SPY GAMES: Secret's Out

that's really cool brother!! love the sequence and the cinematography. Advice? Tone down the footage. they're at the forest, maybe it should be a little bit more dark. This in case you wanna give it an european look.

You don't have to listen me....good luck.

g.
 
Interesting video and concept.

A few odd things. When he first chases her on the bridge they are only 6 feet apart, yet in the next two scenes he has lost her and is trying to track her down - it doesn't make any sense. Also the female is miscast, IMHO. Finally, the disappearance when the motorcyle goes by is clever, but it doesn't look right.

Still, it has a nice energy and I imagine the kids will be excited by it.

Chris
 
abalex said:
that's really cool brother!! love the sequence and the cinematography. Advice? Tone down the footage. they're at the forest, maybe it should be a little bit more dark. This in case you wanna give it an european look.

You don't have to listen me....good luck.

g.
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Thanks for the suggestion. It was fun putting this together, and will hopefully get the kids excited.
 
Didn't really show anything. A guy chasing a girl through the woods. I don't get how it's going to get anybody excited about the retreat. Maybe if I knew more about it.
 
CMessineo said:
A few odd things. When he first chases her on the bridge they are only 6 feet apart, yet in the next two scenes he has lost her and is trying to track her down - it doesn't make any sense.
Click to expand...

Yep. Unfortunately she wasn't the quickest of runners, and with multiple takes, she got more tired. The original shot is longer and has the guy come into the scene after her, but it emphasized how slow she was ...

CMessineo said:
Finally, the disappearance when the motorcyle goes by is clever, but it doesn't look right.
Click to expand...

What doesn't look right about it?

CMessineo said:
Still, it has a nice energy and I imagine the kids will be excited by it.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
 
Slimothy said:
Didn't really show anything. A guy chasing a girl through the woods. I don't get how it's going to get anybody excited about the retreat. Maybe if I knew more about it.
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It's more of a teaser, to be used as part of the over all lead up & promotion of the retreat. The group putting it on has chosen the theme of spy's, and the kids will each be a spy and have different missions to accomplish in order to find the secret, yada, yada ... so this is a precurser to the events.
 
I think the idea of a "Spy Games" retreat is an interesting concept for Jr. High School kids, however, there are some issues I have with the teaser film itself.

1) The framing of the boss character within the frame struck me as weird. Just the fact that he's on the left side of the frame facing left really grabs my attention... for the wrong reasons, unfortunately. I would like to see more "talk space" on the left side of the frame, so that even though he's talking to his spy agent over the phone, that it would appear more as if they have a more direct one-to-one correspondence with one another. I realize that you really want to get that computer monitor in the background, but you must consider this: "is it worth sacrificing my audience's sense of orientation in terms of screen space?" If you really want to keep that shot of the computer monitor, try doing a cutaway to it, because right now it seems much too distracting, again, in terms of frame space.

2) Again, because of how the objects are framed within the screen, I don't find it very believable that, first of all, the male spy agent has that kind of luxury to be talking on the phone with his boss while his target simply stands like a deer in headlights before him, holding the precious suitcase. This, however, is forgivable as long as you clean up your editing.

3) Which brings me to problem #3: the editing. I think that you should speed it up significantly for pacing purposes. Again, basing it off of how your images are framed, they seem much too close to one another for them to have so much time to look around and make decisions in the amount of time they do.
 
jermz said:
1) The framing of the boss character within the frame struck me as weird. Just the fact that he's on the left side of the frame facing left really grabs my attention... for the wrong reasons, unfortunately. I would like to see more "talk space" on the left side of the frame, so that even though he's talking to his spy agent over the phone, that it would appear more as if they have a more direct one-to-one correspondence with one another. I realize that you really want to get that computer monitor in the background, but you must consider this: "is it worth sacrificing my audience's sense of orientation in terms of screen space?" If you really want to keep that shot of the computer monitor, try doing a cutaway to it, because right now it seems much too distracting, again, in terms of frame space.
Click to expand...

This shot has been a mixed bag as far as responses. I've had some people that I've shown it to say they like it, others say it doesn't work. I guess that's the response I'll get for intentionally breaking the rules. I had wanted to go with this framing because I felt that it added a little more tension to the scene, as well as it looked better then having the red flashing screen right behind his nose. I suppose that if I were to reshoot it, keeping the same framing for the boss I would have to reframe the male spy .... hmmm, good things to consider.

jermz said:
2) Again, because of how the objects are framed within the screen, I don't find it very believable that, first of all, the male spy agent has that kind of luxury to be talking on the phone with his boss while his target simply stands like a deer in headlights before him, holding the precious suitcase. This, however, is forgivable as long as you clean up your editing.

3) Which brings me to problem #3: the editing. I think that you should speed it up significantly for pacing purposes. Again, basing it off of how your images are framed, they seem much too close to one another for them to have so much time to look around and make decisions in the amount of time they do.
Click to expand...

This was my first attempt at putting together an "action" sequence. It is a lot tougher to do then I had originally thought. I saw it all in my head and it made sense, figuring out the timing of the edits has proven to be more difficult then I had anticipated. Thanks for the critique.
 
I agree with jermz, in the first scene it looked like someone was gonna jump out at him. Other than that, i think you did a good job.
 
I thought it had a good pace. Only thing I would say is that the running POV shots were too smooth. I would probably be guilty of this myself as I'm very hesitant to have jarring footage, but I think this type of chase scene could use it. Good job, the kids will love it.
-Ryan
 
I think its ok, could have used different angles, like, from the knee down, running, and some steadicam running. More of these shots would allow you to do shorter, faster cuts. Just too slow. Music was good. The spy concept never gets old, nice job.
 
If we're aloud to nit-pick here, I noticed a couple miss framed shots, (Cutting heads), and I didn't understand him having to touch the footprint to figure out which way it was leading. -That's alright though.
And then there was the close up of the girl at the end - Jumping to an over the shoulder shot. It throws the viewer off, a little, for a second.

That said, I do certainly think children will enjoy it! :)
 
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