Music Video

Alex Fuchs · July 8, 2007

Hi there, sorry for the poor quality but it's youtube. Feel free to critique. Thanks

Alex

Alex Fuchs · July 16, 2007

Is the video so bad?

Brad Grimmett · July 16, 2007

The first thing I would say is that every shot is way too tight. It's hard to tell what you're looking at some of the time. Also, for a song as long as that one I would expect some kind of story line for the video, instead of them just performing the whole time. It kind of seems like it was shot during one of their rehearsals.

David Bradley · July 16, 2007

It looks quite good with regards the lighting design and some of the angles employed. I agree with Brad's sentiment that the shots are consistently too tight. Perhaps if you had some steadier camera work (steadicam or dolly) at a slightly wider angle the handheld CU/BCUs would have been less disorientating. Apart from that I found some of the shots were too long, the fact that its free hand and your panning and tilting to frame each member of the band gave it a home video aesthetic - if you wanted that then good job but I prefer cuts. Its an edgy look and definately fitting for the track.

Alex Fuchs · July 16, 2007

Thanks for your critique. First of all the video is a result of a test shooting and was shot in about 2 hours. Because the band and I too thought it was only a test the video has become this look. For me this work open my mind, because I done all the stuff I'm not allowed to by other works: Going so tight because the band don't want to show to much of their rehearsal room, wobble the cam, looking for freaky angles, don't care about the field of depth (set it to autofocus) and so on. I have never done a shooting like this before but I found it an impressive experience because I prefer very steady and static cam styles at all. After capturing and the fact that there was no really budget for this video I deceided to do the editing and desatured the material and give it this creepy look because I thought it fittet perfect for this kind of music. And by the way I love the disorientation and the video look, because I shot it with video and it looks very old school - so why don't buy this as look. And I shot it only with available light and there was no lightning design. I put the guys under the lights and just done it. The color grading was hell because of the fluorescent lights (greenish, blueish tints etc.), but I think it looks now good. But I agree to all your points - with a budget and a crew I have never done it like this. It was a kind of improvisation.

Cheers,

Alex

Edited July 16, 2007 by Alex Fuchs

Ram Shani · July 17, 2007

"Thanks for your critique. First of all the video is a result of a test shooting and was shot in about 2 hours. Because the band and I too thought it was only a test the video has become this look. For me this work open my mind, because I done all the stuff I'm not allowed to by other works: Going so tight because the band don't want to show to much of their rehearsal room, wobble the cam, looking for freaky angles, don't care about the field of depth (set it to autofocus) and so on. I have never done a shooting like this before but I found it an impressive experience because I prefer very steady and static cam styles at all. After capturing and the fact that there was no really budget for this video I deceided to do the editing and desatured the material and give it this creepy look because I thought it fittet perfect for this kind of music. And by the way I love the disorientation and the video look, because I shot it with video and it looks very old school - so why don't buy this as look. And I shot it only with available light and there was no lightning design. I put the guys under the lights and just done it. The color grading was hell because of the fluorescent lights (greenish, blueish tints etc.), but I think it looks now good. But I agree to all your points - with a budget and a crew I have never done it like this. It was a kind of improvisation.

Cheers,"

then there is nothing to critique:)

when we see something we cant see all the problem that were behind the job (2h shoot no budget )

i can see just what i can see and i agree with the others about what they said

next time if you put title at the beginning of the video says that there were no budget and shoot in 2h and its a test and the band didn't want to show the room ....... then you will get critique in the context :)

Robert Hughes · July 17, 2007

Here's a great thing about public critiques. I disagree 100% with the previous posters. I loved the extreme tight shots and the frenetic, jarring movement; it fits the claustrophobic, disorienting mood generated by the band's music. I particularly liked the rapid vertical tilts, which looked like framing misregistration. There's plenty of room for improvement, though...

- Too many frontal shots of the bass player's fingerboard; they seemed taken from a uniform distance. Get more variation in framing; if you want close, nail him down and put the camera on his pinky.

- Staging. There's some furniture in the shot that doesn't contribute to the mood; the table lamp at 1:30/1:36/3:41, the eggcrate sound baffling at 3:05, they shriek "rehearsal studio". But the fluorescent lights are crucial, and provide an appropriately ghastly tone to skin color.

- The color scheme gets too familiar after awhile. You might consider mixing it up with some Tri-X film; the alteration of color with b&w can provide a formal component to enhance this (rather longish) musical piece.

- Too much realism in the shots - my opinion is that you need more unrecognizable, wacked-out shots to offset the boys with guitars. You've got some great shots of the singer's profile from above and below.

Keep going - MORE OUTSIDE! If you don't do it, who will?

Alex Fuchs · July 19, 2007

Hi Robert,

a thousands thanks for your critique. I agree with all of your points and I will have a look, if a re-edit can fix some problems, but I think, I haven't the material to do this. But for the future I learned a lot. Yesterday I have done a tape-to-tape color correction in a postproduction house and put the whole stuff more to cyan. My colleage try to change the the video look with some postproduction tricks. And we try to post a better compression version on our upcoming homepage through the next days. Some shots which looks very grainy before the tape-to-tape correction at a POGLE looks now a little bit better because we used some noise reducer.

Thanks all of you for your critique. I take it serious and try to do some better stuff with all this in mind. Ah, and Ram I checked out your stuff - very impressive work - do you shot all this on film or on HD?

Cheers,

Alex

Mark Williams · July 19, 2007

I liked this video the colours and lighting giving it an original feel with a nice contrast between grey/silvers and Blacks The handheld gave it enrgy so did the cuts. The film was fine. As for the band well not my taste at all.

Josh Brokenbourgh · July 19, 2007

It's tough with youtube. The sound is bad, and you don't have a great feel of the real quality. Previous posters had great points and it's good to get constructive crits as much as possible. Most of the crits here will be technical. I think that if you are learning from what you did and you had a fun time with the band that's good. It's difficult to get close to a band and understand everything so it seems that your near that. Now for my crit :)

I would really love to see what you can do next time for telling a story. If you listen to as many tracks as possible from them all the time and read their lyrics your bound to be inspired to write. Throw it on your ipod and just visualize in your mind. Write down what you see and maybe you can come up with a cool story. Finding some kind of way of connecting the meaning to a story, even if it's abstract, can be pretty fun. Although moving out of the one room deal will cost you money- Anyway keep it up, it's always cool to see everybody's stuff- I need to put some up here when I get into my production class next term.