And yet another new vid

MUTTLEY wrote on 2/23/2009, 7:01 PM

A week or two ago I was asking for help finding some public domain footage for a music vid I was going to be doing. Finally shot it this weekend and posted it up today. If ya have a mo and would give it a glance the link is here:

Adan Davila - Sorry

I'm happy with it but as some of you might notice there is some interlacing in some of the clips. The first Popeye one for example. I can live with it if I have to as it's old footage and I don't think it being a little "wonky" takes away to much but if anyone has any ideas I wouldn't mind the clips looking a bit better ... or at least not interlaced.

Thanks and as always, hope ya like it.

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com

Comments

PeterWright wrote on 2/23/2009, 7:23 PM
Nice work yet again Ray - I can imagine how much trawling through old movies you must have done - anyway I think it works and keeps it interesting throughout.

One question - what's the story of that hand in the frame at 2.41 ?

Peter
MUTTLEY wrote on 2/23/2009, 7:34 PM

Thanks Peter, as always you're far to kind. No story, it's just a pan of him singing in the window and his hand is on the glass ... unless you see something I don't. =)

I've already tweaked the vid just a little but will suppress my desire to replace it immediately since it just went live. After watching it twenty times I just can't help but go back and "fix" little things that bug me. =)

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com
UlfLaursen wrote on 2/23/2009, 9:05 PM
Very nice, Ray - great editing - as you write on vimeo, I can understand it takes countless hours to find the right footage.

Thanks for sharing.

/Ulf
Grazie wrote on 2/23/2009, 9:38 PM
"After watching it twenty times I just can't help but go back and "fix" little things that bug me. =)"

Oh yes . . . .

Good work, and yes there are some places you and I would agree need to be "tightened-up" on that I feel would add to the pace. If you are interested you have my email addie . . .

Grazie

jwcarney wrote on 2/24/2009, 11:47 AM
What's the saying?
An Artist never finishes their work, they abandon it.
farss wrote on 2/25/2009, 12:41 AM
Finally found a moment to watch it.
Good effort, I can only imagine how much work it took to find the right clips. I liked the hand on the glass although in hindsight a tad wider shot would have made it work better.

There's still some green left. I didn't notice any interlace artifacts despite looking for them but the green fringing and caste in the shadows on the talents neck towards the end grabbed my eye immediately. Maybe it's just my monitor but the reds seem to pop too much which took the character out of the setting. The best use of this kind of effect is so subtly done it takes the eye a while to even realise it's there.

Bob.
MUTTLEY wrote on 2/25/2009, 10:06 AM

Thanks folks.

Grazie, I wrote ya through the forums but ya never wrote me back!

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com
Grazie wrote on 2/25/2009, 10:45 AM
Well, Mutts, I have now.

I had a "paying-gig" that I needed to attend to. I would never give "lightweight responses", especially to you. So I was carving out "quality-time" to spend on it.

Is that OK with you?

When you read my email I have asked for a technical option? Would that be possible?

Please communicate back to me via email?

Cheers,

Grazie
Tim L wrote on 2/25/2009, 2:36 PM
I found it most engaging when your singer made direct eye contact with the camera, like at 1:45. I would have liked to see a bit more of that, especially when he's singing in first person "Sorry, I couldn't be there for you...".

But neat concept and well done.
alltheseworlds wrote on 2/25/2009, 3:18 PM
* Deleted as the OP can't handle criticism. I'll save it for the paying gigs *

MUTTLEY wrote on 2/25/2009, 3:42 PM

I've done some retouching and some masking (I so didn't wanna do that!) but some parts called for it. I also muted the new footage a bit as it was a bit over saturated and didn't flow.

As for alltheseworlds ... wow and um, whatever! "dress up in the 30s/40"? REALLY? Hahhaa, okay man, yea, that woulda made him look AWESOME! Harsh? No man, you weren't harsh, you were so inordinately hypercritical and pretentious in your tone that I am happy to discount your opinion entirely. No hard feelings here! =)

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 2/25/2009, 4:15 PM
Well Ray,

I disagree with alltheseworlds almost entirely.

I would have hated seeing this done with a 30's/40's look, and think it would have made it look idiotic, but to each their own, that's what adds variety to life :)

I have to say too, it was a bit of genius (I think) using green lights to separate it all out, rather than green cloth backdrop and a bunch of terrible keying/compositing work.

Enjoyed it.

Thanks for sharing.

