Showreel

P

patrickbaldwin

Well-known member
I am a long time theatre photographer getting more and more involved in video. I have put together my first demo reel and I wonder if people would be so kind as to critique it for me. I won't say anything more about it right now because I would like to hear objective opinions. I am happy to answer any questions of course.
Thank you for taking the time to look.
https://vimeo.com/151250057
 
That was great. Have you thought about following a single performer throughout a production? You seem to have the start to something like that.
 
Ha! My Internet connection kept freezing up - and every time it did there was a gorgeous still photo right there in front of me.

Yup - knowing what to put in front of your camera is a lot more important than knowing all the camera tech in the world.
 
That's pretty good. Some of the shots are decent, but don't really stand out. The pan at :14 is a little shaky, :26 isn't a very good location. You're correct to cut with the music, but try to be consistent when doing so. Overall, my critique is the same one I always have: be shorter and more concise. Make sure that your okay shots are gone, and your great ones stay. I also like having sound in these (actual audio from the footage), but it might not be appropriate here. It's pretty good, so I'm kind of struggling to think of critiques. My biggest one is actually your title roll at the end. The slow scroll up feels amateur to me. A static fade would be better.

I agree that you could be able to do something themed in the future- following a single performer, for example. Or using analogous clips; different people doing similar things, or contrasting, in such a way that it builds a pattern. But that would require shooting more stuff, or going through your video library with a fine toothed comb. This showed me that you know where to point the camera, how to keep focus, how to frame and that you have the experience to be able to reliably cover my theater performance if I had one that needed coverage.
 
Hi. Thanks for your comments. Its much appreciated. The pan at :14 is hand held. I agree its a bit shaky but I think the shot is strong enough to survive....well until I do better of course. I agree that :26 is a crap location. My total output is a bit limited at the moment so I wanted to include as much different work as possible and I thought those two consecutive clips were decent camera work but yes they will get replaced as soon as I have something better.
I had thought of bringing in some audio in underneath some clips but in the end none of these clips have audio that would work.
I will experiment with a static fade on the credits at the end. There I was thinking the scroll up and stop was cool!! Ha.
Doing the showreel was a test in itself to see if I had enough material and if I could actually edit one together. I really wanted feedback from people on here for instance and its just great to get constructive feedback.
I'm pleased that so far it's been positive.
Thanks so much.
 
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