OT: Critique these 2 commercials made w/Vegas8...?

ken c wrote on 4/1/2009, 1:22 PM

Hi -

I wanted to ask for everyone's candid feedback on these two brief internet commercials I produced and edited in Vegas 8; here's one at:

http://www.trademastery.comVideo Promo: Me and 2 Vegas Showgirls at a recent Seminar... woot[/link]
(that's me at a seminar w/Las Vegas showgirls, and a testimonial reel that's in dire need of color correction, but I couldn't get it looking any better in V8)

http://www.tradingtheopen.comVideo spot: no voice, AE project edited in Vegas 8[/link] (AE project edited in Vegas for a soft no-voice promo spot, kind of heavy on titles since no v/o).

let me know if any ideas/comments on how to make 'em better... thanks!

-ken

Comments

michaelshive wrote on 4/1/2009, 1:39 PM

I thought the 2nd piece was pretty slick-looking.

My comments on the first piece mainly have to do with how they were shot. When I'm shooting with a screen or television in the background I always make sure I'm lighting the face of the interview subject so that the attention is drawn to them. I thought the faces were pretty dark in this video. Also, white balance to the screen and then gel the lights to make the skin color look right, that way your background screen won't have that blue look. It wouldn't hurt to tighten up those shots a little bit as well as there was a lot of screen real estate left empty.

As far as the editing, it would have been interesting to see how the piece flowed if it was cut a lot quicker - cutting back and forth between the interviews and grabbing their best sound bites instead of letting them tell their entire story. I thought that may have slowed it down a little bit.

Hope that isn't too much critique! Keep up the good work.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/1/2009, 4:44 PM

Hey Ken,

1st video suffered from needing lighting on the people talking, though it seemed to add a bit of credibility? to the video, I think it would have been visually more appealing, and it was a bit long, but this stuff doesn't interest me much so it's not something that might be applicable that the length was more than I was interested in. Also, there seemed to be some interlacing issues as well, (perhaps you need to set your de-interlace method to blend rather than none? Overall the message is carried pretty well through to me by about a minute in, and it could probably be cut down to not much more than that.

2nd video - All the images etc, the look, etc... are nice and clean looking, but w/o a voice, it went by too fast for me. Granted I'm not the fastest reader in the world, there's no doubt that there are slower readers than myself. I had a hard time making it past the first line before it was on to the next. I'd suggest bringing on one line, and then another or something like that, add some sound FX, and try and make the focus a little clearer. I wanted to watch the video window, but then realized I should be reading the text, so I was always being torn between the two. Maybe put the text in the video window as a super?

Hope that input helps ya out - the 2nd one really looked quite good, I just couldn't follow it fully and was always fighting to read the text rather than watch the video. The first one really needed better lighting during the interviews. You can get a cheap and easy to set up 2-3 light kit for relatively little money, and it would help... A LOT with that.

Dave

rs170a wrote on 4/1/2009, 5:32 PM

Expose for the face (and then leave it alone) and forget about what's behind the person.
I realize you want to have the screen visible in the background but then your speaker's face goes too dark (auto-exposure, right?).
You have to either light the person or dim the screen to make it look good.

Because it's white, a lot of your text tends to blend into bright backgrounds.
A border & a drop shadow will help it stand out a lot more.

Mike

frederick-wise wrote on 4/1/2009, 6:31 PM

Both look pretty good. The first one could maybe use some dollar signs or something indicating it was all about making some green. It wasn't clear what you are selling - Vegas entertainment, dancing girls?

I really like the slick look of the second one. Very well done.

ken c wrote on 4/2/2009, 3:16 AM

Hey thanks guys, I appreciate it - great comments; I'm "taking notes" here for helping with future shoots.

Agree re text too fast, thx, I'll work on cutting down the words, so like you said it doesn't compete the words w/video clips, that makes sense, thanks..

Great tips, about lighting/color correction - thanks! It must be that when I used my SR11 live at the seminar to capture the video testimonials, I left it on auto (vs manual white balance); because it looked great through the viewfinder and in person, but in post the avchd clips make the subjects look dark + too much red ... dropping red and saturation levels overall, plus tinkering with brightness/contrast in V8 didn't help, so it's probably I just am not doing it right...

that's odd that footage that looked great in person, didn't turn out good when I looked at the clips... agree re it probably did it's wb on the background/contrast vs foreground subjects... reason #77 should hire pro video camera guys vs do-it-myself all the time at events... thx for all the tips!

right re auto-exposure; best solution would be for me to drag one of my softboxes to the events, but I'm already 'packed full' as it is when I travel to Vegas... hm or I could rent one from the hotel, that's a good idea..

thx re text, will do re drop-shadow for contrast, great idea.. (I don't know how to drop-shadow text in AE, but that's something worth learning, so I'll figure it out)..

-ken

farss wrote on 4/2/2009, 5:20 AM

For what it's worth the second video / page would not load for me due to errors on the page so I only watched the first one.

Audio really needs some attention. In general your production values seem to have gone downhill compared to your work from a while back. That current first video really said Low Rent to me, for what you're trying to sell you'd do better without it.

You're trying to say you've got a great scheme to make a bundle of cash and yet how come you can't afford a high end production company and graphic artists. Well to me at least that's the first thing that sprang into my mind.

Bob.

ken c wrote on 4/2/2009, 1:57 PM

Hi Bob, thanks - I've been stretching myself too thin, that's helpful to know "it shows", I'll work on taking more time for editing/productions... been doing a lot re production, new site launches, business expansion stuff... trying to get everything done by myself is always a challenge ... will do re working to get production up to beyond where it had been earlier.

here's a direct link to the 2nd video, at:
http://tradingtheopen.com/tradingtheopenMar2009.flv

Very good point re mismatch in perception between high-end what's being offered, yet production values not up to same class... point well taken, thanks -- I'll work on it!

-Ken

LarsHD wrote on 4/2/2009, 2:25 PM

Nice dollar signs at the end of the second video! Who were these made?

farss wrote on 4/3/2009, 1:12 AM

The second one is a much better effort.
Still I'd employ someone with the right "eye" to at least work with you and give you pointers. I'm finding it's one thing to learn how to make AE do things, knowing what "things" work visually is another matter entirely.

One thing that troubled me in the second video was your use of DOF, not too certain it was working for you or against you. Although as things (the text) move forward they can indeed move out of focus it didn't feel natural to me. I'm thinking the eye will stay focused on something coming towards it, for obvious reasons, like maybe we should duck out of the way.

Bob.

Chanimal wrote on 4/3/2009, 9:38 AM

2nd looks great. Cool.