Untamed ENT... My new Documentary

R

rellyrale

Active member

This is the making of Untamed Ent new project shot with my T2i 50mm 1.8 18mm-55mm edited on premiere pro cs5 color correction with magic bullet looks...

Huntsville, al

i want all feedback positive and negative im trying to get this right what i need help with is masking... and like that strobe effect when the high snares hit fast and the screen switches back and forth... maybe i should just do those scenes only in vegas since premiere does not have an effect that does it
 
Edited......

Watch a lot more videos and read some books on cinematography and lighting. There is nothing wrong with the project, but you can make it shine a lot more by introducing some lighting techniques as well as proper framing. As always this is my opinion.
 
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I made it less than 4 minutes through. It's hard to watch, as it seems like a really, really long title sequence that never develops into the story.

Here are some things I see that could use some work:

- The camera work is really shaky and inconsistent (see especially the opening shot, at 0:05... what happened there?). The snap zooms just don't work, and look less intentional and more accidental. Angles and framing are both off, and focus is spotty. I'd suggest shooting more from the tripod for things like studio footage (during the writing/recording/mixing process). Hand-held with a T2i is really hard to pull off well without both practice and some kind of shoulder support. Even adding something like the LCDVF can give you a third point of contact to help keep shots steady.
- The editing pace is way too slow. The first shot lasts :29, and the second shot lasts :18. Less than a minute in, you had already lost my attention and interest. Keeping cuts faster, and paced with the music when the music is up front, will help.
- Exposure is all over the place, and there are several shots where it looks like you're adjusting aperture in the middle of the shot... not a great thing to do, especially without a de-clicked, manual aperture ring. Even at that, the picture keeps getting blown out (overexposed). Was this intentional? Set exposure properly for the shot, and leave it there. Anything else can be done in post, if needed.
- The whole (painfully long) "interview" shot with "JuneBug" had several problems. The framing was off (eye line should be at the upper third), the camera titled up halfway through (distracting... it fixed the eye line momentarily before tilting up even more), I could only understand about 15% of what he said, and the lower third font conflicts with the lower thirds elsewhere. If you're going to grab on-camera dialog from some one, and plan to use that much of it, the clip really should be broken up (picture, not necessarily sound) with plenty of cutaways and b-roll.
- What's the story? This piece seems to go from montage to interview to montage to interview without much continuity from one place to the next. If this is supposed to be a making of, I really learned nothing about their creative process. All I know at this point is that they sit around flaunting wads of cash and smoking lots of what I can only presume to be oregano. Oh, and they step away to join a party or two.
- Why does everything look so blue? What, exactly, did you do in Magic Bullet that you would consider color "correction"? I'm not sure your white balance was good to begin with, so you may not have had much to work with, but everything looks flat and/or washed out. Something to know about brown/dark brown skin: there's lots of really nice color in the skin pigmentation, but the camera sees it very differently from the human eye. Golds and other "warm" colors, in terms of lights, reflectors, filters, and color correction, can really enhance it and make it look healthy and vibrant. Silver and blue, on the other hand, can have the exact opposite effect.
- Audio is horrid in two ways. One, the on-cam dialog sounds like it was on-cam or in-cam mic only. Do you have an external mic? Do you have any other sound gear? Do you have some one else who can help by swinging a boom and/or running mixer/recorder? The second problem is in editing. Sound cuts in and out, and tends to follow the video edits. There has to be continuity in the sound mix. If background music suddenly cuts out, it's jarring to the viewer. The sound should tell just as much of the story as the picture.

When you go into a project like this, especially if it is to be called a documentary, think story. At 10 minutes this is more of an elongated music video, except that the music isn't even consistent.

As for your question about the "strobe" effect... you may be able to find a filter than can help create it, but really it's a simple matter of cutting frames to the music. It can be tedious, but it's better to know how to create the effect yourself and make it yours than to rely on a bunch of plug-and-play filters that give you the same effects that everyone else is using.
 
