tombrown1

Member

Now that the shooting season is finished here in Connecticut we made a 2013 highlight reel.

I think it turned out ok, but these highlight reels always seem a bit odd to me because there's nothing to really tie them together or tell a story.

Suggestions are welcome. And as always - frank criticism is extremely helpful.

Best,

Tom
 
Last edited by a moderator:

gtranquilla

RadioActive
All that work since 08-06-2013 with your new Mantis Octo Hybrid! Excellent aerial video from my perspective. So are you still using the 14 inch props with 21lb AUW?
 

Av8Chuck

Member
Tom nice reel. There are some great shots there.

I hate criticizing other peoples work but I agree that different perspectives can help you improve. Hopefully I can add something you can use on future demo reels.

I think choosing less pop-culture music is refreshing, tired of videos cut to loud, fast music, but you need to make sure that any shot you stay on longer is stunning and for shots that aren't that stunning their shorter otherwise the video will feel long.

In general people are sheep so try to show shots that are different enough that when they see them they will want them. Try not to repeat shots or use shots that are so similar they could be mistaken for another shot. Since you don't have a story to work with try to group shots together by the type of shot, the subject or style. Be careful not to use too many shots from the same project, diversity in shots is always a good thing.

Also try adding some graphics, although this might be an AP demo show the audience how these aerial shots are used with other shots to give the viewer ideas and therefore reasons to hire you.

Here's my demo, its not great but you can see how assembling the different kinds of shots together helps the flow. I do a lot with cars, guitars and models so there's a section for that, I do documentary film and aerial so there's some of that, not necessarily grouped together depending on the type of shot, but I hope it provides an overview not just of my cinematography but how it can be applied in different ways.

Do you color correct your productions? Some of it seemed dark. I know there are a lot of variables in the encoding and streaming of video but you might be able to even the overall exposure a bit.

I hope this helps.

 
Last edited by a moderator:


Stacky

Member

Now that the shooting season is finished here in Connecticut we made a 2013 highlight reel.

I think it turned out ok, but these highlight reels always seem a bit odd to me because there's nothing to really tie them together or tell a story.

Suggestions are welcome. And as always - frank criticism is extremely helpful.

Best,

Tom

Tom, very nice, the only thought I can offer is that if its a showreel for your company you might want to pop your logo/details/etc at the front and back end.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

tombrown1

Member
Tom nice reel. There are some great shots there.

I hate criticizing other peoples work but I agree that different perspectives can help you improve. Hopefully I can add something you can use on future demo reels.

I think choosing less pop-culture music is refreshing, tired of videos cut to loud, fast music, but you need to make sure that any shot you stay on longer is stunning and for shots that aren't that stunning their shorter otherwise the video will feel long.

In general people are sheep so try to show shots that are different enough that when they see them they will want them. Try not to repeat shots or use shots that are so similar they could be mistaken for another shot. Since you don't have a story to work with try to group shots together by the type of shot, the subject or style. Be careful not to use too many shots from the same project, diversity in shots is always a good thing.

Also try adding some graphics, although this might be an AP demo show the audience how these aerial shots are used with other shots to give the viewer ideas and therefore reasons to hire you.

Here's my demo, its not great but you can see how assembling the different kinds of shots together helps the flow. I do a lot with cars, guitars and models so there's a section for that, I do documentary film and aerial so there's some of that, not necessarily grouped together depending on the type of shot, but I hope it provides an overview not just of my cinematography but how it can be applied in different ways.

Do you color correct your productions? Some of it seemed dark. I know there are a lot of variables in the encoding and streaming of video but you might be able to even the overall exposure a bit.

I hope this helps.


Thanks for the help Chuck! Exactly what I was looking for. I agree with everything you wrote.

We have a rule to never go past 2:30 for videos and try to stay around 2:00. We went over on this one because it's a demo and we spent some dough licensing the music, so we wanted to hear the entire song. I think I will go back and make a 2 minute version with faster cuts to keep things moving.

I do color correct but I'm very much a novice at it. I actually spent a lot of time on color correction (cs6) for this one. Do you know of any good tutorials/books/videos on this? It's a source of great frustration for me.

Best,

Tom
 
Last edited by a moderator:

tombrown1

Member
Tom, very nice, the only thought I can offer is that if its a showreel for your company you might want to pop your logo/details/etc at the front and back end.

Thanks Stacky! I've thought about that a lot. Still trying to walk that line between getting the word out about what we do vs. attracting attention from the wrong people. I hope that makes sense. This is currently a very difficult business to navigate.
 

Stacky

Member
Thanks Stacky! I've thought about that a lot. Still trying to walk that line between getting the word out about what we do vs. attracting attention from the wrong people. I hope that makes sense. This is currently a very difficult business to navigate.

