Monday, October 7, 2013

I Made a Video this Past Weekend!

Here's a video I made over the weekend. A student at BGSU wanted to bring CHAARG, a women's fitness/health organization, to BGSU. Watch it first, then read my notes below. Comment your comments!!



I  was given 1 day to concept, script, and storyboard, 2 days to shoot, and half a day to edit.

  • I used a 7D
  • Almost entirely shot with the 28-135mm. Landscape, especially towards the end and shots of the different buildings were shot with the 16-35mm.
  • No lighting. It was overcast the entire shoot. Had to work around the rain.
  • VO was done in Studio A.


Things I liked/worked
  • The animation. Short and simple.
  • The story is okay. Could've used more work, though.
  • Close ups of the runner were filmed with her running in place. I tried to get my hands on a steady-rig, but this worked out much better. I had a lot more control.
  • Battery died right after the first take on the last shot. WINNING.
  • I filmed more than I needed. I had a lot of footage to work with. I didn't feel like I was stretching clips thin.
Things I didn't like/didn't work
  • The first quarter of the shoot I was on Aperture Priority. Dumbass!
  • I wanted to foreshadow later clips (country road, gravel, corn)  in the beginning, but I couldn't get the edit right to make it feel natural or cool.
  • Virtually no color correction. I took one pass, I'm so used to SpeedGrade's controls now. I didn't have time to fix a lot of the over exposure and flatness.
  • I wish I was given more time to work on all areas of the video.

7 comments:

  1. Pretty sweet considering all of the things you had working against you (the biggest being the crappy weather and Bowling Green's naturally dull buildings). I really liked how you made the whole thing a story as we followed her on a run. It's a much more interesting way of displaying the campus other than just naming off the different locations. You also got some pretty good shots in there (I particularly like the wide shot at 3:01 of her looking like a badass in the center of campus). Also the animation was a nice little touch (I think it worked because you didn't try and do too much with the time you had. Just enough to bookend the video). Overall, with the time allotted I think you did a bang up job.

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    1. - I wish I was ready to shoot on Thursday, but I didn't have the script ready yet. Thursday was really nice out.
      - I really don't get to explore the campus a lot, so this experience helped me do that, and discover the buildings are dull!
      - I think the story helped the video a lot. The story is what probably set it a part from all the other submissions. The applicants only had 2 weeks to make a video, so they couldn't have been great.
      - The shot at 3:01 I like too! We were walking to old campus and I'm like, "Hey, stop there for a second!".
      - Thanks for the good comments about the animation. I had to stop myself a couple times to not make it this big thing. The hardest part was the black spotlight moving from the floor to the back wall.

      Thank you Chris for looking at this and critiquing it. I hope to get better with every video and animation I create. Your input accelerates that process!

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  2. This is awesome Brent! It looks really good. I wouldn't have guessed you did it in just a couple days. The one thing I was confused about was what "chaarg" is.. although I looked on their website and I was still confused. What was the video used for?

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    Replies
    1. It's to save girls from the deadly effects of running on ellipticals

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    2. Actually, that's one of their mottos. "Liberating girls from the elliptical".

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  3. Looking good Brent. Where to start?...


    - Why did you choose the 7D, especially for something shot in 60fps?

    - Why did you choose the 28-135mm?


    - The V.O., in my unprofessional opinion, sounds good.

    - 0:00/3:24 - What was your final output like? I'm noticing a lot of artifacting and softness. Maybe it's just YouTube?

    - 0:00 - Agreed the animation works. Bright colors, simple and iconic. Love the Loony-Toons style iris wipe.

    - 0:10 - I might have used a different font here. Maybe something closer to the Charrg logo?

    - 0:48 - If I'm being honest, the running in place isn't really working for me. Did you try a few shots whilst running?

    - 0:48 - Side note for the group... I've never understood why some people wear makeup before working out...

    - 1:24, 1:39, 2:25 - Dig the wider shots; composition is really fun.