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Alex H. said:
I made it less than 4 minutes through. It's hard to watch, as it seems like a really, really long title sequence that never develops into the story.

Here are some things I see that could use some work:

- The camera work is really shaky and inconsistent (see especially the opening shot, at 0:05... what happened there?). The snap zooms just don't work, and look less intentional and more accidental. Angles and framing are both off, and focus is spotty. I'd suggest shooting more from the tripod for things like studio footage (during the writing/recording/mixing process). Hand-held with a T2i is really hard to pull off well without both practice and some kind of shoulder support. Even adding something like the LCDVF can give you a third point of contact to help keep shots steady.
- The editing pace is way too slow. The first shot lasts :29, and the second shot lasts :18. Less than a minute in, you had already lost my attention and interest. Keeping cuts faster, and paced with the music when the music is up front, will help.
- Exposure is all over the place, and there are several shots where it looks like you're adjusting aperture in the middle of the shot... not a great thing to do, especially without a de-clicked, manual aperture ring. Even at that, the picture keeps getting blown out (overexposed). Was this intentional? Set exposure properly for the shot, and leave it there. Anything else can be done in post, if needed.
- The whole (painfully long) "interview" shot with "JuneBug" had several problems. The framing was off (eye line should be at the upper third), the camera titled up halfway through (distracting... it fixed the eye line momentarily before tilting up even more), I could only understand about 15% of what he said, and the lower third font conflicts with the lower thirds elsewhere. If you're going to grab on-camera dialog from some one, and plan to use that much of it, the clip really should be broken up (picture, not necessarily sound) with plenty of cutaways and b-roll.
- What's the story? This piece seems to go from montage to interview to montage to interview without much continuity from one place to the next. If this is supposed to be a making of, I really learned nothing about their creative process. All I know at this point is that they sit around flaunting wads of cash and smoking lots of what I can only presume to be oregano. Oh, and they step away to join a party or two.
- Why does everything look so blue? What, exactly, did you do in Magic Bullet that you would consider color "correction"? I'm not sure your white balance was good to begin with, so you may not have had much to work with, but everything looks flat and/or washed out. Something to know about brown/dark brown skin: there's lots of really nice color in the skin pigmentation, but the camera sees it very differently from the human eye. Golds and other "warm" colors, in terms of lights, reflectors, filters, and color correction, can really enhance it and make it look healthy and vibrant. Silver and blue, on the other hand, can have the exact opposite effect.
- Audio is horrid in two ways. One, the on-cam dialog sounds like it was on-cam or in-cam mic only. Do you have an external mic? Do you have any other sound gear? Do you have some one else who can help by swinging a boom and/or running mixer/recorder? The second problem is in editing. Sound cuts in and out, and tends to follow the video edits. There has to be continuity in the sound mix. If background music suddenly cuts out, it's jarring to the viewer. The sound should tell just as much of the story as the picture.

When you go into a project like this, especially if it is to be called a documentary, think story. At 10 minutes this is more of an elongated music video, except that the music isn't even consistent.

As for your question about the "strobe" effect... you may be able to find a filter than can help create it, but really it's a simple matter of cutting frames to the music. It can be tedious, but it's better to know how to create the effect yourself and make it yours than to rely on a bunch of plug-and-play filters that give you the same effects that everyone else is using.
Click to expand...

Great response but let me add some questions to this or some things for you to consider. Many times the people who shoot projects like this are friends who grab a camera and just let it roll. In the Hood anything goes so just being able to capture time 9 times out of 10 the client is happy.

How do you find that perfect medium of capturing the moment instantly without being able to set up your shots properly? More so the culture of this music is freestyle and anything goes. I completely understand what you are saying Alex H. but to the defense of the thread starter I know it's very difficult trying to do a story for what seems like a run and go project with no budget.
 
vision_filmz said:
In the Hood anything goes so just being able to capture time 9 times out of 10 the client is happy.
Click to expand...

