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First things first: Don't call yourself a company if you're not. It's fine to call yourself switch up productions, but calling yourself a company means, as people said, you're doing freelance work/making money off your product.
In the first video:
-Avoid zooming with a DSLR. One of the disadvantages about DSLRs is that you can't zoom with them, that's just the way it is. Photo lenses are not meant for smooth zooms, they're pretty jerky. Zooming can work in some situations, like a kind of run and gun, handheld style, but if you're filming somebody hitting a rail, please don't zoom. Not to sound like a dick but this is something you should have known when you purchased your DSLR, as it is a well known con of these cameras.
-If you haven't purchased a new lens, you should. Lenses with variable aperture (meaning aperture changes as you zoom in) suck. This was apparent when you would zoom in and out; the image would flicker as the aperture changed. Buy a lens with a fixed aperture (an example of fixed is f/2.8, an example of non-fixed, or variable, is f/3.5-5.6).
-Constantly bringing things in and out of focus can be very annoying to your viewer and will make your video really hard to watch. Now part of the reason why this kept happening is because you were zooming. Photo lenses don't work like video camera lenses; as you zoom in, photo lenses will lose focus, whereas on a video camera you won't have that problem, which is probably what you're used to. And I know playing with your shallow depth of field is fun and shifting focus is cool, but it was happening constantly in every single shot, which gave off the impression that you weren't really sure how to use the lens.
-Major exposure issues. We should always be able to see the detail in the snow, especially on a sunny day. Look in the manual how to use your light meter to at least give you a starting point for setting proper exposure.
-I highly recommend using a glidecam when doing follow cams, and a tripod when you're standing still. Avoid shooting handheld with a DSLR.
-The tricks were pretty repetitive. Too many sketch 2 outs and straight slides.
-The shot at 1:27 was pretty cool, probably my favorite shot in this edit.
-Learn how to use musical cues a little more. for example, at 1:49 you had a great musical cue to go to another shot but you didn't use it.
Second video:
-You're off to a MUCH better start here. Looks way more professional right away.
-Make sure you're in focus. Still a few completely out of focus shots (I'm aware some of them were intentional, I'm not talking about those ones).
-Great job stacking filler footy. You had some sick shots in there.
-I enjoyed your color grading for the most part.
-Try not to do slight fast forward like you did at 0:33. If you're not doing time lapses, don't use fast forward. The kind of slight fast forward that you did on him shoveling is more awkward than anything. Playing that clip at normal speed would have been better.
-As far as the skiing shots go, I would have liked to have seen more variety and more angles. More tight shots, more pans, more tilts, etc. You should be trying to get enough angles so that on many shots you can start it at one angle, then cut to another.
-Summer edits can be pretty tedious, so keep them short. Cut out the clips that aren't quite good enough. I understand that your friend might want the shot where he did a switch up and came off a little early, but frankly those shots need to be left on the cutting room floor because they're just not interesting to other people.
-Once again, avoid zooming, especially with that non-fixed aperture lens.
Third video:
-Still too much playing with focus. You had some really nice intro shots of the painting, but they were kind of ruined by how much you were going in and out of focus.
-You missed a really nice music cue at 00:30.
-Nice shot at 00:45.
- What are you editing with ? If you're using FCP, learn how to conform your clips to get smooth slow motion. The shot at 1:16 was pretty jerky.
Fourth video:
-Not much to say about this one, pretty sick. Watch out for shots like the one at 00:31. You moved the camera so much that it really gave the viewer the impression that they were in fact watching a video, and that it was just some kid behind the camera pointing it at different things. You don't want that to happen. Keeping the edit to stabilized shots would have prevented this and it would have kept up the artsy vibe of this video.
Fifth video:
-PLEASE stop zooming with that lens!
-If you're filming a rail jam from the crowd, you REALLY need to be on a tripod. And you need to be getting smooth, stabilized shots without zooms or weird focus stuff. Kind of seemed like you were on a tripod later on, but there was still so much erratic camera movement that it was hard to tell.
-Your shots are overexposed. as you can see, there is hardly any detail in the snow.
- 1:04 i am amazed that guy survived.
-1:29 was a pretty nice filler shot, especially since the background wasn't blown out. Good work.
-Once again, too many falls and sketchy landings. Cut that shit out and keep it short and sweet.
-In the last part of the video, I got bored watching your friends walking around so I just skipped through it. That kind of stuff might be interesting to you, but if you want to build up a following of people watching your edits, you have to view it from the perspective of somebody who doesn't know any of you guys.
Sixth video:
-Right from the first shot I can tell you that the color grading is WAY too high contrast. I know the look you were going for, but you completely crushed the blacks; there is no detail in them. Avoid that, because you almost pulled off a sick looking color grade if it weren't for the blacks. That shot also lasted much longer than it should have.
-Once again, solid music cue at 0:22 that you passed up.
-I understand that all your friends want to be in the video and that puts you in a tough spot, but if both of your friends do a front 2, even if they're both clean, pick only the best one, ESPECIALLY if it's going to be in slow motion. Otherwise the edits will be very repetitive and boring.
-Missed another really good cue at 1:33.
-The shot at 1:50 is a great example of what is wrong with the color grading and how you could fix it. Look at the bush. The black areas are completely black, no detail whatsoever. Now look at the rail, completely white. This is called having your contrast way too high. The image would be a lot nicer if we could see more detail in each.
-Shot at 2:03 was dope, but the high contrast completely blew out your background.
-I think you should consider your music choices a little more. Try to pick music that fits the subject matter. Sure that song was sick but it was just a backyard session. The song would have been better suited to an epic jump edit, whereas this edit would have been more entertaining with a more lighthearted, fast paced song.
Seventh video:
-Once again, pick a song that fits the subject matter. When I first heard Midnight City I wanted to use it in an edit soooooo badly, and there were a lot of edits where I could have used it, but they were just summer messing around edits, and so I held off. It's just too epic to be used in an average edit imo.
-The song also lends itself to a lot of establishing and filler shots in the intro, but you went straight to the action, which was a mistake. Could have used that part of the song to build up excitement for the viewer. It also tells me that you're probably not going to use the first big drop of the song as well as you could have, and I'm not even at that part of the video yet.
-However, shot at 00:10 was real dope. Liked it a lot.
-I was right about not using the cue to its potential.
-I'm still seeing that high contrast grade at 00:24. The sky is completely blown out, the water and diving board are way bright, but the blacks are super dark.
-If a shot is shaky as hell like the one at 0:33 (or if anything else major is wrong with it), even if it's a useful filler shot, don't use it because the shot does nothing but lower the production value of your edit.
-Can't stress it enough, don't zoom!!!!!
-I would have loved to see way more angles. They were all basically the same.
-1:16 was a sick shot. I like how you followed him back down, but it also would have been cool if you had kept tilting up and just let him fall out of frame.
Hopefully I didn't come off as too harsh with those, I was just giving my honest opinion. Overall really nice work man! There are a lot of things you still need to learn and improve on but that's true for every single one of us and it's not a bad thing at all. Hope all this helps!
