Superb video!

I liked the theme. It went well with the music.
Couple of things that I would change next time:
I wouldn't combine a zoom and a dissolve as in the first transition when you see the Kayak.
I also wouldn't dissolve into an extreme closeup of the boy's face.
Next time I would use a tripod instead of handholding the camera.

Hope that helps,

John

Nice job, Gerrie.... Is that you on the water???

craftech, agreed . . . If you are doing "still/pan" shots, get yer sticks out! . . . ..

Grazie

John,

I'm looking to improve my editing (a lot!).

Could you expand on your suggestions?


Peter

Thanks for the kudos kids - yeah a tripod is, as we say in Swengelish, "A and O" although having one in a kayakould be trickier!!

The music is by a goup in Ireland Kila: http://www.kile.ie

//Garo

Peter, you've asked a major question.

I'd start with thinking about the "totallity" of the piece you are wanting to edit. I believe this is called the cinematography. The actual look 'n feel of the project. For me, this is really appreciating and understanding as much as I can as to the intended audience, it is going infront of.

For example, this weekend I'm having to put together a "show reel" of my work for a potential company that may consider me for future wedding work. This is going to be very hard for me. It will be seen by very professional wedding video pros. I gonna need to do a good job. I'm going to need to show them my footage as rushes AND show them how it was used - tricky eh?

Anyways, here is a thread recently started that may give you some inkling as the possibilities out there with edinting. I found it very valuable . . hopefully you may too. Maybe you may wish to add to this thread and post some "clear" questions? Here's the thread , hope this helps . .. ..

Regards

Grazie

Thanks for the thread reference, Grazie.

Don't know how I missed it. I'll ponder and see if I can come up with any insights or (more likely) questions.

Good luck on your reel... almost a series of "before" and "after" stories, no? Dry, boring (b&w?) footage transformed by you into glorious (colour?) montages.

Peter

Pete thanks, neat idea on the B/W concept . . . Grazie

Peter.
Sorry I didn't get back to this sooner:

In reference to my comments:

"I wouldn't combine a zoom and a dissolve as in the first transition when you see the Kayak."

Transitions should be kept to a minimum. Cuts only is preferred, but his use of dissolves was OK in this video because he had soothing music which went with the video subject, and because he had very few edits compared to most music videos. The zoom and dissolve combined is too busy looking and draws attention to itself rather than acting as a smooth bridge between two scenes.

"I also wouldn't dissolve into an extreme closeup of the boy's face."

For one thing the handheld closeup threw off his autofocus. That being the case why edit there so that the shifting focus on his face is enlarged bigger than life. He should have set the focus to manual, zoomed in, focused, then zoomed out, started the camera and zoomed in on the subject. That shot had to be handheld (which is difficult from a kayak) so the "steadyshot" or whatever anti-vibration compensation is in his camera should have been turned on. If he had it on and it shook anyway, then a wider bottom boat would have been better to shoot from or a zoom from the shore.

"Next time I would use a tripod instead of handholding the camera."

I know that Garo said that he couldn't use a tripod because he had to shoot from a kayak, but when I watched the video it only looked like the last scenes were shot that way. The entire video was jerky and he definitely could have used a tripod to shoot if he has one.

John

Many thanks for the amplification, John.

I had guessed that that was your reasoning but appreciate the feedback.

Peter

PS Just ordered Spot's book... is there a book (or other source) anyone would recommend on film/video editing ? Thanks in advance.

I'll recommend one. The ACS magazine, sure it's all about the big boys and toys we can all only dream about BUT you can learn a lot. You need to scale things down a lot of course, the one thing it got me thinking about is what happens in front of the lens and how the camera sees that and then what happens to that light as it goes through the lens.