Just to add to the prior comments (all of which I agree with).

I thought the opening segment (over 1 minute) was a little long... and could be shortened quite a bit.

There was a little pause in sound just prior to when the buzzer was heard... which seemed a little odd to me.

I liked the pace starting at 1:22 when you start to tell the story of the retreat.

I though the way the title for "Katie Peacher" worked was a little odd (the black "mask" reveailing the static text)... but that may just be me.

The use of slow-mo / blur in the end piece, the angles chosen were very good.

Even without any changes... I think the video get's the message across to the audience it was designed for.

Well done.

I also think you did a nice job.
I think you could have given it a slightly more polished look with a little better lighting and a couple of different point of view camera angles. Also, I would try to spice up the graphics by having something more than just a static black background. (These are the main things I usually criticize myself about, too!)

yep, we did shorten it down, as well as some other things for the final project. Had no kids handy to do the yelling (ended up being me trying to sound young and whiney). Phone sound effect was the only thing available for the time given. And the sound cutting out just before the cry was unable to be avoided (we picked up some BG noise when recording the lady narate). As for the buzzer (it was something like a stove or laundry - the door was... the door).

Thanks for the input - I had a very VERY limited time to do this in, so it's nice to know that what I was able to do did the trick though. And as for lighting and multiple cameras - I'm working on that part, but I'm not holding my breath right now.

Thanks again guys.

Dave

Definately work on the interuption sound effects. You say you didn't have anything else availble for the phone ring sound. This is a lame excuse at best. I have a large collection of over 300 Sound FX CD's and sometimes even I can't find the right one to fit the picture. You know what I do? I create it and record the sound myself. The phone is not in the picture, so we don't know what type of phone it is ringing, so it can be any phone ring, even a cell phone if you have one. Get a portable recorder if you need to like a portable DAT recorder or midi disc recorder, or even an MP3 recorder. This will be much better than Sound FX's that don't fit the picture you're trying to paint. The second interuption, the bong or whatever you used. I'm not even sure what this was meant to be, maybe a doorbell? Again, record a door bell if you don't have one in your stock FX CD's. If you don't have a doorbell near by, record a door knock and then use a little EQ to make make it sound like it's in the distance. The kids voice interuption , this sounds like it's in the same room as the woman speaking. Again, you need to make it sound like it's coming from another room. There's three things you can adjust to make a sound, sound more distant. 1.) Reverb....in this case a small reverb like the kid is in a small room or hallway outside of the viewed room. 2.) Adjust the EQ- The presence range is in the 3Khz to 7Khz area of frequencies. Reduce these frequencies and the sound will sound more distant or not like it's right next to the woman. 3.) Volume- lower the volume for distance. A combination of each will give you the best results.

Another thing I would suggest, is that the woman seems to be speaking from inside her head as if she was thinking to herself, because the voice is not synced with her lips. This is a good use for some reverb, like a small chamber or small room. This would also help when the kid speaks, to indicate 2 different locations. You could therefore just reduce the presence range of the kids voice with EQ, and add a little reverb to the woman's voice to add the illusion of someone thinking to themselves in a dream like manor and the kids voice would therefore break this dream like illusion, with his dry uneffected voice.

Also add some room ambience. All rooms have ambience. There all lots of sound FX's with room ambience. It's a subtle effect that goes unnoticed, but for me when it's not there it's very noticeable. Again if you don't have room ambience sound FX CD's, set up a mic and record the silence in the room you're working in and loop it for the duration of the picture.

Sometimes you need to be creative with sound FX's. I once did a TV commercial for Met-life or HAP I believe it was....some kind of Life/Health insurance company anyways. So the pictured showed geese flying with a closeup of a goose flying and flapping his wings to stay aloft in the air. I didn't have any sound FX's of a goose flapping his wings in the air 2000 ft off the ground, and didn't have a mic cable to reach that high as well as another gooses back to ride on, although that was the camera shot we where looking at. I took out an umbrella that just happen to be sitting in the sound booth, and with the umbrella slightly unfolded, I waved it infront of the microphone while watching the goose flying. I then rolled off the high end frequencies to take away the plastic snap sound of the umbrella and synced the sound up with the moving of the wings and walahhh.....geese wings flapping in the air with a birdseye view.

Sorry, I can't give you any video editing tips, only sound as that's my specialty.

I agree with the comments, First of all nice job Dave!
I think the effects could use some work and the fact that the "room tone" disappears when the sound fx appear is distracting and makes it sound a bit disjointed. If you have a few seconds of the room tone that is there while she is speaking I would lay that under the fx.
As far as Red's suggestion of reverb on her voice , thats up to taste I guess . It has been used in hollywood that way for a long time but the truth is that when your thinking to yourself ,unless your head is as big as Billyboy's there is no echo/reverb inside. ; ) . Just messin with ya Double B I'm not serious.

I was running at 20hrs. a day with less than a week to do this, and didn't even get the opportunity to get to the recording until a day before the deadline (due to the nature of the request for the video being done so late) I was BARELY able to free up enough time to do it. I have no Portable recorders, and no money for them. Looked into doing the reverb thing in vegas (but to no avail - couldn't seem to find a realtime FX thing where I could do it. - may just be ignorant. As for sound in general - I am no expert and appreciate the tips. Sorry my "lame" excuse is not good enough for you, but I will take my precious 4 hrs. of sleep over perfecting the sound on a job that I was given almost no time to do. (once again, do to the nature of the request).