Dave
MUTTLEY wrote on 2/25/2009, 4:49 PM

Thanks Dave. =)

The vid is offline for a few while I upload the newest version.

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com
alltheseworlds wrote on 2/25/2009, 9:38 PM
Edit: Why bother.
MUTTLEY wrote on 2/25/2009, 10:42 PM

alltheseworlds ... only smart thing you've said in this thread.

Anyone else, uploaded the new version, pretty happy with it.

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com
PeterWright wrote on 2/25/2009, 11:20 PM
Nice touches Ray - the desaturation works well, and lots of other improvements, well done.

- by the way, I thought you were out of order turning on allthese worlds - if you put a clip up for criticism, you should take whatever comes - and sometimes a negative comment can spark a new idea .....
Jim H wrote on 2/25/2009, 11:26 PM
Loved the look Ray. Would you mind walking through your workflow in the desat? It looks very clean and I'm wondering if you used masked at all or just the selective desat alone? or multiple desats in order to get what looks like full color in the dude and total b&w everywhere else?
MUTTLEY wrote on 2/25/2009, 11:41 PM
Thanks Peter. To be clear I never asked for criticisms or opinions I only asked for suggestions for the interlacing. Beyond that I post new work here to share with the community stuff that was done in Vegas, if I can't do that without someone completely degrading my work from concept to execution than I guess I will not do such in the future. What he said (and I wish I had saved a copy since the coward deleted it knowing full well that it was insulting and inflammatory) was far beyond the pale of anything that even remotely resembled constructive criticism. There is a HUGE difference between a friendly peer to peer sharing of ideas and someone being downright obnoxious and petulant to inflate their own bloated ego.

Jim, thanks man. Tomorrow I plan on posting some pics without the black and white effect that shows the green lighting. I did most of the selection with secondary color correction and just set the saturation at nothing. Some clips required more than one of those in the effect chain. There is some masking which I had hoped to avoid all together but at the end of the day had to suck it up to get it to where I wanted.

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com


Grazie wrote on 2/25/2009, 11:58 PM
Peter, Muttley is quite correct. In his original post he was ONLY asking for feedback on the interlace issue. He didn't ask for anything else.

My problem is now how do I proffer additional feedback on a piece of creativity that has been genuinely laid out before me? I'll have to think about this.

Grazie
PeterWright wrote on 2/26/2009, 1:07 AM
Fair enough Grazie & Ray - I just read the original post!
Ray, I'd love to hear more about the process you followed to get the old footage - source, format etc.
MUTTLEY wrote on 2/26/2009, 10:26 AM
Not much to say about it, just spent hours and hours watching old movies, shorts, cartoons, and anything I could find that I thought had even a remote chance of having a little moment that would work with what was in my head. I wish I had kept track of how many hours. The good news is that though at times it was a bit tedious I did watch some great classic flicks. One of my favs was The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, worth the watch. My only resource for the footage was the Prelinger Archives. Have loved and used that site for years now. Out of what I watched I downloaded over 14 gigs worth of stuff just to get the snippets, most of which were mp4 or mpg.

There is still some interlacing that's bugging me, some of it looks better from rendering to a new track but some parts, most visibly at around 2:40 when there are two clips of women slamming doors. And then the Popeye segments there is almost a ghosting, like there are two frames at ones, one lighter than the other. To see what I'm talking about pause it during the Popeye segment at around 1:24. Would love to find a solution to those minor issues I'm having.

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com
MUTTLEY wrote on 2/26/2009, 2:03 PM

I've added some screen grabs showing the shots before the effects were applied. They are on the bottom right hand side of the page.

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Vimeo
www.undergroundplanet.com
JohnnyRoy wrote on 2/27/2009, 1:29 PM
Hey Ray, another awesome music video dude. I didn't catch the original but this one looked fine to me. The only thing I might have changed is that every once in a while an old Hollywood video is in color and the rest are B&W and the singer is living in a B&W world so I may have just desaturated those few clips to B&W as well but... hey... it all artistic license.

I watched the video before I read the whole thread and as an editor, I kept saying to myself, damn how did he get such a clean Pleasantville effect and then I read your explanation and saw the new before images. Simply brilliant!

Sony EX1 $6,000... Green Gels... $15.... Lighting the shot for the edit... PRICELESS!!! ;-)

~jr
CorTed wrote on 2/27/2009, 2:31 PM
Hey Ray, what happened.
I finally had a minute to check out your video, and it is no longer available?

Ted