Any feedback on this music video

[gdgross]

I'm just a humble musician, and know just enough about working with video to be dangerous. That being said, I created this little music video for a song my band has coming out next Friday.

As the release is a week and a half away, I would love to hear constructive criticism! (That I can understand, of course - "your rasters have too many gigaschlops in their beta channels" will go right over my head! )

(unlisted vid for now)

 

[mlesemann]

So how was your day?
(sorry, couldn't resist)

I like it but there are plenty of people on here who know far more than I do about music videos.

 

[Nate North]

Really nice work man! Solid motion tracking, ABR, etc. Looks good!

 

[gdgross]

Thanks guys! (Also, nice to see you both again. )

I'm thinking I might try to stabilize some of the shakiest handheld shots, but it's such a pain with this motion tracker plugin; I basically have to export the clip and re-import a printed version into FCP, since there's no way in FCP to truly render the effects on a clip. Quite annoying, tbh, but whatever.

What's ABR?

 

[indietalk]

There's a really annoying spot on the lens

 

[gdgross]

There's a really annoying spot on the lens

Ugh, I know

I didn't notice it till after I'd imported all those shots. I had a ND filter onl my lens, but somehow some dust got *underneath* it and parked itself on the actual lens glass itself.

 

[indietalk]

I like the video. I imagined a scene in the beginning of an artist creating the art, and then, it comes to life with the music.

And in the end it stops with the music, and a city worker removes the art with a a paint roller.

 

[gdgross]

Oooh that wold be super cool!

 

[indietalk]

Haha just a different take, you know how that works when we watch things.

 

[Nate North]

Thanks guys! (Also, nice to see you both again. )

I'm thinking I might try to stabilize some of the shakiest handheld shots, but it's such a pain with this motion tracker plugin; I basically have to export the clip and re-import a printed version into FCP, since there's no way in FCP to truly render the effects on a clip. Quite annoying, tbh, but whatever.

What's ABR?

Automatic Background Removal, for the stylized footage you tracked in, to get the alpha channels. I just assumed that's what you used, could have been greenscreen, same net result.

Anyway, cool guitar/bass work on this.

 

[gdgross]

Automatic Background Removal, for the stylized footage you tracked in, to get the alpha channels. I just assumed that's what you used, could have been greenscreen, same net result.

Anyway, cool guitar/bass work on this.

Gotcha - Thanks Nate! Yeah most were actually with my cheapo green screen, but actually, the scene removal mask in FCP works better than the green screen mask, maybe because of my small room setup and poor lighting.

 

[CelticRambler]

I like the concept and the tracking in general. I wouldn't be too bothered about the occasionally shaky camerawork, but those spots on the lens were very distracting (especially against the blue of the sky in the later clips) Although I haven't used it myself, I know there's an Adobe tool that can intelligently replace defects like that with whatever's in the background (think I saw the link for it on this forum a couple of years ago).

(Edit: pretty sure it's the same ABR Nate referred to)

A couple of other minor niggles: the clapping at the start seems to be slightly out of synch with the music. It looks like it might be an artefact due to how the live action was converted to "lineart" ... it might need to be out of synch to look like it's properly in synch. And probably way to late to do anything about it, but the poor old drummer gets nothing more than an over-the-shoulder shot, regardless of what walls or other surfaces his clips end up on.

 

[indietalk]

those spots on the lens were very distracting (especially against the blue of the sky in the later clips)

There were so many at the end I thought, hmm, on purpose? Some gritty POV look? lol.

 

[gdgross]

Yeah, too late for any more drum shots. My wife (the writer/singer) and I actually are gonna try and get our 6yo daughter to agree to "paint" the first cartoon on a wall, and have it come to life, like indietalk suggested.

Good catch on the clapping - it's a little awkward to line up but I'll see if I can improve it somewhat. I did find that a few other clips needed to be moved a few frames from their "correct" positions to look right. probably an artifact of the 8fps rate that the cartoons are at, as you suggested.

I'll see if anything can be done about the spots, but I'm not an adobe subscriber, just FCP and any plugins that work for that platform. :-/

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[indietalk]

My wife (the writer/singer) and I actually are gonna try and get our 6yo daughter to agree to "paint" the first cartoon on a wall, and have it come to life, like indietalk suggested.

That would be so cool!