Dave

The drop in audio was simply due to a problem with background noise during recording.

Dave

Dave, still a great job,
>The drop in audio was simply due to a problem with background noise during recording<
If you got time I would just take a few seconds of that backround noise, like in a pause in her dialog for a few seconds, loop it and put it on a track below the FX.
Or is the video all done already.
I'm saying this as help only , your skills are probably far superior to mine.
Liked some of your over head shots were they w/ a crane or somthing as ingeniuos as a stepladder? Very cool.

No changes able to be made, it was already changed somewhat and handed in before I posted the unused version here. It was almost entirely done within a 1/2 day period +/- Just a a small amount of taping that I had to make time for before because of limited availability. (the bus)

As for the crane style shots, I just extended my tripod legs and held them over my shoulder like a rocketlaucher, ran the flip screen for the right angle, and practiced a time or two before I made my run .

Dave

I'm just wondering why you ask for non harsh and informative opinions, and then when I do, your replies come back as being defensive and filled with excuses? We've all have had to work with deadlines and understand sacrafices you sometimes have to make because of that. You asked for what we would have done differently though. Maybe you should ask for critique on something you weren't pushed for on a deadline, that way we can all stroke your ego and tell you what a great job you did, and not offer you any constructive criticism. You obviously have a microphone and had time to record the womans voice, are you telling me you don't have a phone in that same room to record it's ring or record yourself knocking on the studio door right next to that mic, or even be able to afford a $5.00 doorbell to record? We're talking 15 minutes worth of extra time, you could have found that in one day of not posting in this forum. Sorry, but your excuses are weak, and so is your audio production creativity. At least a "thanks, I hadn't thought of doing that" would be nice in one of your responses when you're asking for critique, but instead you come off as being rude, with excuse after excuse.

You know what, I'm sorry. You're right, and I thought I had said thank you in the previous post. I didn't take your comments about me using lame excuses in a non-offensive way. I do appreciate the points you gave, and I have been pretty tired lately which can lead to a short fuse. I appologize for not thanking you for the time that you took to obviously give a detailed list of ideas that you had for me. So thank you for you input, I appreciate it, and I'll try and take the comments with a bigger grain of salt next time. I was probably a little touchy about it because I knew that it wasn't the best audio work I'd done, and I hadn't had time to fix it (as I saw it).

Dave

Great apology excepted. I wasn't trying to be offensive, and I try to be sensitive to peoples defense of "my baby's not ugly syndrome". Most of the time I'm direct and too the point in my posts and it sometimes comes across as me being a jerk. That wasn't my intentions though, I was just trying to give some helpful advice, because I have done 3 years full-time audio post production work, doing 1 or 2 TV spots a day 5 days a week for those 3 years. So I think I could give a few tips that might be beneficial to you. Basically, if you have ever watched a TV commercial without the sound, then that's where my work started doing audio post work, and you had to create every sound to make it seem like it was the actual sound as being shot by the camera. You see someone walking on camera, I added the foot steps and had to pay attention to when they stepped and on what type of surface they where walking on, to make it seem real. You see a car pull up on gravel, and hit a mud puddle, guess who added the gravel sounds and the water splash as well as the thud of the shock absorber. It's even tougher, when you do radio spots which have no picture cues, where you're working from a paper script and you have to create the environment so people can picture it in their minds.

Hey ebrip, no offense taken. If I was a overly uptight female though perhaps that would be a sexist remark (kidding) and just measuring my chest I'm at least a double C, maybe a D not a double B.

I agree a video is dull and lifeless without good audio. Just watch a video without it. I've seen some real crappy footage come to life with just some audio added to the mix. Alot of times you can make poor footage look intentional, but audio.... nah! When I edit I don't get excited until I hear the audio come around. Thats when things get fun. Or in BB's case, Blows your skirt up.
JImmy

BB just jokin!

BB, so you have manboobs? Some women pay a mint for such endowment
and here you are with the god given goods ;)
Jimmy

Red, I think that you were kind of a jerk here with telling me that my audio production skills are week. (wouldn't mind an appology for the rudeness expressed) I don't have a mic (I had limited access to one BTW), and I'm a little insulted here.

"Sorry, but your excuses are weak, and so is your audio production creativity."
- good examples of your "straight forward" speach here that comes across more rude and degrading than constructive.

These things withstanding, I'm still gratefull for the suggestions you made (which I did think of for the most part BTW) - just w/o time to implement.

Dave

(not a flamewar here BTW)

Not boobs, sagging pects. I'm beginning to dislike gravity. Still, there was a time when my waist was larger than my chest. At least that's no longer true.

At least that's no longer true. - LOL

So I've got something to look forward to as I age then do I?

Dave

LOL,Gravity sure can be cruel ;)
JImmy

Red I thought some of your advise was top Notch.. I know who to come to for Foley advice now...

BTW, that scene w/ the buzzer wasn't used so... whatever.

Dave