I know what you mean, Im in a different country but the same problems here.
 

Explorocam

Airborne Media Pros
I know what you mean, Im in a different country but the same problems here.

Here in Canada we had some A.H. fly over a Federal Penitentiary, now everyone's afraid of what people could be doing with these and transporting who knows what. The Government is freaking out and talking about licensing of multrotors. I follow the letter of the law when I do this commercially, but I can see this really getting in the way. I'd love to find that A.H. and pound is face into hamburger.
 

Av8Chuck

Member
Hi Tom,

I liked the song and the fact that you chose it. My point wasn't so much that you needed to shorten the video it was more about shortening clips that didn't have a lot of "wow" factor and possibly lengthening those that do to help the pacing. Because the tempo of the song was slower than some might expect in a demo reel, you need to tighten up the edit a bit so that it flows better. Right now it feels a bit long but if all you did was shorten it to 2 minutes it might still feel long.

You have a lot of the same types of shots, their good shots but because their similar you don't really need to show an entire push over the top of something or the entire descent on all of those types of shots.

Regarding Color Correction, if your doing video production professionally I'd recommend learning and using either Apple Color or Resolve. These are applications created specifically for color grading. I haven't used PPro in quite a while but if your referring to the 3-way color corrector, that's more like a color "adjuster." I've used Speedgrade but I wasn't that impressed. Resolve runs on both Mac and PC and the best part is that its free. Well you don't have to spend money to get it but there's quite a learning curve associated with it.

Here's a video from last NAB about Resolve: http://player.vimeo.com/video/65433105
 

SamaraMedia

Active Member
Av8Chuck, not seeing a link to your demo reel.

Nice work Tom, I recognize some of those place you shot. I'm not giving up on shooting season just yet though.

John
 

tombrown1

Member
I think I understand now Chuck. This makes a lot of sense.
You just articulated what's been bugging me about the video.

I messed around with speed grade with little luck. I'll check out Resolve.

John, glad you're not giving up yet! I'd like to get up a couple more times, but that damn sun doesn't want to stay up very long. Also, we should have that coffee sometime.
 

Phil550

Member
Video shot on the island of Tiree, Western Scotland in October.
Still learning to fly (must stop making small course corrections when flying in a straight line..) and video editing (FCPX is excellent...).
Last 3 stills were taken with a Canon 7D + 10-22mm and 100-400+1.4 ext.

C&C always welcome.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Stacky

Member
Video shot on the island of Tiree, Western Scotland in October.
Still learning to fly (must stop making small course corrections when flying in a straight line..) and video editing (FCPX is excellent...).
Last 3 stills were taken with a Canon 7D + 10-22mm and 100-400+1.4 ext.

C&C always welcome.

Phil with respect to the course corrections while going in a straight line, another user on here, Paul, (aerovideous) has had success with the 3rd axis brushless stabilization fixing that issue for him. I havent tried it yet but Paul puts out some very cool video and his straight line stuff now is really cool. The correcions you are making might not be all of the movements.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

tombrown1

Member
Video shot on the island of Tiree, Western Scotland in October.
Still learning to fly (must stop making small course corrections when flying in a straight line..) and video editing (FCPX is excellent...).
Last 3 stills were taken with a Canon 7D + 10-22mm and 100-400+1.4 ext.

C&C always welcome.

Yes, 3rd axis stabilization in follow mode would be perfect.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

SamaraMedia

Active Member
I think I understand now Chuck. This makes a lot of sense.
You just articulated what's been bugging me about the video.

I messed around with speed grade with little luck. I'll check out Resolve.

John, glad you're not giving up yet! I'd like to get up a couple more times, but that damn sun doesn't want to stay up very long. Also, we should have that coffee sometime.

Yes, we should have that coffee. Days wii be getting a little longer soon as the Winter Solstice arrives ;)

Was down in your area of the state the other day for work and thought of you but I didn't have the time to contact you. I might have some days off coming in the next few weeks, we'll have to try again.

John
 
Last edited by a moderator:


tombrown1

Member
Some nature scenes from this Summer :)


And a bit more movement:


Wow! Great reels! I think the first is my new all time favorite. There don't seem to be many high quality nature videos - very refreshing.

What camera?
 
Last edited by a moderator:


Skewp

Member
Wow! Great reels! I think the first is my new all time favorite. There don't seem to be many high quality nature videos - very refreshing.

What camera?

Thank You for Your kind words! :) Both of the showreels are made using Canon EOS 550D. We will release our third and most extreme reel by the end of this month most likely. From the beginning of the new year we will also be using Sony FS700 for some extra awsome super-slow-motion takes ;)
 

Top