NS Video Contest Round Two - Judging Thread

Typo: there are four judges, not five, sorry.

1) The opening shot is awesome- great motion, exposure, color, composition... VERY well done. The shot content and cuts work well with the music- great transition at 00:16. Overall, good use of camera moves, good color, and attention to lighting. Watch out for the heavy focus-falloff vignetting- it can be distracting and take away from a shot if its used too heavily. Also, when using smoothcam, be careful about the way it's utilized in shots with a lot of motion or changing exposure and subject- looks like there's a weird smoothcam jump at 00:29 when the skateboarder comes into frame and Smoothcam needs to readjust. Tweaking the smoothcam settings, or cutting up a clip into different pieces and working with each piece separately can fix this (if its something that you want to avoid- this could have been done on purpose as part of the shot transition too).

2) Nice images and colors, good use of DOF in the opening shots, but there are points where I'd rather see a deeper depth of field, for a longer period of time so you can digest the contents of the shot and get a little more out of them. It can get distracting when there's not enough in-focus matter for the eye to lock onto. The music provides a nice background vibe, and the editing pays close attention to the pacing and flow.

3) Timelapses of cloud movement are the easiest go-to, and everyone takes advantage of it (myself included), but the most interesting timelapses are often of different subjects, so don't hesitate to really seek out other options. Some interesting color correction with cool looks works well to highlight the difference between shots. The music could be played up, and the shots used to highlight the pacing better, if you work to more closely match cuts or dissolves to the sound. In the nighttime timelapses, don't hesitate to push your exposure a few stops and really let the mids get brighter- you can often find some interesting detail in the mids at night.

4) Excellent use of lockoff establishing shots. Sometimes people are so consumed with creating fancy camera moves that they forget that the most effective shots can often have no motion whatsoever. I'd prefer a lockoff with good composition over a forced dolly or boom shot any time! At 00:27 seconds, watch out for post vignetting on shots that have a light background... it can get overwhelming and look too fake and distracting if you're not careful. Music sets the mood nicely and works well with the pace of editing (or, vice versa) Last shot with the single leaf falling is a great way to close it out- its always VERY effective to use shots that can communicate the beginning or end of a piece symbolically without needing to say anything more... and this does just that.

5) Excellent tracking shots- smooth, but not artificially so, provides a good balance of realism and puts the viewer in the scene. Nice composition in the opening shots with the shadow. Weak bunnyhop- your stuntman needs to get the back wheel off the ground. The desaturated look fits the mood and message of the piece very well- upping the contrast and lowering the saturation even more can provide an even stronger effect- maybe not what you were going for, but still a cool look worth mentioning. The text works well, and the simplicity of the font and lack of treatment fits well with the vibe. I'd watch out for your title safe area with this... it works for Vimeo and Youtube, but even then its pushing the limits of where you want your text to appear. The ending is rather abrupt and could have benefitted from a fade to black- OR, if the abrupt cut was by design (sometimes it is), I'd suggest adding a second or two of black to the end of the timeline so that it plays through and the abrupt cut doesn't get lost with the end of the file.

bump. sup?

congrats to you guys! some great looking vids up there. looking forward to putting a vid of my own up in the future (once i replace my old laptop)

when will topic/week 3 be up?

FODT!!!

haha jokes

threads

They were all awesome, but i really liked #4. Good work guys.

BUMP

Don't worry guys, haven't forgotten about this - I haven't even had time to get on NS the past couple days. Math exam's over, I'm banging these out tonight. Sorry for the recurring delays, again, all my fault.

M

Yeah, I'll have mine done soon too. Every time I think about doing it, I'm in class can can't watch the edits.

Finally sorry guys!

1)Great video! Awesome vibe, reminded me of highschool longboarding with my friends. Colors were great, maybe a little to cranked on some of the leaf shots, be careful with yellow/orange and especially red, they'll bleed bad. Shots were composed well and all seemed pretty smooth too, whether you stabilized in post or not, looking sick man. I loved the song drop, shit was smooth. Obviously this is a 1 min only kind of thing but i felt so cut off like i wanted more and shit, but for 1 min you did great. One major thing i didnt like was the edge blur you put on the whole thing, not my style and personally took away from the beauty of some of the shots.