Thing is, I've seen "documentaries" on artists like this before that looked just fine: well-shot, well-edited. Of course, the OP also clearly stated, "I'm trying to get this right." Hence my response.

vision_filmz said:
How do you find that perfect medium of capturing the moment instantly without being able to set up your shots properly? More so the culture of this music is freestyle and anything goes. I completely understand what you are saying Alex H. but to the defense of the thread starter I know it's very difficult trying to do a story for what seems like a run and go project with no budget.
Click to expand...

"Capturing the moment instantly" and "being able to set up your shot properly" are not polar opposites. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Knowing the camera inside out, having the skill to wield it properly, and constantly seeing your surroundings "through the lens" (even when not shooting): these are the things that help capture the moment. I've done plenty of shooting in situations where I had no advanced knowledge of what was going on, and while that is certainly much more challenging the things that don't get botched are exposure and framing.

In fact, I'm working on an admissions video for a school right now, and some of the footage I'm getting is not staged (and I get very little information about the class before I go in). I just have to walk in, ready to roll, and capture the feel of the class with no pre-production run-through.

It's also important to know what extra lights can be useful in a faster-paced or unpredictable environment. Heck, even a 650w bounced off the ceiling in a room like those in the OP's video can make a huge difference. Understanding sound, and having to gear necessary to capture even decent sound, will help as well.

It's like the old joke...

Tourist: "Say, can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?"
Beatnik: "Practice, man... practice."

- Alex
 
Alex good insight... everything you noticed is absolutely correct and I'm just smart enough to have figured out how to work everything and shoot and edit and release. i need to learn those details you mentioned and i'll be posting some more of my work and appreciate the feed back. this was a on the spot rale come get this footage and i turned it into a so called making of. i understand it has no point and they all sound like idiots and the are smoking that legal incense that they have been making a big deal out of. i want to get better i just don't know... and as far as color correction i have no idea what to look for to correct Alex i have some questions for you

www.youtube.com/rale2001
 
maybe this is the wrong section but what in the world do you look for when you color correct... i thought those filters from magic bullet was color correcting I'm gonna post some new joints I'm currently working on and give me some insight these will be two major videos that will go very far
 
Magic Bullet is for color grading. Color correcting is a much different process, and should come before grading.

Here's the deal: cameras see light much differently than the human eye. Our brains are wired to "color correct" in real time, so we don't always notice differences in color temperature. You can see it if you think about it, but the camera sees much more subtle differences than we do.

Sunlight, which we tend to think of as pure/white light, is actually a little blue as far as the camera is concerned. Incandescent lights (includes halogen) have a bit more orange to them. Florescent lights can give off a green cast as the camera sees it. This is why we white balance the camera, to correct for differences in color temperature. And if mixing light sources, such as HMI (which is balanced to daylight) and tungsten (incandescent), one source must be corrected to the other. There are sheets of gel that will do this: CTB (Color Temperature Blue) will correct tungsten to daylight, and CTO (Color Temperature Orange) will correct daylight/HMI to tungsten.

Short of that, there are usually still some imperfections in the image. Also, depending on how you have your picture profile set up there may be a lack of contrast, or whites that are too hot (highlights). So the first thing you need to do is pull up your color correction tool in Premiere Pro, which includes monitoring/metering tools. The two most important monitoring/metering tools you have are the waveform monitor and the vector scope. These will tell you where your exposure and color balance/saturation are, respectively. The goal of color correction is to make sure that flesh tones are accurate, contrast is appropriate, levels are within the limits (nothing on the waveform should be above 100 IRE), and no colors are too saturated.

Once you have color corrected, then you can take it into MBL to grade. Grading is what's used to stylize the video: it is used to mimic things that would traditionally be done in-camera (everything from lens artifacts to matte box filters to in-camera picture profile settings), or in film processing (mimicking film stocks or film processing techniques).

There are a few video tutorials (YouTube) out there on Premiere Pro's color correction tools, but they are to be taken with a grain of salt. They cover the "what" of the color correction tools fairly well, but are a bit skewed on the "how" because they use "color correction" and "color grading" interchangeably... and again, they are not the same thing.
 
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