archived-videos Particle Gun

NathanH said:
Audio and camera needed work, VFX were great and i loved the final shot!
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Thanks! How would you suggest I improve the camera work?

Audio is a known issue I've been trying to correct. I've got a rode video mic but it seems to pick up all sorts of background noise.
 
The effects were really good man, keep them coming. As far as audio, what are you recording into? It just sounds "too ambient", if that makes any sense. Did you do any color corrections? The look just has a "home video look" to it, and I don't think you were going for that.

As I had said before, it has to make sense, and for the "shooter" to want to dematerialize his roommate/friend, it was not believable. Now if it had been a crazy annoying neighbor or some to that extent, then yeah it would had worked for me.

Keep it up, good job!
Joey
 
The disintegration effects are really cool. The first interior shot should have been lit better without using the overhead light in the room. Its hard to tell on my laptop, but I think the shots need some color correcting. Just has a home look feel to it as well. Other than that, like the concept :)
 
Thanks guys! Would any of you have any suggestions on where I could learn some color correction tips? Or is it more trial and error?
 
joey1320 said:
The effects were really good man, keep them coming. As far as audio, what are you recording into? It just sounds "too ambient", if that makes any sense. Did you do any color corrections? The look just has a "home video look" to it, and I don't think you were going for that.

As I had said before, it has to make sense, and for the "shooter" to want to dematerialize his roommate/friend, it was not believable. Now if it had been a crazy annoying neighbor or some to that extent, then yeah it would had worked for me.

Keep it up, good job!
Joey
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I'm using a Rode video mic and it's running straight into my camera. Would recording audio into a dedicated sound recorder help cancel out all the ambient sound? I've tried everything to get it not to pick up every single little noise, but haven't had any luck.
 
Strid3r said:
I'm using a Rode video mic and it's running straight into my camera. Would recording audio into a dedicated sound recorder help cancel out all the ambient sound? I've tried everything to get it not to pick up every single little noise, but haven't had any luck.
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I'm on a ramen-noodles budget, so my audio setup is a cheaper audio technica mic and a Sony digital voice recorder. The setup is decent and when compared to yours, it is less "noisy". Can you adjust the audio levels in your camera's input? Maybe messing around with those will help. Do you have a wind deflector/dead cat on the mic?

As far as color correction, from as much as I have read and learned, it all depends on your camera, lighting and the "feel" you are going for. Search on YouTube, you will find a bunch of vids on simple color corrections.

And again, your special effects were flawless imho.
Joey
 
VFX are amazing. As for color correction, that's up to you, but I'm against it in this case. What you have here is a one-off, and the more I'm led to believe that nothing amazing is going to happen, the happier I am when you disintegrate an entire car and human being. It looks like you just shot it on sticks, probably without someone watching the frame while you were recording. Is that right? I would get a camera operator to make sure the frame looks solid while you're acting. At one point your head is cut off while you're looking the box. But that's a minor fix. Great job, I loved it.
 
aperkins said:
VFX are amazing. As for color correction, that's up to you, but I'm against it in this case. What you have here is a one-off, and the more I'm led to believe that nothing amazing is going to happen, the happier I am when you disintegrate an entire car and human being. It looks like you just shot it on sticks, probably without someone watching the frame while you were recording. Is that right? I would get a camera operator to make sure the frame looks solid while you're acting. At one point your head is cut off while you're looking the box. But that's a minor fix. Great job, I loved it.
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Yeah I had the camera on a tripod since I didn't have anyone else to hold/operate it. But I will look into finding a friend to help operate it.
 
joey1320 said:
I'm on a ramen-noodles budget, so my audio setup is a cheaper audio technica mic and a Sony digital voice recorder. The setup is decent and when compared to yours, it is less "noisy". Can you adjust the audio levels in your camera's input? Maybe messing around with those will help. Do you have a wind deflector/dead cat on the mic?

As far as color correction, from as much as I have read and learned, it all depends on your camera, lighting and the "feel" you are going for. Search on YouTube, you will find a bunch of vids on simple color corrections.

And again, your special effects were flawless imho.
Joey
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I've turned the mic input all the way down on my camera and if I'm standing like 5ft in front of it the audio levels will still top out. I do have a dead cat wind muff on it. I may look into a dedicated audio recoded and see if that doesn't help with my issue.
 
just a quick update. i found out that there is a little tiny switch in the rode video mic on the circuit board that can change the db at which it records. i turned it down and now no more background noise!

sadly i found all this out after i finished filming my latest video, but for future videos the audio should hopefully be less of an issue.
 
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Strid3r said:
just a quick update. i found out that there is a little tiny switch in the rode video mic on the circuit board that can change the db at which it records. i turned it down and now no more background noise!

sadly i found all this out after i finished filming my latest video, but for future videos the audio should hopefully be less of an issue.
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Very nice ;)
 
It was short, simple (story wise), but entertaining. I liked it. The last shot made me chuckle. like all the others said, color correction, interior lighting, and audio (which you have fixed I guess) need work. With practice they'll iron out. As for color correction, it's really what you want. I would say unless specifically going one way or the other for style try to keep the brightness to a 'healthy medium'. Making sure the whites aren't too washed out or the blacks too dark. Other than that, color correct it to how you feel it should look. Warmer colors (brown, orange, red etc...) typically give off a comfortable, good, calm feeling. While cold colors (Blue, purple, green) give off an 'emotionally colder' atmosphere. For this short, I would say go with warmer colors when you color correct it. If even adding a SLIGHT tint of orange would make it feel just a little more like a nice sunny day, which would compliment the comedy style in my opinion.

Another thing when working with color correction is saturation. In my opinion Higher saturation = warmer colors and lower saturation = colder colors. What I mean is that a lighthearted comedy, which would typically be associated with warmer colors, would also usually be bright and saturated with color. It gives the video 'life'. Where as a drama about a death in the family would be associated with colder colors, and would also usually be desaturated to a certain extent.

Of course this is all opinion and you can choose to mix things up however you please. But the way I see it is color = life. The more color you have (saturation) the more lively the video will seem. Vice Versa.

Good luck!
 
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