Too Much Track Motion?

Grazie wrote on 1/6/2010, 11:50 PM

Prefer by far, by a country mile, version 2.

You still have much to edit in V2. I'd get my ideas clear about the narrative. You haven't. I get the thing pacier by removing all the fades and do straight cuts.

You have a frames of going past a statue at WA and THEN a near shot after passing? Confused me.

Work more on the narrative of the back of the woman's head as the storyteller. Take me through the trip using the head as the key. Tighten up the whole piece. I would take out at least 50% and then some. That piece would be improved by being only 30 seconds long.

The 4 picture wall didn;t add anything and frankly detracted from the narrative completely.

Just 'cos we CAN do something (Video Wall), don't mean we DO!

My way of thinking you don't have enough intersting material to sustain 3mins(?) of my time.

I tend to film for the edit. I would have had at least 10 times the amount of shots that you had had, then editing becomes an exciting option, not a chore.

Thanks for sharing. Get this down to 30 seconds . . oh alright, 45 seconds. You can always expand.

Grazie

xberk wrote on 1/7/2010, 3:28 AM

Ok Grazie. Keep your shirt on.
Got it down to 37 seconds.
Better?

ritsmer wrote on 1/7/2010, 4:08 AM

I tend to film for the edit. I would have had at least 10 times the amount of shots that you had had, then editing becomes an exciting option, not a chore.
Agree on that one. Hate when I have recorded less than 3 x what I use.

About the video-wall and the length of the Canal Tour video I think it is not possible to say what is right: 30 sec's or 3 minutes - and with/without video wall....
Because it depends on the purpose of that video. Do you want to show what you see on such a canal tour - then go for 3 minutes - or more (the canal tour has plenty of interesting sights that you could record (we do the tour once or twice with guests every summer)) - and some of them could be shown on a video wall to show the abundance of impressions on such a tour.
If the Canal Tour is a part of your 30 minutes "Doing Europe in a week"-video - then the 30 seconds is quite Ok :-)

Roughneck wrote on 1/7/2010, 4:33 AM

Version 2 flowed more naturally.Felt I was there.

If the target audience is the traveller then shorter footage will cheat their reliving the experience?

Footage probably shows bits they missed.That is a success.

Feel there is a place for Window wall.Could be used as a device to pick up pacing of the whole piece by tighter editing of window pane/s.

How about 3 short Window walls interspersed over the whole piece? Quick fire images/video shorter duration pane?

Beginning (4 pane ?), middle (1 pane - think panorama view eg like the Horse racing tv) & towards ending.....Any usable cutaway reaction shots?

Is there a basis for Lower thirds to aid the narrative …... trip duration etc?

Filming would have been somewhat restricted.Tighter editing will have the effect of shortening.

The extent will be a judgement call depending on the viewer.

Intro music was nice light touch together with steady camerawork.

Michael

Grazie wrote on 1/7/2010, 5:02 AM

Excellent!

Phase 1 - Make tight from given footage and determine an edit approach. . .

Phase 2 - Now mix it with more leisurely stuff that you take the pace down a tad, using: text; brochures; tickets; stills of your time away on boat.

Y'see, what you've done is to squeeze-out discover the narrative: "Canal Trips are used to be leisurely and relaxing".

I bectha will be able to now remix the Phase 1 WITH the Phase 2 approach to get to Phase 3 . . . .

(Interesting this editing process - huh?)

Grazie

xberk wrote on 1/7/2010, 1:53 PM

Hey. Thanks for taking the time guys and all good points above.

I tried to blend some of the ideas into yet another version. This only runs 1:19 and includes inter-cuts of the 4 picture wall. Busy today but I'll post my own thoughts on this tomorrow (but no more versions I promise).

John_Cline wrote on 1/7/2010, 2:59 PM

The two different pieces of music don't work together, either make it a slow piece with dissolves or a quick piece with cuts, but not both.

Terry Esslinger wrote on 1/7/2010, 3:16 PM

I agree with John (so whats new?) the transitions from the slow to the fast and back to the slow don't work. They are too jarring. I would try to work with one or the other.

BudWzr wrote on 1/7/2010, 3:25 PM

I didn't read any comments above.

Version 2 is the best to me:

1) The cuts are extremely precise and timed perfectly and the content flow is so good.
2) Every clip is all meat, no fat.
3) The camera moving with the gentleman in the porch swing is very interesting, did you brace the camera to the swing?
4) And the music is perfect and very high quality. Excellent fidelity.

Weird, I'm watching something about Copenhagen on TV on Oprah. Hahaha, not crazy about Oprah, but she said the bread was her highlight of the trip. It had a funny name like oommpha, hahaha.

BudWzr wrote on 1/7/2010, 3:27 PM

#3 music needs to ramp up or punch in at a different spot, then OK. To me it's a nice change of pace.

DaveM2 wrote on 1/8/2010, 8:04 AM

Xberk - what is your intent for the clip to do ? Promo, intro, a short tour of the canals of Copenhagen ? Or do you just want to know if the PIP's are effective for this video ?

I find it hard to comment without knowing the direction you are going.

For me, if you are telling a story, you need real narrative - a script. What are we seeing ? "Copenhagen's canals are one of it's most notable tourist attractions and one of the first activities you want to experience when visitng, etc..

I find PIP's done in irregular patterns much more interesting than 4 equal squares, including 1 view that is bordered into multiple frames.

This is one video I thought did a great job without narration using multi-PIPs

[edit] - I would have made the above an active link, but for some reason all I can get is an actual link to YouTube showing the video as opposed to just a link.

xberk wrote on 1/8/2010, 9:30 AM

The Canal tour is a segment in a larger "Trip Video". The video takes a very personal POV. It's a video journey depicting what I saw and what I want to remember. I post some of these trip videos online for friends we met on the trip or for others who might have interest in doing a similar trip or just armchair travelers. The story I'm telling is what the trip was like. I'm retired, but having worked in films in my youth, this is fun and stimulating for me now. I'm amazed at how much can be done by one person with a consumer camera and Sony Vegas.

I had 23 minutes of fairly decent footage of this Canal tour. About 125 shots. As I started to assemble the footage I realized it was flowing nicely and really giving the feel of what it was like to glide around beautiful Copenhagen --- but it was going to be way too long. So -- I thought why not try a 4 corner effect that would show more in less time. Well -- I think (at least in my execution) it failed to do that. For the thousandth time I learned K.I.S.S. but I'm not sorry I tried. In fact, I'm glad I did just to get the benefit of this discussion.

I think Grazie was right "The 4 picture wall didn;t add anything and frankly detracted from the narrative completely." .. Ritsmer, I think, was also right on "Do you want to show what you see on such a canal tour - then go for 3 minutes".. 37 seconds is not long enough to show what it was like. Michael made a great suggestion "How about 3 short Window walls interspersed over the whole piece?" This seems to me to be the best way to use a 4 picture wall. Use it for impact. You can't expect an audience to actually see 4 images at once. This is borne out in DaveM2's post on the Show reel that he thought used PIP effectively. I agree. Remove the PIP from the show reel and it is less effective. John's point that Terry agreed on about the two diff music tempos is valid too. I switched tempo to support the 4 picture wall but the transition is bumpy -- forced. The tempo did not switch as we floated over the canal. Bud liked Version 2 best -- and so do I.

Thanks again for the comments. I tend to work in a vacuum. This was a big help -- and a shot in the arm.