Revised Demo Reel

Norm_Li

Norm_Li

Well-known member
Hello,

I know a lot of you have seen my demo reel before but I have revised it a bit...some removals...additions, etc.

Any comments/suggestions (if any) would be greatly appreciated. I have to give this to a Producer Thursday afternoon for a meeting.

I didn't know where to post this (Film or DVX) since it has mixed footage. Oh well.

Ciao!

Norm
 
yeah, its down in the list (your other post). i'll just paste my comments to this one though:

GREAT reel man!

didnt see a bad shot in the bunch (which you hope is the case in a demo reel) and loved quite a few..

very impressive!
 
Norm,

Here are some observations:

1. When the initial titles come up on the demo, they look fuzzy, like they are highly compressed…not good.
2. Tracking shot at graveyard is not very good quality, it looks way too dark and like the saturation is really low unintentionally.
3. If memory serves, you had a clever transition into another piece of footage once you passed that shadowy gravestone in the foreground. I much preferred that.
4. The crane shots at 00:00:29 should be separated in my opinion. I think you are taking away the impact of the second shot because it’s a similar camera move.
5. The shot of the woman at 00:00:44 should be held a little longer so we can get the full impact of the emotion of the shot. It seems that it was longer in previous iterations of your demo.
6. Shower shot at 00:00:47 is one of my favorite shots in terms of emotional impact and, again, it’s lost because of short screen time.
7. “Number 6” at 00:00:55 is inconsistent because you have not put any movie titles anywhere else before this. It’s almost like you are now introducing a new part of the demo, which is not the case. Cut it, in my opinion.
8. Guy with gun at 00:01:25 seems, again, too short to convey emotional impact.
9. Ending title, again, really fuzzy…looks unprofessional.

Overall the demo appears to be quite dark and this maybe a product of Quicktime encoding, I know from personal experience it makes things look darker.

The stylized look of the music video is looking odd because of the way you have peppered it throughout the demo. It has such a different look than the rest of your stuff that when it is seen, it is really obvious that it’s different and maybe redundant to show so many shots from one video.

It seems to me that this demo represents more quantity than quality. That’s not to say that the shots you have included are bad. Quite the contrary but I think you have sacrificed a lot of emotional impact because you’ve tried to cram too much stuff into too little time.

For the most part, your work looks very cinematic. Shots that don’t work for me are the wedding shots because they are totally out of place, even though you are going more towards “real world” footage at the end. The racing car sequence is also an anomaly and is distracting to me.

Unfortunately, I think your previous effort was much stronger to me. Try easing up on the quick cuts and let this demo breath a little more.

I hope I’m not coming across as being harsh but this is the exact kind of response I value in my own work.

I’m a big fan of your work and always look forward to watching what’s new with you.
 
Awesome website man .. but I can't find the reel either???

Woops .. there it is ... found it.

really nice treatments man. i think it's a very solid demo.

going back to watch your other stuff :-)

-K
 
Norm,

Been reading your posts for a while, I forgot, but I'm sure its been asked b4 so forgive me, but is most of your DVX stuff shot with the ana lens or just using the stock lens? The anamorphic look of your demo reel made a particular difference for me.
 
Hi All,

Thanks for your comments!

Hi Disjecta,

Thanks for your great suggestions. They definitely make sense. I'm going to try to modify what I can to make it a better demo.

Kman,

It's actually a mix of standard DVX footage shot/cropped for 2.35 AND some anamorphic lens footage shot/cropped for 2.35. Same with the 16mm film footage. :)
 
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