overly harsh, but I mostly agree with the above. That said, were it me, I would say unless the person paying me said "do whatever you feel creatively" or specifically said "move/shake the camera to match the feel of our music", I would aim for steady/polished camera work, especially with a single cam. With multicam you could even do that and use the editing/pacing to create that grungy/chaotic feel. Yeah, it kinda matches the music's feel but on a single cam you have to compromise and let it be more "blah" and just a record of the proceedings, for safety's sake.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Wow, i feel like i'm in some "Twilight Zone" episode where everyone is posting samples of the "better" videos and yet none of them look any better (often even worse). For that reason i would love if this discussion turned into "what makes better" debate as clearly one's better is not another's. In essence the conversations should be what makes some art higher caliber then the other.
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I think if you asked a thousand people to rank the films in this thread from best to worst, the film the OP posted would rank at the bottom. In that respect it would be the worst film.

When you start talking about relative artistic merits, you can go on for ever. My impression of the first film isn't that it was an artistic decision to film it that way, rather that the guy was simply waving the camera around. You might argue that it doesn't really matter what his intention was, as long as the result is (in your opinion) artistic. But then you get in to an interminable and terminally boring discussion about what is art.

You're suggesting that the OP doesn't understand the music, but he's in the band. If it means anything to say that one person understands music better than another, then perhaps he should understand his own music better than the rest of us.

If you gave the raw footage to an editor, then yes the resulting film would be very different, but that's true of all of the films. If they were cut and graded in a different way, they would be different films, and we would have different opinions about them.

At the end of the day, I think you're overanalyzing it. If you pay somebody $200 to film a band, and it turns out that that person doesn't even have a camera, and then he hands you the above film as he takes your $200, well then I think you have a right to feel aggrieved.
 
rynpaige said:
Just for a frame of reference.....we paid $200 for our video. Shot on BMPCC and 5DMKIII...dude edited it and everything. https://vimeo.com/94976459
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This is very good.

So I'd say your $200 certainly didn't go as far as my $200 and he was certainly overpaid for what was given to you.
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The threadstarter overpaid, but you underpaid. How would you make ends meet if you deliver videos like that for $200 each?
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Wow, i feel like i'm in some "Twilight Zone" episode where everyone is posting samples of the "better" videos and yet none of them look any better (often even worse). For that reason i would love if this discussion turned into "what makes better" debate as clearly one's better is not another's. In essence the conversations should be what makes some art higher caliber then the other.

In terms of $.
In essence you got what you paid for. Yes, maybe some amateur could come in with their RED package and slider, jib and what not and then even edit the footage for you as he's trying to build their reel but noone with experience would take camera op gig for $200. Sorry, but saying that it's only 1h of work doesn't cut it. For this kind of work i still charge half-day rate and i'm often upfront with the client telling them that if they are just looking for someone to hold a camera they can find plenty of guys who are cheaper then me.

In terms of art.
The OP's footage is better then the other examples. The other examples are trying to be something they are no: we see examples of someone "trying" to execute expensive lighting, another example of someone trying to make their work more "expense" with some cheap camera move, in other examples someone is trying to up mediocre visuals with tons of film effects. Basically someone trying to cover up inefficiency and inadequacy. The OP's footage on the other hand is not trying to do any of that. You have hard core grungy song and footage that goes with it - yes, it's shaky; yes, sometimes it's badly frames; yes, sometimes it's all over the place but all those questions support the music and if skilfully edited can give internet audiences honest vibe of the band. The OP seems to be offended that the footage wasn't more polished but then the question is is he understanding what their music is about?? Is he trying to be visually polished while their sound (i understand the video's audio is bad but it gives general jist of the music style) is as far as being polished as possible? I'm confused here as clearly the OP's form and meaning matches and the debate goes into why it shouldn't...... ?
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This post is dead on. All of it. Especially the part about "trying to be something they are not," a very common failure of choice among young artists in all fields of art. The first lesson anyone aspiring to art needs to learn is to work within your limitations.
 
keith.uk said:
I think if you asked a thousand people to rank the films in this thread from best to worst, the film the OP posted would rank at the bottom. In that respect it would be the worst film.

When you start talking about relative artistic merits, you can go on for ever. My impression of the first film isn't that it was an artistic decision to film it that way, rather that the guy was simply waving the camera around. You might argue that it doesn't really matter what his intention was, as long as the result is (in your opinion) artistic. But then you get in to an interminable and terminally boring discussion about what is art.

You're suggesting that the OP doesn't understand the music, but he's in the band. If it means anything to say that one person understands music better than another, then perhaps he should understand his own music better than the rest of us.

If you gave the raw footage to an editor, then yes the resulting film would be very different, but that's true of all of the films. If they were cut and graded in a different way, they would be different films, and we would have different opinions about them.

At the end of the day, I think you're overanalyzing it. If you pay somebody $200 to film a band, and it turns out that that person doesn't even have a camera, and then he hands you the above film as he takes your $200, well then I think you have a right to feel aggrieved.
Click to expand...

Looking at what majority of people have to say and deciding that the majority's support validifies one's opinion is a cheap cop out. Majority, by definition, doesn't have the necessary training to support their observations beyond "i like this" and "i don't like that". That's why the whole "art is in eyes of the beholder" was created - to give validity to unsubstantiated opinions of the masses as with statements like that the power is in the mass of voices and not in their individual experience.
 
to be clear i didnt mean MY opinion was that the band sucks, but someone being able to be inside a project thats ONGOING (as opposed to something looked at in hindsight) and say "this isnt very good. im okay with that" is impressive. imagine if you guys were all making movies, in the middle of making the film and saying "this isnt going to be very good," but still fully intending to spend 2+ years on it.
 
Patryk_Rebisz said:
Looking at what majority of people have to say and deciding that the majority's support validifies one's opinion is a cheap cop out. Majority, by definition, doesn't have the necessary training to support their observations beyond "i like this" and "i don't like that". That's why the whole "art is in eyes of the beholder" was created - to give validity to unsubstantiated opinions of the masses as with statements like that the power is in the mass of voices and not in their individual experience.
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So the only abiters of good music are trained musicians, the only abriters of good food are trained chefs, and only film school graduates are capable of deciding what constitutes a good film. I think we'll haveto agree to disagree on this one Patryk.
 
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