2)Solid little short, some great DOF in all of the shots, i liked the skater coming into the shot and being in focus, that kinda shit is way cool. Some of the shots were really blown out and some were exposed very well, easy to fix with color correction. One thing im kinda bummin about is it seems like you kinda just ran out side and filmed it in about 10 mins while your friend skated around, put time and effort into this, go somewhere cool, take your time. Only other beef is was that it was really short, which is okay but it was pretty repetitive so i was hoping for some change, which didn't happen. Otherwise, looking good.

3)jeremy, sick man, tons of really cool time lapses. Showing what fall is, i like that. One thing i noticed was that there were a couple different color balances in your time lapses, one specifically that was outside and very blue, gotta watch that. Also, some really blown out stuff that could easily be fixed (unless thats the look you're going for). Also, ive noticed this problems alot with dslrs, on one timelaps of the mountains, the "tan" color was really orange and looked off, dslrs tend to fuck that shit so be careful about odd colors and color bleeding. Keep it up man, look forward to your shit this year.

4) I love the first shot, setting a really good tone. I like the more muted look you were going for, something about industrial shots and really muted colors looks fucking awesome to me. I liked it kind of followed a story, gettin the boat out and sailing around, classic fall shit. The sound was AWESOME you got some great clips of the harbor boats clanking and shit, loved it. The end seemed kinda odd to me, you cut from mutes boat and marina scenes to a really bright tree and grass, just kinda threw off the mood, you get what im saying? just kind of abrupt, thats all. Otherwise really sick, keep it up.

5)Sweet man, great vibe, i liked the slowmo it was looking good, im guessing you're shooting 60p on a t2i or 7d right? looks nice man but dont abuse it. You really turned down your saturation, maybe too much, but i liked it. It was kinda slow though, the text was cool and it was a good message, but it was literally the same thing for the whole 1 minute. Also, alot of shaky shots, im assuming you were in a car or on a bike next to the biker so obviously hard to get a perfect shot, but try stabilizing in post, it does wonders. Other than that, it was sick, real nice to watch.

^excellent post

Spoke to Milos last night...he's been busy with school but he should be on soon to revamp this and get his feedback in. I let him know I'm here to help out when he's busy, so hopefully we won't have a gap in time like this again.

Ashley's right. I completely dropped the ball on this one but I had to prioritize other things first. Look for one more set of reviews coming by tomorrow night and then we're going to be off and running with a new idea, thanks to the brainstorming help of MatRich :)

Again, sorry - I feel terrible for being the asshole who dropped the ball. This is obviously old news but I think we can keep this contest awesome.

Cheers!
M

Hello friends, sorry I've been kinda all over the place busy recently... I can have my reviews up tonight! Great work and I hope everyones winters have started up well!

Fall Edit Critique*

First off great job everyone, every edit had some aspect that intrigued me to keep watching till the very end… NS is littered with so much uniform content it was great to see you guys striving for something different.

1. Great overall vibe to the edit, I really appreciated the look your color grading gave to the piece, kinda an aged film stock look…the spot focus/fall off focus seemed a bit overused to have it on every shot…but it did kind of make the edit seem like a dream sequence, just be weary of doing too much post blurring and focus work… and as Josh said, watch out for those smooth cam glitches. Great use of overlays in the beginning and the timing for most all the cuts fit the music and flowed really well…

2. Great use of closeups for the opening shots of your skaters, most filmmakers stay away from profile shots that close… but they look awesome and its a unique view. There is a lot of shallow depth of field in every shot, which is a great look but when it's overused it becomes dull. It was a short edit so the use of shallow DOF didn't get old. Nice cuts and I was into the the track.

3. Really nice time lapses and it looks like you did some hiking to shoot some unique angles of the valley. This edit kinda made me feel like winter was approaching because of the fast paced editing and snowmobile shots, it felt like your edit was about more than just leaves changing colors like some of the others. The main criticism I have for you is to stay away from the magic bullet preset filters, the stock swing tilt and vingetting look cool but they are becoming so played. Awesome work and im stoked to see timelapses remerging.

