Please critique my first music video

W

weltonfilment

Active member
This is my first music video and it's for a local (Seattle) hip-hop artist named Yuns. I really want to know what people think of the video. I'm on the second cut right now, and will be refining more (I haven't done any color correction yet), but feedback at this stage is crucial, in my opinion. I need to know if it makes sense, etc.

Here's the link:

www.weltonfilm.com/handsup2.mov

Thanks.

-Ryan
 
That was awesome. Nice DOF. What equipment did you use? Dollies? Cranes? Steadicam? It was a great video. Needs CC.
 
Hey Ryan, whats up?

I watched the video. First let me tell what worked for me: Editing, shots, worked great. It has rythm, it's got the same feel as the song, so good work on that.

What I think was way sub-par: production design and cinematography. The images are plain and dull at least for my taste. That clearly had me thinking home video from beggining to end, much because of the colors, much because of the flat dull lighting.

I think you have to get better in those areas. You need to get rid of the flat sunlight or at least know how to use it. The blowing out shirt of the singer is horrible, and I'm with you when you saind there wasn't another way. That guy should be wearing a darker shirt.

One way to shoot a more interesting image in a vats outside scene would be to gain on the lighting on your actos face by boucing with silver reflectors or mirrors, and closing your iris, so the background is a little darker. Maybe even get the sky to be blue...

It's tough, but instead of shooting a video in the middle of nowhere, you should have shot it in a more interesting location. That really does nothing to contribute to the feel of it and honestly, music videos are all about eye candy.

Good first video, good storytelling skills. Need to improve those images though... (and I think CC won't cut it)

Cheers!
 
Thanks for the replies. The equipment we used was: doorway dolly for the shots with the band, and a ghetto home-made steadicam device for the shots with the rapper walking along the dirt road.

I was not the DP for this project, I directed and edited it. I wish I had the money to hire a pro DP, but the budget was stretched tight as it is (though the DP we had got us the camera, dolly and "steadicam" device at an amazing rate). What sucks is that the first day we filmed it was overcast and drizzling, and the second day was 85 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Talk about inconsistency.

As for the location, it was chosen based on the record label wanting to market the song to a "country" audience. The rapper wanted to film in open fields and stuff. I came up with the concept based around what he and the label wanted. I wanted to travel across the state to get some cool ghost-town stuff, but alas we didn't have enough money.

Anyone else see it?
 
basically everything taubkin said was right on, the images wern't really appealing (lighting wise), and the whole rap/hip-hop scene is all about appeal. Right now it seems you have a sketch and you need to color it in as best as you can with CC. The shots seemed to be what you were trying to get at, but I do not like the last scene where you only get to see some people "show up" to the event. I would liked to have seen the performers and audience in the same shot. I felt a bit robbed at the end because of it, maybe thats just me though. Also, some shots of the band playing didnt match the music, but im not sure if that's noticable to non-musicians, id still try to fix that. Other than these things, it's an easy to follow, perfect story for this song and with a little post-work, im sure this artist will be pleased.

EP
 
here my take on the video:

I think you have a great song to work with and idea is great. Performing in the middle of nowhere and people showing up because of the great music. A different location though would have worked better though.

I won't talk about the dp work like above, my comments will be on the editing.

Some of the shots have too much negative space and the main singer/rapper is too much at a distance sometimes. Take those out.

Take out the blurred shots, I don't think they work too well. There's a chance they may look better on a tv rather than the small web vid, but I doubt it.

Also the pans from one musician to the other didn't work either. The pans are bad and using them weakens the video. Just cut from one to the other.

I would delete the shots with the musicians setting up, lugging that big speaker and stuff, but I think there was one cut with a guitarist plugging this guitar in (right? or am i imagning that) if so I liked that, but is there another shot of it maybe a better one?

The shot of the kids coming in didn't work. The idea is great, but coming from behind that bush just didn't work and they came in too sporadically. Unless you get a chance to reshoot, I'd delete that out. I just doesn't look good.

