Watch my $5,000 NINJA movie and give me critique!!

Young-H._Lee

Young-H._Lee

Well-known member
I just finished a month-long project for Krups international (www.krups.com) and really want some feedback. I was one of the 5 filmmakers selected to create a 90 second short film with product placement (for one of their new espresso machines).

The movie is gonna end up on their website in a month or so.

Anyways, I decided to write a story about ninjas training with espresso. It's a wild and crazy action packed 90 seconds. I hope you'll like it.

Regarding feedback, I really am iffy about the color issues, and some of my editing. Let me know what you think. Especially the tempo during the rope snatching sequence...Otherwise, please have a look at it, it's pretty damn cool in my opinion and I'm proud of it!

off_a_building1.jpg

bellydance5.jpg

roof_chase2.jpg

grandmaster2.jpg


Movie (right click and save as)
http://younghlee.com/films/private/krups_ninjas_cut1_small.mov

Also, if you could keep this movie under wraps for now - for your eyes only, i'm still unclear how Krups wants to broadcast this, so I'd appreciate it if you don't spread it around.

EDIT
I'm probably going to take this movie down soon, so grab it while you can, thanks
 
Wow, I feel like an insider as Im downloading this right now... I'll give comments when I've watched it.
 
First of all I liked it. It was very stylish and fun little story, more than an advert.
To the critique. I think you shuldn't be worried about the colors, no problem imho.
Sometimes the editing was a little distracting, and sometimes the sound effects were a bit harsh, but the compression can be blamed also for that. Anyway great job :thumbsup:
 
Untsikka said:
First of all I liked it. It was very stylish and fun little story, more than an advert.
To the critique. I think you shuldn't be worried about the colors, no problem imho.
Sometimes the editing was a little distracting, and sometimes the sound effects were a bit harsh, but the compression can be blamed also for that. Anyway great job :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Really cool!! I was going to say the same thing as above. editing a little distracting even though it's a ninja thing.

Some suggestions that I think are very doable even if your finished:

I would slow the pace of one or two sequences.

Also I would slow down the intro a little more in the sense of getting the audience familiar with what's about to take place. I know the guy says "get the coffeed into the machine" or something, but it didn't make full sense until I watched it a second time which you shouldn't have to do for such an advertisement.

I feel like it started too fast and I wasn't sure what they were trying do when i saw it the first time. I would add some shots of the coffee at more appropriate times in the intro so the audience is clear on what the task is and especially if it's a commercial so the product stands out that it is what is important. You did that, but I mean in the intro when the guy introduces the thing so the audience is more prepared.

I don't know if you have close ups of that scene but I mean like closeup of the master > then a closeup of the cup > close up of the ninjas looking at the cup and then a close-up of the machine. something a long those lines giving the audience the visuals they need.

FInally, I would DEFINITELY get a voiceover from the actor who plays the master and have him say the line over "Good job. You succeeded." into a mic and re-edit. Everything is so professional and then you hear the guy all of a sudden and its clear there was no mic. Plus that part was so climactic; it deserves some quality sound.

Overall great job. I know that takes a lot of work because it's action.

I'm curious to know how you pulled off the shot of the woman hanging off the building. I don't see how you bluescreened it!
 
Thanks! Omar, that was very helpful, I couldn't agree with you more. My intro was a few seconds longer originally, but as I got to the end, I sped things up and cut things shorter to make room for the end stuff. I totally agree that people must grasp the initial conflict in the beginning to understand the purpose of the film. I also noticed that the coffee machine shots are way too short and that they need to be lengthened, great observation. I do have a closeup of hte machine, as well as I think I can sync up the lines with the visuals better. So that when the master says "use this machine..." cut to machine and hold that for a second longer, "to fill this cup" cut to cup..."with espresso" then cut to the ninjas...i think thats a better logical flow.

Agreed on the last line...that was a horribly recorded line, I'l lsee if I can clean it up, the compression is partly to blame but the raw audio itself is not as clear as could be.