    - 2:29 - The two b-roll shots here seem either too quick or out of place...

    - 2:46 - Why did you choose to fade to black here?

    - 3:13 - I hadn't really noticed anything about the slow motion footage, but what was your shutter speed during this scene?

    - 3:18 - Loon-Toons outer is killer...

    - What was the pre-production like? You mentioned wanting to get to some things that you couldn't, what was stopping you?

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    Replies
    1. Q - Why did you choose the 7D, especially for something shot in 60fps?
      A - I am more familiar with the 7D's capabilities and features. I had a very tight timeline, so I just ran with that.

      Q - Why did you choose the 28-135mm?
      A - I planned on running backwards for her running shots. This didn't happen. I ended up having her run in place in the parking lot. There is a weird warp that goes on at the top and bottom of the frame during her CUs. I'm not sure if this is the lens.


      Q - The V.O., in my unprofessional opinion, sounds good.
      A - Thanks! After listening to the raw .wav file I found glitches..a couple 1 second clips lost.. and I'm not sure why. Better not happen when we do client work!

      Q - 0:00/3:24 - What was your final output like? I'm noticing a lot of artifacting and softness. Maybe it's just YouTube?
      A - I'm not sure if this answers it, but it was 720p 24 fps H.264 container. It's one of the YouTube presets in Media Encoder

      Q - 0:00 - Agreed the animation works. Bright colors, simple and iconic. Love the Loony-Toons style iris wipe.
      A - Since the video's about her, I captured her favorite colors. I started to go a little more elaborate with the animation, but stopped myself to keep it simple, and I didn't have a lot of time. I was going to just fade out, but the iris wipe just kinda happened as I was animating.

      Q - 0:10 - I might have used a different font here. Maybe something closer to the Charrg logo?
      A - I went with something sophisticated, or what I thought was. Looking back, I agree with you.

      Q - 0:48 - If I'm being honest, the running in place isn't really working for me. Did you try a few shots whilst running?
      A - I tried running, but I couldn't get CUs on her face. Almost got to borrow a Glide-Cam, but that fell through. I wish I would've had a fan blowing in her face, or something else? The only thing I think that hinders it looking real is her ponytail stays put, it doesn't "woosh" back.

      Q - 0:48 - Side note for the group... I've never understood why some people wear makeup before working out...
      A - Ha! Gotta look good for the camera, I guess?

      Q - 1:24, 1:39, 2:25 - Dig the wider shots; composition is really fun.
      A - Thanks. Switched to the 16mm-35mm here. I wish I could've done more with the establishing shots.

      Q - 2:29 - The two b-roll shots here seem either too quick or out of place...
      A - I don't even have to look up your timecode to know which clips you're referring to. I agree. I needed a filler I guess. If I had more time I would've thought what else would work here.

      Q - 2:46 - Why did you choose to fade to black here?
      A - Dramatic effect. I tried it with a hard cut, but it didn't put emphasis that she has reached a pivotal moment. Still not sure if the fade to black works here.

      Q - 3:13 - I hadn't really noticed anything about the slow motion footage, but what was your shutter speed during this scene?
      A - I'm not sure. I wanted the shot as wide as possible, so I'm assuming it was pretty slow. I chose this clip as the only real-time speed in order to show: new step, new direction, more predictable and in control

      - 3:18 - Loon-Toons outer is killer...

      Q - What was the pre-production like? You mentioned wanting to get to some things that you couldn't, what was stopping you?
      A - She contacted me on Sunday. We met once, then exchanged Facebook messages so I could get content to write the script. She already had the idea to stop at each building and talk about it. After I knew what the script was. I scouted the dirt road and developed a make-shift shot list a couple hours before filming. Pre-production went on while I was filming. You really have to put time into pre-production. That's where it all counts. Luckily my production was small with not a lot of elements, so it didn't hinder the outcome that much.

      Thanks, Josh for your comments. I learn a lot from your critiques!!

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