Not bad...

I'll warn you that I tend to only point out what I consider to be the bad things. I suppose I can try to point out the nice things... good variety of shots, looks like you had lots of source footage, the graphic overlays were nicely created.

The voice talent could have enunciated better. She seems to soften her S sounds at the ends of words. Perhaps some track-compression would have brought these up a bit. Also, the letter W is pronounced "double you," not "dubba you."

I'm not a big fan of lowering the background music to clear a path for narration. I'd rather hear the music at a contantly lower volume rather than up and down.

Some clips probably could have used some Level adjustment (or Brightness / Contrast, if you prefer).

I also noticed something that I used to have trouble with, and didn't know what the problem was for the longest time. Sometimes your video doesn't fill the frame. You may need to uncheck "maintain aspect ratio" within the pan/crop for each clip. It may stretch or squish your video a few pixels, but that is much less noticable than seeing a bar on top or bottom of the frame.

Overall, great job... and like you said, the clients loved it.

Curious....what kind of camera(s) did you use for that project?

Yeh, i noticed the aspect ratio differences on the few photos in the beginning too; i'll be fixing that for their web version.

They were very pleased with the female voice, and I was pleasantly surprised too since this was her first Voice over work; I didnt think it was that bad at all.

I was iffy on the volume changes too, but they actually complained when I had a softer music track at a constant volume, so I went with the volume changes.

The levels were adjusted on many shots. This project took longer than expected to finish and we filmed on many different days and sky colors; so I did the best I could with what I had and with what was "paid" for as far as production costs.

It was shot on Panasonic AG-DVX100's in 60i.

thanks for the comments guys!

B

Good to see other people from Milwaukee in this forum. Nice work guys, very pleasant to look at. I loved the voice and the only comment I would have is that in some parts, the background music is a bit too loud for the voice to be well heard.

Like I said, I'm prone to pointing out my criticisms. :(

And... as you mentioned, you did what the client asked for. I know what it's like to do something the way you feel is most professional, and the client requests it to be changed to what you feel is less professional. That sucks.

No problem, constructive criticism is always appreciated. Its an excellent way to make one think of different ways to do projects.

Hi Rafal,

Yes, I have been in here since Version 3.0 of Vegas =) I love Milwaukee... the little city full of big things.

A bit of trick that can work with VOs and music, instead of pulling the volume of the music down EQ out the parts where the voice goes, just during the VOs, a bit more work and probably SF7 with spectrum analysis might make it a bit easier to see what you're doing.

But then again there's a rather neat FREE plugin that'll write an envelope based on levels, so you can generate the envlope from the VO track, copy that to the music track and use that to drive the EQ!
Bob.

Bob, do you mean pulling down only the frequencies competing with the voice?
Randy

You got it.
Picked that one up from both SPOT and Jay Rose. If you haven't done so already I highly recommend 'Audio for Post Production' by Jay Rose. Taught me a lot, much of it I'll never get the opportunity to use and some of it's just inspired me to have a go and pulled off things I thought were impossible.
Bob.

Please, I need to know how to create the text effect that says "Oak Creek, WI" in the ocpromo.wmv Thank you. mariauserinfo@hotmail.com

Brian, really nice, clean video.

I second mariauserinfo, how did you do the text effect for the web address?

The text fly-ins look like simple preset effects from WildFX Pro, or a similar program.

Hey Brian,

Great work and I'm hapy for you that the clients like it and appreciate it!

How did you make the final text effect (where the web address appears)? Was it done with Vegas?

Thanks,

Tom

Interesting... I'd change the font on all the subtitles, it's a bit narrow/hard to read .. to something that's a bit wider..

and the lower third, should be a straight bar w/digital juice type b/g, vs flared at sides

url looks like wildfx, right..

ken

Hello,

If you are talking about the simple text effects in the beginning and end that fly in, I used swish (suggested by SPOT; www.swishzone.com). It was a simple flash file. The moving text was a large photoshop file; with a long size that was moved with track motion. I had to throw something together quick, and this worked well; nothing special really.

I forgot to mention that this video was meant for NTSC viewing, so the lower thirds and some of the dissolves look alot different compressed in WMV format.

Just a personal taste, but I am not a fan of the straight bar lower third graphic, even if it has fancy digital juice background effects in it. I was experimenting with other options and the client liked this one. I see the straight bar lower third everywhere else and wanted something different for a change.

Nice work guys.

I am your neighbor in Franklin, WI

Rafal and I thought we were the only ones in Milwaukee area.

-Tom E

As a video novice, I thought the timing of your video was nice. The opening was effective. Coming from the audio side of life, the music and the VO was irritating. The VO had a pleasant sounding voice, but instead of listening to what she was saying, I kept thinking how important it is to hire real voice talent. The music, I think, could go a couple db down without any noticable difference to your client and maybe I could understand her at the end of her sentences (where she was lacking in breath support). Maybe you could even raise her a couple db on those instances. You mentioned you were on a tight budget but I would stress the importance of VO talent to clients.

I'm going to go back and watch it without sound for ideas I might can pick up on the video side.

i use swish too.. is there anyway to have the text show thru... in other words, have the backround transparent.. allowing the video to show through...
is that possible.. any swishers out there???
can you create/export swish with transpartent backrounds?

i dont think so.. but thought id ask..

pj

Yes, in Swish, select transparent for the background.

i have SwishMAX v.2003.09.03

how do you do the transparent backround??
ive played around and am obviously missing it....

thanks!
pj