reel - first cut

C

Cheesesailor77

Veteran
ok, first of all, I KNOW IT'S TOO LONG :) I'm going to cut it down, possibly as much as half.

I'm all ears for suggestions of length, order, pacing, etc, but I'm going to re-edit it, probably to different music. What I really want to know is which shots you think are cool, which you don't. Things that might be giving more frames, things that should probably be cut out. Everything here was lit almost exclusivly with lights from the hardware store.

Here ya go:

http://www.stickypod.com/videos/data/541/teemsleep.mov

new version (different song): http://www.stickypod.com/videos/data/541/dustbrothers.mov

THANKS!
 
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Last shot is cool and I like the stuff with the dude in the hat and the mini-cigar.

I think you should take out most of the stuff with the girl in the bed. The lighting is too dark and boring and just not a good representation of your capabilites. You might want to try recolorcorrecting it though. Bump up the contrast?

Like you said it needs trimming, and I'm not particularly digging the song, but it fit the mood of what you shot I think.
 
you may be right about the bed stuff, although I should have mentioned that it appears a lot darker on the computer then it does on TV, where most people will watch this.

I might wanna keep some of it, but yes, I agree a lot of that should be first to go.

Any other suggestions?
 
Draw sequence is too long. I'd try real quick cuts between the individual hands, the offset wide shot, the uppershot of the man in tan, his eyes, and then linger on the man in black's eyes. boom boom boom boom kapooooooooooow clint squint. (sort of).
 
that's something I'm having trouble with. I've re-edited it to new music so it's about half as long, so a lot of it had to go. right now the showdown is completely absent and I miss it. I already cut the shots down for the first cut (those shots are LONG in the actual film, lol) and I was afriad cutting them more would lose their power, but doing it in an extreme, stylized way as you suggested might help, I'll try that. :)
 
eeeeh, not working for me. I'm going to try making it a 3 shot sequence instead of six. If it still doesnt work, I guess it doesn't make the cut. Unless of course when ppl see the new version they say WTF? get rid of all that crap and put the showdown back in.
 
I think the footage is all clean and it is cut well. Although, I would suggest doing some spec work or including some other footage you have shot to show what else you are capbable of.
 
what kind of spec work? A big flaw of the reel is that I've only been doing this for a few semesters, so I don't have a lot of work to show. Of couse having a reel might help that. :)
 
er what exactly is your market?

er what exactly is your market?

Dude, tell me this is just a brag reel - cause you will freak out any corporate/advertising (paying) customers with that...

Hell, you'd upset the local news and TV production people here (the only other paying work in San Antonio)...

This is not a comment on your work, it's just that when somebody puts a reel together it's usually to get paying work...so tell me, who are you aiming this at...and 2nd - don't your films have any sound? That's half the deal (just ask George Lucas if you don't beleive me).

Speaking in general terms, again, not specifically about your reel, music videos and random excerpts do not a reel make - a reel should display a dude's talent in story telling, production and editing.

Interestingly, Dudettes (women for the termially unhip) seem to get this more, in fact a lot of women seem to realize before us guys that it's about the story, not the pictures (wich is why guys look at girly pics, while women read romance novels)

So get in touch with your girly self and work on the story telling - it'll get you more work in any market - corporate, doco, film or TV.

You have some creative looking shots there, I bet there are creative stories (with sound!) that would sell your talent even better.

My 2 cents and 15 years of experience...whatever is more valuable :)
 
I agree with film dingo about the scaring people part... The freaky girl AHH! Not 'xactly sure if horror would be a good way to sell your reel(but what does a 16 year old know?), but i'm really not a horror fan. That aside your shots looked good, especially the ones with the cowboys(?). Excellent lighting and shots. Altough i think the song got a bit boring after awhile. I echo filmdingo's sentiments on adding sound effects - You should play the volume softly in the background. The song seems less important, and more as a filler for areas with no audio. It looked really weird when the guy in the music video was singing to a different song than the one which was playing. Try softening the theme track whenever you have some sound going on in the background...but it might sound weird too..

Or how aobut trying to change the song for every scenario using the ambience music from your clips? You'll have to try out which one sounds best though, but from a purely technical standpoint your shots and cuts looked great!

Just my 2 cents...and most of it might be unreliable
 
FilmDingo said:
Dude, tell me this is just a brag reel - cause you will freak out any corporate/advertising (paying) customers with that...
Click to expand...

I guess I'll take that as a compliment. :)

FilmDingo said:
Speaking in general terms, again, not specifically about your reel, music videos and random excerpts do not a reel make - a reel should display a dude's talent in story telling, production and editing.
Click to expand...

How much story telling ability do you want me to express in 45 sec? I imagine in 15 years you've seen some amazing reels, so I'm guessing you know what your talking about, but this is a DP reel. I'm not looking for work doing corporate work or eng gigs, I do shorts and music videos (not looking to make a living at this right now, these are passion projects). So this clip is meant to, in as short a time as possible, express to prospective clients (bands basically) the kind of production value I can offer at an extremely low cost.

If I wanted to show my storytelling ability, I may as well offer them one of my shorts :) This was just a way to combine my projects, instead of needing to watch 4-5 of them.

I guess i should also mention that I've only picked up a camera in the last 2 years and do not have a lot of work to show. Really, this is just an excersize more than anything else, but if it's at all efective, it will be nice to have to show people rather than 4-5 short films.

So basically I'm just following the example set by many fellow DVXusers here and a few of the big boy DP reels I have seen. I really do appreciate the feedback though, and feel free to let me know if there's anything else of note about the project.


THANKS
 
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