Cinematography Reel - 2014 - Areas to improve?

[Andrew Trost]

Hello everyone!

 

New member here, but have been lurking for a little while.

 

I am finally feeling good about my reel this year, but I also feel as though I have a lot of technical skill left to acquire. Any advice from professionals regarding areas I could improve would be greatly appreciated! I'm just wondering what I might have missed from an eye that is used to the industry's standards.

 

https://vimeo.com/87235731

Edited August 9, 2014 by Andrew Trost

[Mark Kenfield]

I like it a lot Andrew, excellent control of exposure, and interesting naturalistic lighting. The only thing that stood out to me was a penchant for centred compositions on non-symmetrical shots, which is a little uncommon, and in my opinion doesn't work all that well (as a vague general rule) on widescreen compositions - but ultimately, is a question of taste.

 

Good stuff.

[Andrew Trost]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Mark! Much appreciated.

[Paul Brenno]

I would actually start you reel at :33 (b/w shots), then go into the warm color scenes at :16. As a Cinematographer, that strikes me first, which I know Producer will notice in the first :30-:45 seconds. This will show your different lighting techniques and variety of shots. The more variety you show, the better it'll look

Edited August 14, 2014 by Paul Brenno

[Bill DiPietra]

Very nice indeed. The only thing I would change would be taking out the ECU of the eye at the start of the reel. Otherwise I'd run with what you have.

 

Also, you might consider captioning the clips with the project title & camera used.

[Andrew Trost]

@Paul - Thanks for the input! I definitely struggled with placement of the B/W images. You make a good point about variety up front.

 

@Bill - The more I watch the reel, the more I also really wish I had left it out! Not that it is too late to take out, but I'll probably wait for next year with more fresh footage and replace it with something better. Thanks for your input!