4. Great sound design, the clean audio really added to your piece and music. Also the framing of your shots really impressed me, the establishing shots and extreme closeups really added to your piece well. Editing matched the song really well, kind of a smooth rollercoster ride. Sailing doesn't really remind me of fall but this was done really well and the leaves at the end kind of tied it in. Colors were done well, overall great work.

5. Awesome follow cam of the bike, I'm not really sure what the bike riding is supposed to mean, but the angles were well done and cool to watch. I liked the song, a lot. It seems like you could have spent a little more time shooting this, I mean at least get him to do a legit bunny hop, or don't include it at all. As josh said maybe fade to black or smooth out the end of your edit a little bit. I would have loved this if some twist ending happened at the end, I was just waiting for him to get hit by a car or something… haha jk nice work.

To all the contestants I want to say thank you for participating. To the final five; congratulations on making it this far – it’s been a privilege to be able to pick apart your videos. Hopefully our cumulative comments will help you guys in future videos, regardless of whether you continue to participate in the contests or not (please do!!!!!). Might I recommend to anyone reading this thread not to just skip through the critiques to the one on the video that you liked/made; read them all and maybe go back and watch the corresponding video to see why we said these things – a lot of our points will be very similar. Just my two cents.

Anyways, to the juicy bit ;)

Nikula
I love the movement in the first shot; I think that going from tracking the leaf to that wider view provides a great opener to the video. At first I wasn’t a huge fan of the “blue-ness” of the color but upon watching it a few times, I realized that it just helps bring out the yellow of the leaf, well done!

I’d like to comment on the use of audio – I don’t know if you meant to, but the sound of the longboarder coming before he enters the frame gives the viewer a heads up of what is coming and allows them to further enjoy the image.

The effect in the next shot at :32 – the jaws/dolly zoom I think? – is great, nice use of that. However, it is around here that I got a little tired of the blurred vig. It’s a nice effect to use when you’d like to highlight something in a shot or two, but adding it to the whole video is overdoing it a little bit, I think.

Nice use of dolly in the last shot, although I probably would’ve cut it so that what the viewer sees is video only when the camera is moving. I would’ve actually ended the video there, too, with a fade to black instead of going to the next shot. I’m usually a sucker for sunsets, but this one just didn’t set well with me. The video was a little too upbeat to end on a nighttime shot – instead I wish it ended in the great sunlight of that dolly shot. To each his own, maybe.

Overall, a really impressive video. You captured some really fantastic images here and did a good job showing us what’s up.


lazf
One thing I liked a LOT about this video that I can’t say I see all the time is a sense of coherence – it felt like a piece, not a compilation of shots. Your shots flowed nicely, one into the next, and the movement of the camera in each one complimented that in the next. The music definitely helped, and overall it tied together nicely.

I touched on this before I think, but I like that the video is short – one of the challenges of the contest is to be able to condense your video into a minute long timeframe and you went above and beyond that by making a successful video within even shorter constraints - good stuff.

I love the way you edited to the song – you had a couple of effects and transitions and movements that went to the beat and it really helped accentuate your video. The song was a great choice too – it was funky and upbeat and kept me entertained. Good choice, fit the vibe and footage really well.

I’ll agree with what Josh said in that I was hoping for a couple shots with a deeper DOF just to change things up, but I’ll disagree with Evan in that I thought 1) even if the shots were blown out a bit, the colors still made sense to me – the leaves seemed spot on, and 2) it didn’t seem at all like you ran out and filmed it in ten minutes.


J-Munz
Nice video – I like that you used timelapse, I haven’t seen much of that lately. You seemed to get some pretty creative angles too, which I definitely liked.

I had trouble getting a consistent feel to the video because of the constantly changing colors – in some the setting was a glowing orange; in others it had a blue hue. In others, too the video was blown out. I think that while it differentiated your shots, it took away coherence from the video – watch out for that. The more ways you can link the shots in your video together, the better. Consistent color correction can help with that.

That being said, I really liked the colors in the shot at :09 – that warm orange with the dark mountain in the back looked really nice.

Nice clouds on :16 – wow.

