Feedback? OK . . . . . I agree with Leslie.

Plus major Points and detail I'm making.

1] There were way too far many layers to allow me to comprehend a single pull-through concept:-
i - The Music wanted my attention more than the Text.
ii - The Text was not allowed to be referenced by the powerful Visuals underneath
iii - There was far too much text for me to get to grips with. If that was Arial (?) I wouldn't use that for something as creative as you're wanting to put over.

Basically: Less is More. And here THAT means/equates to being effective.

2] How do you adjust your Audio Levels? I found them far too loud?

Sorry, you've got a great, initial-draft starting point. But next time, fly it past me for ideas. I've done this for quite a few Users on this Forum. In fact you should be doing this always. My partner is highly critical of my output. She says things I really don't want to hear! - Even if I knew before . . .

Thanks for sharing here. It takes a lot to do that.

Grazie

It's OK. Didn't really grab my attention though. The ending was kind of cool. Might have worked better if it was brighter all around, and the text worked more with the backgrounds than just blocking them.

A few technical issues:

1. The video player doesn't show up in IE9 (normal mode or compatible mode). I had to view the page/video using Chrome.
2. There appears to be a misspelling "I'm a fomer designer."
3. On webpage itself: "FOR: Compute/online viewing, etc." should be "Computer"
4. Same text block: "MULTIPLE SIZES: SMAL TO DESKTOP" -- should be "SMALL TO DESKTOP"

Thanks, Ushere, Grazie, dimipappa, jdw for feedback.
Some response:

- Video doesn't play in IE9. Odd for I've never had problems with this prior to this video. Seems like a problem others using JW Player are running into. Hopefully I'll find a solution. (Later edit: swapped out slightly older swobject.js and player.swf for latest, now works in EI9.)

- The site typos... was working way too late at night, missed them, fixed them. Will fix the in-video typo.

- "Together" being pixelated - I don't see it. In video was set at RF-19 which is decent though not full-size compression. If one looks at the design sample page of the artwork one will see that it is a brush script ("Rage Italic") and it's supposed to look, well, brush-y. Related to that...

- The overall artwork/design was PowerTraced in Corel Draw from its raster/PNG forerunner so that it can be a scalable vector. Ergo the "rougher" visual style is on purpose - flat areas stiched together to simulate the original photoart so that it can be printed at any size..

- Text & behind-them-visuals: Due to the personal message, I maybe should have had myself in there and not gone so broad on the we're-all-together mix of patchwork of American society (elders, children, etc.). I thought it fit into the whole overall message of "Forward Together." I agree that there is some attention-tension between the viewer reading the text and taking in the visuals which is not good (but I hoped the text was the main focus.)

- Music - normalized, checked before exporting to Handbrake, so can't be "too loud" - the viewer's platform/system sets the volume level. As to it being more of a focus due to it being more film-like (i.e. Vangelis-y), it was the only one of my own compositions that fit. I don't have the money to buy stock music at this point.

And truth is, this whole video was essentially a last-minute rush to meet the contest deadline. I can now go in and apply some of your feedback to make it tighter, including shortening to now just "selling" the poster/design. No need to put my story or pushing an election issue in it anymore since the contest is over.

~ Philip

The site is tagged as malicious - got to get past those kind of web flags, I always tell people to steer clear if those issues are not addressed.

"fomer" was a heck of mistake - never let that kind of thing come out in public as it will essentially kill you.

"The site is tagged as malicious - got to get past those kind of web flags, I always tell people to steer clear if those issues are not addressed."

What in the world is that about? Why? Who deemed it? I've had another site up for 9 years,

Some web designers can explain this for you. Here in nutshell is a problem...when you wish to address the public through an open interface (generic or complex) the site has to meet browser compatiblity. You knew that.

2nd problem- because of coding there can be an issue where your site will be flagged by various malware services (usually operated by the larger anti-virus organizations or other) that can signal a client computer that your site is "possibly" malicious. This is first established as a warning to users - but users can also cause this to flag so that it will be blocked from a large population of browsers. Beware.