Shot of the hanging off the building was done using green screen, check out some behind the scenes pics:
http://www.rhythmicart.com/krups/index.html

Thannks again for that very helpful feedback, I'll see what Krups says this week, but I am pretty sure I will be implementing those changes anyways!

Young
 
Nice Job! I think my favorite part was were the guy caught the girl off the side of building, awesome!
 
i liked it totally understood and i liked that fast moving clips, did u speed thing up in vegas ??? and how did u make him move fast around the belly dancer ????what did u do for ur final CC?? Young did u use the MB or the vegas or both and what diid u tweak ???

peace n luv

Mark Dog
 
This isn't going to help you at all, but--

Great work. It's pretty cool to actually see a large improvement over your work when you've got a larger budget. That pretty much says that if anyone ever gave you an even bigger budget, you'll kick even more ass.

Great stuff as always, Lee. Good luck as well.
 
Downloading now. I agree, the coloring looks fine. Unless you've changed it since you originally posted asking for color correction help.
 
Just watched it.

Liked all the fast-mo stuff and it's pretty funny.

Color looks decent. Not much that you can do to get perfect exposure on an overcast day. Good job though.
 
Excellent, awesome and very cool.

I did notice that some of the cuts weren't quite there, though 90% of them are. Believe it or not some of the "inserts" (like feet hitting the ground, or reactions) I think can be even faster. Yeah, even faster. By like a millisecond, but a couple felt a bit too slow.

It's a shame about the water droplets on the lens outside. I really noticed it and it bothered me in this instance. Sometimes water on a lens doesn't bother me, but here it did. Not much you can do about that is there? Compositing?

When each dude tries to insert the espresso cup into the machine and is foiled (like by the girl with the yellow silk scarf), I felt like you needed to punctuate this failure a bit more. Like if you have any cuts from the profile of the machine. Or do some creative cutting/effects at this moment to emphasize that the guy ALMOST made it to the machine, but is foiled again.

Hey, these are just ideas. Subjective reactions. Thought I'd offer 'em up for what they're worth.
 
Nicely done. I don't think any of the cuts were too fast. One of the biggest mistakes most people make in an action sequence is slow cuts. That, and not enough cuts. That really slows down the pace, but your film didn't.

I thougth the colors were fine (on my computer) but on a TV the contrast is extreme and the colors are almost harsh. Quite a bit of the mids are lost. As to the color, not a problem with CC'ing, just saturation.

The last scene with the close up of the girl's face as she is being held from falling, did you consider incresing the color of her eyes, or desaturating the background to a degree? The rest of the scene is almost Black and white, and they would really stand out.

The audio is way too loud and has to much compression on it. Not file compression, audio compression. But again, something that is easily fixable.
 
oh wow! Incredible stuff man! Also, good choice on the music. I've been a big fan of Jared Hudson's for a long time. The guy has some major talent!
 
I liked it, great job. At 1:06 the shot with the draps on the fluor light kinda is distracting and looks kinda low budget in my opinion. Otherwise, nicely done.
 
pretty impressive. just a little critique though: at 00:24 when the girl tossed the little cup, i'm not sure if it's the camera angle or the timing. it just doesn't look too powerful compared to the other shots with fast motion. the water droplets on the lens just like the other guy here said bothered me a bit. i can't help to notice it more than what is actually going on beyond the lens.
overall, you kick ass. good job!
 
Oh wow, thanks for all the very nice things said. It's encouraging! Regarding feedback, lots of helpful advice, and I agree that in general, the major problem is with some pacing on some of the faster sequences. If I had all the time I needed, this film would be about 2 minutes long, not 1.5 minutes. I think I just tried to squeeze too much into 90 seconds, and sped up everything and cut everything to its bare minimum essence, I think it's pretty divided between people who feel its too fast and people who feel its just right.

Most of the color correction was done using Vegas and some Magic Bullet. I agree that the colors on a TV screen bleed too much, so I rendered out a new version with less saturation.
 
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