Music video shot on Scarlet! Australian.

[Jarvis Alston]

Hey All,

Just sharing a music video I have just finished for a local Brisbane band. Very happy with the results. Let me know what you think.

Jarvis

http://youtu.be/sfeF7tit1ik

 

[Michael Markowski]

Hey Jarvis,

That was a fun tune and a cool video. If I could offer a little constructive criticism I would simply make most of the cuts to the beat of the song. The song has a very staccato beat throughout and if the cuts exemplified that the impact would be greater. Good job, I enjoyed the video.

-mike

 

[thierry pinoni]

hi matte .
no worries is good ,after shure you need follow the beat for your cut give a better rythme and speed ,like say mickael you a big sound and try to make some dust or destroy little bit this nice digital image.
you use cinema lens or photos lens ?
see you buddy

 

[Jason Honeycutt]

Everyone's so supportive on this message board I want to try to respond in the nicest and most constructive way possible. I'm no expert by any means but here are some videos that I've directed/edited;

http://jasonhoneycutt.com/musicvideos.htm

The hardest thing about having no-low budgets is the lighting, almost impossible to make it look right. From the reverse wide shot, it looks like you had some square worklights? The performance stuff looked harsh and overexposed to me, especially the red guitar close-up. If you're going to use that heavy of lighting and you're on a tight budget, diffuse it with wax paper... fraction of the cost as diffusion paper and it does the same thing, made to take the heat... and calibrate your exposure for the hottest part of your frame to not clip, you don't want to wash out your whites. Next time though, I'd say to get them outside.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen different compositions on the performance and the story elements. It seems too static for a song that moved that quickly. It was almost like a cable show's performance that a TD was punching cameras on. If you don't have a dolly, borrow a wheelchair or something... get some shots going back and forth vs. locked off tripod shots. Do some nice super wide (maybe fish eye) low angle dollies in, tilt-ups to the band playing... do some speed ramps into the verse, etc.

The editing is where I think you can take it as a learning experience. There was some cuts that looked like frashframes... some stuff was too quick, some was too long. For the b-roll stuff, let the viewer digest what's going on with the story. It raced by too quick in the beginning then seemed to get a bit off-track. You started to do some cool jump-cuts which can make the video fun in sections but it seems like it was two cuts... then another angle... then two cuts, etc. Own those, make them on purpose and blatant. With jump cuts, people can sometimes think they're mistakes if you don't show at least three.

For me, I like story-videos to have the story broken up into three acts, one per verse basically. Then you bridge the story with the chorus but mainly focus on the band's performance during the chorus, then switch gears back to the next part of the story.

But like I said, I'm just another schmoe with an opinion... I only want to offer ways to improve. And hey, you made a video... a lotta people talk about it... you did it... that's a huge step. When I started off doing them, I was sooooo stoked on my first couple videos and now if I try to watch them it's a 'face in the palm' Keep at it though!!!