"Info for www.forward-together-2012.org
site was first registered 10/26/12 in USA
flag :Caution based on strength of its current security certificate"

edited to include the necessity for this caution on site....

well it's clear over here - no warning flags on site....

it IS pixelated - no question about it. a brush stroke would have smooth edges...

The site does not come up as malicious for me...

The first time I watched the video I didn't even notice the images behind the text, except for the handicap sign. The images might be a little to dark.

The music seems to have a distortion to it, maybe thats just how it sounds.

Overall I like it.

Thanks to all who checked site for access

I also asked a neighbor to try it, no problem. I did a "site:yoursite.com" type search for it and Google banned it, Bing has not, Yahoo doesn't show it either but then I don't know how often they send bots. This site has barely been up 2a-36 hours.

The only non-HTML code I have on it is two Javascripts - one for the fixed background site image, one for the video. The rest is basic HTML created with Microsoft Expression.

I've done some searching on this banned/malicious issue and the only thing I can think of is that for the first 24 hours or less, I had some duplicate pages in an other directory (incl. default.html) -- and I read somewhere that Google will consider such duplication as potentially malicious. Otherwise there is nothing with the site or code that is malicious. Anyone can see that with View Source.

Now, one perhaps very remote possibility is that it may have been a politically motivated hack or malicious-report of some sort: there are the words "... for the re-election of President Obama" at the very top next to the site's logo on both pages. I once moderated a forum on relationships, sexuality called "Intimate Wisdom" that got hijacked by some Al Queda/Jihadist site. It only lasted a couple of days.

n short, weird stuff does happen online. And we're in the heat of the last stretch of the election. Again, very slim chance this happened, but it could have.

("Together") it IS pixelated - no question about it. a brush stroke would have smooth edges...

I couldn't figure out where -- I assumed the intro one, but my guess is that one is talking about the one within the design itself at the end. It's got some artifacts due to pan-in. Would changing the size (up or down) of the .png of that artwork help?

Thanks.

opening one. what size font are you using? if it's a graphic, what size?

"...opening one. what size font are you using? if it's a graphic, what size?"

First, reply to your question: It's a 2000 x 503 32-bit PNG, 166 Kb.

Second, as mentioned above, I noticed this artifacts thing happen in the one in the design itself at the end of the video during its motion toward the viewer. Once it gets large enough, it stops.

I call it "artifacts" and not pixelation because...

... the same thing happens though more subtly in the text. This is classic Vegas -- anything with sharp edges such as fonts and such will do that when there is pan/crop or text scrolling (it's a line/resolution thing according to Johnmeyer whose written extensively on this particularly on the credit scrolling issue). I've tried some of his suggestions, but....

What works for my JW player (which I did not do at my site this time) is a cheat: I make the video's resolution a bit smaller than the player and it almost eliminates that artifacty thingy. Will do it again.

Out of curiosity, do you see it as much in its YouTube version -- or at one site that picked it up in India and which was also added there to what seems like its "Sony Gallery" (which is maybe why they found it at YT since I listed VP in my list of software used to create it).

My site's MP4 is only 640 x 360, Handbrake RF 10.
My upload to YT was a 1280 x 720, Handbrake RF 10.

Maybe I should stick to the range that Musicvid's tutorial says about YT and local MP4 - RF 19 to 26.
Perhaps it's too sharp, hence more artifacts prone.




The one picked up and posted at an Indian newspaper/blog via YouTube:
First Read

Here is the new, non-ad, design-presentation only version. While I haven't solved all the visual issues, I've done some dB correction on the music and simplified the background. Still 60 seconds, but a leaner, cleaner look.

Together (design presentation)

"Out of curiosity, do you see it as much in its YouTube version"

YES.

Look at the edges of the text, it should be smooth lines / curves.

Instead it looks like rats have been gnawing on it and NO this is not something Vegas would cause to go wrong.

It looks to me like the text was rasterized at a low resolution and then scaled up. Those horrid bumps happen during conversion from vectors to pixels, anti-aliasing dursing the process helps however any upscaling exposes the inevitable compromises that have to be made. ALWAYS rasterize text or any any vector graphics for that matter, at delivery resolution or higher, never lower.

Bob.

