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Spec Commercial


Adam McDaid

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This is a spec commercial I shot recently on a Sony EX1 with a PS Technik Pro35 adapter, Zeiss Superspeeds and a 135mm Standard Speed. Would love some critique about the spot. Please keep in mind, this is not full res, needs some color correction and the SFX at the end are still rough.

 

http://www.microwavablepeople.com/fantasy.mov

 

Thanks,

Adam

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Not bad. Nice rendition by the camera. I feel as I see this example and others that use lens adapters as if it is less about the cinematography and more the effect of the adapter as if it's a sales pitch for the adapter. Adapters are nice but they don't make good cinematography, a good eye does. Lens adapters only make mundane images more interesting, but strung together the inconsistencies in the artist is very noticeable.

Good eyes can be trained. You have some good compositions but some that are inconstant. Practice the art and stop worrying about the lens adapter.

 

My sugestion for many is shoot with a camera plain as it is and learn more about seeing, then add the lens adapter later on once you've leanred to see consistancy in shots and theme.

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Not bad. Nice rendition by the camera. I feel as I see this example and others that use lens adapters as if it is less about the cinematography and more the effect of the adapter as if it's a sales pitch for the adapter. Adapters are nice but they don't make good cinematography, a good eye does. Lens adapters only make mundane images more interesting, but strung together the inconsistencies in the artist is very noticeable.

Good eyes can be trained. You have some good compositions but some that are inconstant. Practice the art and stop worrying about the lens adapter.

 

My sugestion for many is shoot with a camera plain as it is and learn more about seeing, then add the lens adapter later on once you've leanred to see consistancy in shots and theme.

 

Walter, thanks for the critique, although it was brief as the majority of your comments focused on adapters. I understand your point of view regarding adapters but I'm not trying to market them. As a cinematographer, I've shot many projects on 35mm, Super16 and HD. This particular project had a very limited budget, thus restricting us to shooting an EX1 with an adapter and primes and not film. The decision to shoot with an adapter was a technical choice and I felt that it was the best tool to achieve a film-like depth of field. To help achieve this look, I also dropped a Tru Pola and enough ND to shoot the exteriors at a 2.8. Sometimes budgets dictate format. I appreciate your comments and understand your views on keeping it simple when starting out and learning the craft.

 

Best,

Adam

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Nothing wrong with it. Stylized. Imitating a lot of style I see every day. Keep it up! Keep shooting. Keep building a reel. Develop a definitive style. My adapter comments were less about you personally and more in general. Many replace content with visual tricks. Eventually visual tricks get boring and look for substance. I keep seeing adapter shot stuff and it's all starting to look like hte same thing.

 

I just watched ?M? again the other night. Wow, with audio missing in places one would expect nat sound, ordinary camera placement. No movement, no color and no noticeable DoF, this movie still blows away anything made 70 years later. It wasn't the box they shot it with that did that.

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  • 1 month later...

COOL! I LOVED IT!

 

How the hell do you make a bag interesting? But you did it!

 

I was just a little put off by the fact that the guitar would never fit in there, and since it was an electric with no amp, how could people hear it? (I'm anal with these things.)

 

Coming from an advertising background (4A New York agency), you could really build a fantastic campaign around this spot--turning those bags into Felix The Cat's bag of tricks. The possibilities are endless of what you can make appear from that bag, and if you crammed a whole bunch of these events into a 30 second spot, FANTASTIC!

 

That's an idea the client will buy, so if you pitch this, make sure you have some other ideas handy to explain to them. If storyboarded, even better,

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