When the main singer leaves the car: I like him trying to catch a ride, but when he has to walk, there were couple of shots that didn't work. When he just leaves the car and starts to wiggle his hand and arms you can't see his head, on top of that the shot was too jumpy. Do you have an alternative shot of this?

The pan of the fliers should be cut sooner and maybe even in slow motion, I didn't like the pan into black (the door). If you want black, I'd just fade out to black.

The close up on the singer when he's walking and raised both hands is good (torso to head shot), I really liked that.

The other one where the angle is up you have all that sky, doesn't look too good. Too white. Maybe an alternate shot available? If not use a cut away. If you want to keep it I hope there is something you could do to make it work as far as color, but as it stands its too bright and lacks contrast and it looks like it is void of sky (does that make sense?)

The zooms in and out on the singer when he's got the mic don't work either, the zooms didn't come out good.

It looks like you used the pans to make it more interesting, to suggest movement on a band that it pretty much in place. But I don't think the pans work.

Overall, the idea is great but the exterior just doesn't work. Too green and too many bushes.

If this video is really important to the band they may want to consider a reshoot. If that is impossible than I'm afraid you have some bad footage to work with.

I hope this was helpful
 
Thanks for the replies, guys. Your feedback definitely helps me (I'm working on a third cut of the video tomorrow, hopefully with CC).

Obviously, Rasquachemedia, we have different tastes/opinions. That's OK, though, I respect your critiques and I have taken several of them into consideration. As for saying I have bad footage to work with and that the video should be reshot, I don't think that is true. There may be some shots that need to be refined or taken out, but I'm quite happy with how the video turned out, considering the resources and budget. I'm sure it's not for everyone. The artist likes it and has already commissioned me to do a second video for him, so I guess it's not all that bad.
 
Dont take the above critizism to heart, if thats your first video.... Your doing fine. I think you need more close ups though, but I thought it was a good vid and I hope you keep up what your doing, because if you dont get out there and make your dream come true, someone else will.
 
hmm, I don't think it was that bad at all. Actually some CC will make it more appealing. My only urk is the constant location being where it is and the framing on some shots wasn't up to par.
 
weltonfilment,

the blown out (or cloudy) skies along with his bright white shirt were the weak parts to me. also from a "story" perspective i didn't like how the extra people started showing up once the song was done.

the editing was in pace with the tune so that was good, and i liked the country feel of the locations. just would have been nice to have seen some nice blue country skies.
 
Hey weltonfilment,

sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn't mean to imply that ALL the footage was bad, but I can see how it may be read that way. What you have is the making of a fun and enjoyable music video. You did capture a mood that I think fits the song really well.

I look forward to seeing more of your work.
 
I think location is fine.

It's good and for a first timer it's exceptional.

A wide open field can be just as interesting as "Da Hood", and music is catchy.

Yeah, have a field day wit the CC (no pun intended).

Do you have motion or shake or something simmilar?

Check out this Dude's post.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=31399
He uses cut outs of the actors and zooms them in out of the screen and back into the scene etc.

Maybe some inspration? But might take you away from the simpplicity if that is part of what the client wants.

I think most of what he's doing you could do in motion and with photoshop.
Sorry don't have time to be more critical -DVXuser is taking over my life.
 
Oh... Lyons commented on blown out sky ...

One thing you can do - copy the clip, place the copy directly on top of the original.

Luma Key or Chroma Key out the sky in the top clip. Luma usually works best for me since the sky is probably the brightest thing.

Go to the bottom clip and apply and adjust levels so that the sky looks good. Color correct evertything blue ... whatever you have to do ... hopefully you can just adjust gamma or brightness contranst, then apply some blur to the bottom clip (guasian usually) as this will soften the transition.

Now you will have your the sky part of the clip exposed / CCed for the sky peaking out from where the sky used to be in the top clip exposed and CCed for the group.
 
skart82 said:
not bat at all... just don t get why the kids arrived at the end... ? An other location would help
Click to expand...

I think that this was the sound check and the show was later. That's just what I thought when I was watching the video. I think there is also a shot of someone checking a sheet of paper that says the times for sound check and the actual show on it.
 
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