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watch Need some experienced criticism

Intergage

Intergage

Hey all,

Glad I finally found an active Film makers community. Hopefully I'll fit in quite well and use it more often.
For now though, I need some more experienced amateur film makers to give me some constructive criticism on a few things I have done.

This first one is a short clip me and one other mate made late at night one weekend a few weeks ago. All up it took about 3 hours including editing and filming. So, not much time or effort went into it and we had a lack of gear (Lights as you will soon tell)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ydiLaDEZdU
(In case video above doesn't work) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ydiLaDEZdU


This second one is an effects test I made last night before bed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPKj2YzAU3A
(In case video above doesn't work) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPKj2YzAU3A

Any tips or tricks I could use in making any one of these two better would be awesome, thank you!
 
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Honestly,

Cinematography in the first clip is too dark. What camera did you use? Shooting at night is one of the more difficult things to do in cinema. I'd try shooting at daytime for your first endeavors ;)

The sound is only on the left side and the music is mono. I'm sure that's not what you wanted. :)
 
ROC said:
Honestly,

Cinematography in the first clip is too dark. What camera did you use? Shooting at night is one of the more difficult things to do in cinema. I'd try shooting at daytime for your first endeavors ;)

The sound is only on the left side and the music is mono. I'm sure that's not what you wanted. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for your comment mate, I know it's very dark. We started making it at 11pm and we only had 1 small lamp to use for lighting. Did the best we could with what we had but I agree and I hate how dark it is.. needs to be A LOT lighter.

Didn't notice the sound though.. It comes through both my speakers?
Also, as I'm new to all this can you explain a little bit more about the music being mono?

Edit: I have a Canon XH A1s. Yeah, the next one we are doing (this weekend hopefully) is going to be during the day.
 
Ah! A fresh palette !!!! OMG I am in heaven.

Sound is either mono or stereo on most computers. Mono means One channel. Stereo means Two channels. The music I could perceive in your first video is straight up the center. The rest of the noise you captured (footsteps, doors, etc.) is only coming out the left side. It must be a setting mess-up in the program you're using. The sound should be coming out both speakers. Right now, for me, it's only on the left and the music is only in the center.
 
Yeah, I just took another look at it and you are correct...
I didn't even notice it while editing.. I use Adobe Premiere and After Effects to do all my stuff.

Hmm, I'll have to be careful of that in the next one.

Thanks for that mate, that is exactly what I was looking for! :)
 
Hmm, been looking over the muzzle flash effect and personally I think the environmental flash could be a lot better.. Any thoughts?
 
This is a big thing i found out while filming at night. While it may seem counter intuitive you need light, otherwise the viewer can't see what is going on. Dont get the wrong idea though, you need to light your space in a difused manner to preserve the feeling of night if your going to film at night. Dropping your iso can also help but its a much better idea to light your shots(reflecting) and if you need to, darken the image in post production. Grainy and too dark shots are worse than shots that look slightly too light to be night.
 
Gripss said:
This is a big thing i found out while filming at night. While it may seem counter intuitive you need light, otherwise the viewer can't see what is going on. Dont get the wrong idea though, you need to light your space in a difused manner to preserve the feeling of night if your going to film at night. Dropping your iso can also help but its a much better idea to light your shots(reflecting) and if you need to, darken the image in post production. Grainy and too dark shots are worse than shots that look slightly too light to be night.
Click to expand...

Very good point, and I will take that under my belt for next time. Thank you!
 
I love the use of the dark in the first one, Adding a touch of lighting could help separate the subject form the background, but I enjoyed the darkness - the images do, however, look a bit underexposed (dark good, underexposed bad), so it's hard to make out the parts that are lit.

The shot of the person walking up the stairs was really cool.

In the effects test, there definitely needs to be more reactive environmental lighting (done in after effects) when the gun fires. Brighten the leading side of the gunman and some of the surroundings that would be affected by the flash coming out of the muzzle.
 
My own thought is that VFX needs to enhance the footage/scene and not overpower it. That means that you need to bring that flash down a bunch!

A couple of hints in integrating footage. Blurring the edges or the whole thing will really help you. Watch some real muzzle flashes and you'll see that they are never crystal clear or comletely in focus and it has to do with just how fast the whole package is travelling.

Also, darken them up a bit and/or turn the opacity down just a bit. This will help to integrate them into your footage.

regardless of how your muzzle flashes look, if your actors look like they are faking it then that's what the audience will think. Again, watch some real footage and you'll see that for a rifle shot there is a small movement backwards but a larger movement of the barrel upwards. That's because your body tenses when it feels the kick of the weapon. Even in videos where someone is firing a massive caliber rifle the thing always kicks the barrel upwards.

With a pistol I don't know anyone that fires a pistol with a bent arm when they are firing one-handed. I fire with slightly bent arms while firing two handed but my arm is straight when firing one-handed. Because of this the force is resisted by the bones and joint-locked nature of your arm. That means that almost all of the force is transfered in a rotational manner and causes the barrel to "jump" and your wrist to twist. Again there may be a small backward movement of the shoulder but the majority is transfered to the wrist.

I recommend, when imitating real-life, that you become a study of the real-life thing you are imitating.

Also...think of the math...let's say you're shooting at 24 FPS which is the accepted standard (right now at least) That means that each frame lasts approximately .042 seconds. The longest a muzzle flash exists in reality is .04 seconds (rounded up for ease of math) which means that reality has it at just about 1 frame in your video. That's just too fast but if you give it 2 frames and crank down the opacity you'll create the effect that it "burned" into the viewer's eyes and they were seeing residual effects in their own mind. This is something that actually happens. So by "faking" it to make it seem real you are actually creating a real sensation in the mind of the viewer.

Just a thought.

Forget the smoke which I agree was absolutely terrible and you'll get an idea of what i'm thinking. This is something I did early on in my exploration into VFX and while it has it's flaws I was very impressed with myself when I did it. In addition, this has fooled more "real life shooters" than I can count. In fact almost all of them, immediately after watching this, asked where they could get that model of suppressor as it did a great job. (PS: It's fake and the weapon is an airsoft rifle!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FTH1fVjEcg
 
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Hey mate, thanks for that detailed explanation, helped a lot! I did do some research on this particular gun and it is a gun used mainly by the Ukraine special force (CSO). According to people there is minimal kick back when firing in long bursts. The sound effect is WAY off target thought, I didn't put much effort into the sound.

Also, I like the idea of creating a burn look from the flash. I might give that a go. I'm going to attempt blood splatter next! :)
 
knightly said:
I love the use of the dark in the first one, Adding a touch of lighting could help separate the subject form the background, but I enjoyed the darkness - the images do, however, look a bit underexposed (dark good, underexposed bad), so it's hard to make out the parts that are lit.

The shot of the person walking up the stairs was really cool.

In the effects test, there definitely needs to be more reactive environmental lighting (done in after effects) when the gun fires. Brighten the leading side of the gunman and some of the surroundings that would be affected by the flash coming out of the muzzle.
Click to expand...

Thank you. This is what I need. :)
 
Another quick question sorry.. If I was to make another one, same charters and with a very basic story line and random humor would you watch it?
 
Intergage said:
Hey mate, thanks for that detailed explanation, helped a lot! I did do some research on this particular gun and it is a gun used mainly by the Ukraine special force (CSO). According to people there is minimal kick back when firing in long bursts. The sound effect is WAY off target thought, I didn't put much effort into the sound.

Also, I like the idea of creating a burn look from the flash. I might give that a go. I'm going to attempt blood splatter next! :)
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter what the reality is, it matters what the reality of the viewer is!
 
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