XL2 Promo Piece...

MattC

MattC

Veteran
"One World" was a promotional piece I did for the Worlds Fair For Kids. This group is putting on the first worlds fair for kids and families. I shot, edited and did the graphics for it.

http://www.birthofthecool.com/films.html

Let me know what you think - this was my first time doing anything like this.

Matt
 
Hey Matt,
Went to your site and for some reason, neither movie completely loaded for me. Additionally, the little piece of the one world promo that did load was audio only. No video. Is anyone else having this problem or is it just my crappy computer acting up again?
 
I know that Hudson saw it, but it took a while to load. I'll try to fix that tomorrow.
 
I think it looked pretty good. It did feel a bit long, but I think that is just because we are taking it out of context. Being there and seeing it in the moment I am certain it played very well. Can you enlighten us with some settings and equipment? Did you use the 20x or 16x manual? Handheld at all or all tripod shots? Do tell. And if you get the chance check out my short video clip here on the XL2 clips forum. It's the one with the DVX/XL2 intercut. I'd love to get your feedback.

Peace!~
 
This was done for a group of potential investors who were unable to make the press conference launching the event. So the length was brought way down, but they still wanted to show most of the event while the investors ate dinner. It seems to have been successful as they all stopped eating and watched the video - not to mention they raised all their financing that night.

I shot it with the 16X manual lens with a light diffusion filter. I can't remember which one off the top of my head, but I think it was a tiffen soft fx 1/2. It was all done on a tripod. For sound when they were on stage I took a direct feed off the board. When Jillian was singing they had her mixed low compared to the backing track, so I used a studio recording of her singing (to the same backing track) and synced it up in post. For the interviews I used a Lowell kit, some homemade dimmers and an AT897 mounted on a boom and placed over the speaker.

Matt
 
Dude! I can't see it! All it loads is a white screen on my browser (sound is crisp, though!)... I'm really looking forward to seeing it after all our "Film Industry" discussions!

Maybe there is something wrong with the encoder?

EDIT- I made it, I'm downloading it right now. Had to do a little it of kintegarden hacking, but hey... I'll give some input after I see it...

:beer:
 
Alright, here it comes!

Matt, I'm going to start with stuff I liked:

The lighting is dead on. Clean, simple, yet all the people are just looking their best, and I'm sure you are to blame for. Framing is good on the interviews and quite acceptable on the podium speakers. I don't know how did you get the podium people to look so good. When I shoot this kind of stuff, they are so Badly lit it's kind of lame... Did you light them or was all that work from the event people?

Man, I so envy you audio guys that know how to equalize your audio so people sound so crisp. Even when there is a little more background noise, you still made their voices warm and inteligible. Audio is way better than anything I ever saw or done in such a piece (except videos for apple product launches, they are the best industrial work I've seen!)...

Anyways, technically, aestethically, it's perfect, top-notch and as professional as it can get.

So part II:

I get it how you got where you are. Long interviews and demands from the costumer that every little thing is clear out in the video turned into hell in the editing bay, gave you a lot of work and you are through (I might be wrong, that is just what happens to me). But truth be told, this piece is long as hell, man! Some information must be thron away from this edit, you can't have the whole business presentation going for so long... This need to be condensed.

Another thing this lacks is images. Man it could be a radio show! All we see is people talking about this thing that we can't see really makes me unease. It gets boring after a while, and that is due to the lack of image and dynamics (especially because all the interviews were caught in the same setup). I take the world fair is not completed, well there are other ways around it. Images from brainstorming sessions, some animation over the fair's plans, images of happy families, anything that twists that up a little bit.

And speaking of twisting it up: try a little audio in it. Just because your dialog mixing is great does not mean you can show it off all of the time, hehe, try adding a music bed here and there, some breathing time (without voice or text) anyway, try to add some variation. And that first few pickups of the robot NEED some sound. Maybe some R2 beeping of some sort. That is really weird, in silence, as it is.

Overall this feels polished and well done, but not as entertaining as it should. It's a World Fair for Kids, for god's sake! :)

Bottom Line: You know what you are doing, man, that shows up. Good work. The client is probably ecstatic about it, but other audiences will find it a bit boring, and will not care so much about your great job on camera and sound.

Hope it helped...

:beer: 's
 
Taubkin,

Thank you very much for the feedback, it is much appreciated!!!

This video was made for a group of investors in North Carolina to watch while eating diner (because they couldn't make the press conference). The press conference was held in NYC and I had three days to put this together. It was very successful in raising capital though (they raised the whole $1M that night). So yes, it's boring, but it is exactly what they wanted. Believe it or not, I cut it WAY back from what they initially intended (all they wanted was to tape the podium presentations and play that - VERY BORING).

The sound for the interviews was hell. I did the interviews after the event and there was a cocktail party going on just outside and I couldn't get them to shut up. But I was able to isolate the sound a bit and then do some work in post to make it better, but that alone took the better part of a day. If it had been more quite outside, I could have done MUCH better with the audio, and that was done with an AT897 (forgot the hyper at home - this was VERY last minute - like I had four hours notice and it took me an hour to get there).

Also, I didn't have any other images to put in there. If I make a new edit or do a new piece that's really more for general promotion though, I will definitely take your suggestions.

Thanks again,

Matt
 
As far as lighting the folks on the podium - it was a cluster FK. They didn't have nearly enough lights and if I exposed for the screen the podium was black, if I exposed for the people at the podium, the screen was blown out. I had them add like 10 lights to their grid to kick up the podium enough so that I could expose for both at the same time. The only thing they couldn't do for me was add a backlight, which was really needed, but such is life. I think the podium framing got better as it went on. In the beginning I wasn't really sure how I was going to do it. Like I said, this was my first time doing anything like this.

Matt
 
I hear you. Good work, nonetheless...

I think we got kind of segregated with the division of the framegrabs forums. Well, I guess it's for the best...

Cheers!
 
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