Bob,

I'm really puzzled by people freaking out over the text and the intro "Together" -- yes, there is some text-scolling "shave" going on on the white copy throughout the video, but I see no eye-ball burning "rats..." type of distortion in either my site's copy or the YT one.

The white text is in-Vegas generated Text Media not some graphic or raster file event -- and as I stated above, the resolution for the PNG for the intro "Together" is 2000 x 503 and never goes above the project's resolution of 1920 wide at its last keyframe. It was certainly not blown up from some insanely small size.

Oh, and also, the white top edge of both the intro closing in-design Together is a white highlight due to the light source behind it - not some pixelation aberration .

Methinks that ye gentlemen are somewhat obsessing over stuff no one except hard core editors would even notice. It still works fine and something I had to get done a.s.a.p. (it was submitted to the Obama campaign today). Simply put:

--- The video's purpose is only to present the design at the end -- that's all.
Even if a bit hard on the edges in places, the white text is very readable.

The same situation is in the new leaner "design presentation" one linked above. Both were rendered from an uncompressed 1280 x 720 AVI according to Musicvid's MP4 tutorial with some small adjustments (in this case RF-10 instead of higher/more compressed).

Now, all that said...

Do you guys have some nitty gritty good points? Of course -- and if this were one of my more involved and layered artsy videos, I'd work on fixing the hard edges. I needed to find a happy medium here and the video works for what it was intended IMO.

Since you're asking for feedback...

I don't like the web design at all, the black background with the red/white/blue text looks like something from the early 90's to be honest.

I get that the site is trying to look "All American" with the colors, but I think it just looks bad and kind of cheesy. It's just my opinion obviously so maybe others like it.

Pick a color/font and stick with it throughout the site, maybe for headers make the font larger and maybe a different color.

Look at a few other sites to get an idea of a good site like these are better:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/president-obama
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/
http://www.republicansforobama.org/

Keep it simple and clean.

"

I'm not talking about scrolling or moving, I'm talking about the static word itself.



The red arrows point to the problems, those bumps should not be there, the outline should be smooth and this is not trivial, people will notice.

By comparison the white text behind "Together" is perfect.

Bob.

Philip - I see where you're going with this.

I'm looking at the "Together" on my 32" LCD main edit screen and I can see your choice of font which does have a natural, broken edge.

Tell me, why have the PERIOD at the end of FORWARD?

If I spent time on this I'd be exploring the way the 2 words FORWARD and TOGETHER could be unified to make a hard-to-forget "style". Presently there is very little, if no link between the 2 words, which is ironic, as this IS the whole reason for your sentiment/s.

Cheers

Grazie

Here's my take on it:

Very nice Grazie, I like the bold sans serif with outline & drop shadow contrasting nicely with the plain white handwritten font. Anyone would think you know a thing or two about mixing fonts.

Nice :)

"I can see your choice of font which does have a natural, broken edge"

Oh :)

That's the second time this week I've been font'ed :)

Bob.

Thanks DH.

I worked from the basis that Philip had a "handwritten" after-the-fact statement - almost like a Human signing a comment to a HARD slogan - which in actual fact it was!

So using this as my starting point and focus:

1] I heavily "kerned" the Together, to get it tight and literally together. A lot of designing omits kerning. The type/font is only the beginning, it isn't the end of the story. The "T" is slightly larger to allow for that hanging over of the "T".

2] Made the "Together" smaller but, like a tiny, quiet, human voice, it kinda now shouts because it is small and for me becomes more relevant, and this refers back to my initial observation.

3] The "swoosh" type thingy was to underline the humanity of the above comment. It also draws the viewers eye to the word by implying that a human hand wrote the word.

There would still be much to do and experiment with:

A] Maybe subtle Stars and Strips in the FORWARD

B] Experiment with yellowish fad across for the Together. I'm not too keen on that stark white?

C] Maybe some subtle Kerning of FORWARD

D] Maybe very faint/ghost feint lines above and below or just below FORWARD.

However, my take was to use the narrative of a Human writing this and that would NOT be larger than the FORWARD. From there it kinda fell into place for me.

Cheers

Grazie