In all, I would just watch your lighting and colors and try and keep them a little more consistent. You captured some fantastic images though, good video!


millinary715
I’m such a sucker for videos featuring water – especially when the colors look so good – loved the images you captured in this.

I think it is worth mentioning that I really enjoyed the titles, and while I thought that the vertical shift of the “marina” was a little much, I thought the use of bold/symbols was very neat and creative.

One thing I noticed, or at least felt was a bit odd, was that don’t marinas/boat owners pull their boats out of the water and shrink-wrap them for the winter? Would images of that have fit better? Just something to think about I guess.

I loved the music – fit perfectly and added a sense of delicacy to the video.

The shallow DOF shot at :14 is fantastic. I like that throughout the video you have a mixture of shallow and long DOF shots; it keeps the viewer interested throughout the video. Had you done all of one or all of the other for a minute long video, the eye gets used to the images and wanders – well done.

Personally I would’ve cut the video after the shot at :50 – I felt as though since the majority of the video was about water, the last couple shots with the grass/leaves seemed tacked onto the end – I would’ve loved to see it end with the boat masts in the foreground with the trees/changing leaves in the background – I think that shot said enough.

Overall, Kyle you capture great color with your camera and you have an awesome eye for video. I’m impressed, again.


MADDECENT
Very, very cool idea. I like that you thought outside the box, even when the contest didn’t require you to.

Being a nerd, I think you could’ve made the titles a little more concise, but the message was still the same.

I loved that the images were slightly blown out and had very little color – it gave them a very dreamy feel and really emphasized the feeling of passing time. The slow motion gave the feeling of waiting. The music very much so supported this, good choice. In my opinion this was a very effective way of visually and audibly getting your message across.

There are only so many ways you can film a bike, and I think you were pretty successful, having varied angles and heights and distances – good stuff.

The use of audio is really powerful here – that clicking of the wheel spokes is a really cool sound. I think it’s a little overpowering at first but it definitely puts an image in the mind. I agree with above in that I think the video ended too quickly. I would’ve liked to feel a more gradual outro, because with such a slow paced video, the sudden stop is disconcerting.

I really like this video and love that you were creative in both your idea and your execution. Thumbs up!




I want to apologize again for the delays; I hope I haven’t doomed this contest yet. I’m going to go ahead and this week SKIP the choosing of a winner – at this point you all have probably tuned out due to the delay and I’m just itching to move into something new. I’m considering changing the format of the contest and getting rid of that aspect completely, but I’m going to talk to Ashley as I set up the next one. I’ll have the new contest up in the next few days.

On that note, well done to all five of you – I hope you can make use of our comments and use them as you continue to make new videos!

bullshit guys. pick a winner.
 these peopl all put time and effort into these great edits. and you guys doddled on your end( berman excluded). pick a winner

I'm pretty sure these guys got what they wanted out of participating, and that's getting feedback from filmers that can give them tips and ends to improve their filming. And winning isn't going to do anything more. If the 5 participants decide that yes they want to know who "won"...then we can wait a little longer for the judges to get together to discuss it. Milos is dropping this part, as it doesn't really matter since the point of this contest is to improve everyone's overall filming, not to actually win. We wanna get the ball rolling on the next topic, not dance around the idea of a winner.

And in my opinion, they all win since they all get the same undivided attention to their video.

I dont look at this as something to win, but as a place to get feedback and get a subject to film.

woah thanks all, getting feedback from people we look up to is amazing!

Woah now there fella settle down. Yes, I dropped the ball on this, but that has really nothing to do with picking a winner considering that I was planning on dropping the "winning" aspect of the contest anyway. Calm down and think for a second - the winner really doesn't get anything for "winning" - all 5 benefit from having these awesome guest judges pick at their videos. Why not just cut the dead weight of the contest and leave it at that, eh?

In addition, if you have something to say you don't have to be a jerk; feel free to suggest new ideas and thoughts but be nice. I already acknowledged that I was late.

That is all. Look for a new thread up later this week.

Cheers!
M

will it be skiing related?

mehbeh :) In all seriousness we'll see though, it may not be because its tough to focus on aspects of videography while you're having loads of fun skiing.

We'll see though!

...

Could we PLEASE get another one of these contests going?