Papa. a little piece of my grandpa I shot earlier this spring.

wow this is really neat he has so much character would love to film something like this. The zoom in at 1:36 was a bit awkward besides that I really enjoyed this video.

Enjoyed that very much! Great work! Like the b&w gave me a sense of timelessness

That was really nice put together. Two minor things I didn't like that much was the zooming at 1.35 and that in one of your slider shots of a picture (forgot when it was) you could see you filming in the glass, probably hard to avoid but maybe if you had moved the photo to a place where the lights was coming in different that would have helped.

thanks everybody!

I kept the zooming in there, because it kinda added to the feel of the handheld stuff. just a personal choice to keep it in I guess.

As for the reflection shot, I noticed that as well and almost didn't include it...haha hoping not too many people will notice! ><

Just a quick question. How do you get that aspect ratio? I edit with Adobe premiere pro and I might be interested in doing something in this aspect ratio soon. Thanks +k

hey man, so this aspect ratio is a little over 3:1. I just created a Matte in FCP (which I am sure you can do in Premiere), edited with those Matte's over the footage. Exported as a quicktime movie and then cropped/exported it again through Quicktime Player 7.

Philip Bloom has a good little tutorial about it here (it's for FCP, but concept should translate to Premiere as well):

http://philipbloom.net/2010/03/16/how-to-export-and-upload-235-video-to-vimeo/

thanks!

This was so well done. I didn't think you'd be able to make time with so many shots of him but wow, I didn't lose interest one second

that was awesome man. b+w was clutch

Your grandpa started wwII :P

That was amazing. Very very well done. What was this filmed with?

really enjoyed that, very nice!

thanks everyone!

shot this on my t2i and Tamron 17-50. I packed super minimal for this trip.

Very nice, I always like the style of your edits they always seem very professional

yo that was sweet, I really enjoyed that. Seemed professional to the max.

Ok thanks a lot will look into it

Just a couple of notes I took down while watching:

-Audio sounded really good

-Loved the black and white

-Wasn't sold on the crop when I first started watching but it grew on me and I think I like it

Didn't like the snap zoom at 1:35, seemed forced and it was a bit shaky.

2:18 - Don't really know what the point of leaving color in the flower was. Seemed like you were trying to emphasize it, but I don't think it had anything to do with the story. Same thing with the eggs. It gave the shot more character, just wasn't feeling it

The slider shot with your reflection is super obvious. Next time try throwing on a polarizer filter, that should help eliminate a little bit of the glare. Won't get rid of your reflection, but it should help.

At 4:51 the cut to the feet was a bit awkward. I like the shot, but it didn't really fit in

Overall I thought it was reallly well done, good job

I really loved this video. you are very close to a great video however just not quite there. Simple things at editing can fix it and I think you will have a much more professional outcome.

First the rack zoom: heres why people dont like this, the human eye can not zoom, until this point we felt immersed in this story and environment. As soon as you make a camera technique aparent, you break that "suspension of disbelief," the audience now realises there is a camera and is taken out of that immersive feeling. Solution: just layer an other filler over this, done.

The colors: you may like this a lot right now because you feel its different, in a few years from now you will look back and think its amateur. You have to think why: everything in film has to be justified or lead to something you want to say. You left out color to create this ambiance and this sort of ode to the past. I liked that, now why the color, because it looks cool. it does, yah but serves no purpose. Example of a well used color key. I wanted to see a red rose, later on a blue medal or something like this which brought together in the same shot would form the american colors on a white background bringing to life his patriotism with parts of his past. This would have been very strong. In this case I would just drop the color keys since they only make the viewer think hmm whats this about, when they should realy be watching. again, all about the suspension of disbelief.

Last but not least, the reflection, be a perfectionist, that shot for me is never acceptable, no matter how much I love the shot or the idea. it must be re shot or simply taken out. I spent an extra 300$ to re shoot a final scene of a short film im working on because I could not stand the sky being too blue for my night scene. trust me I tried every post prod trick imaginable and this was the only option for me. of course I could have stuck with a bluer sky, most people wont give a crap, but I cant accept that.

Im writting all of this because I realy enjoyed this piece and I think with a little post prod your going to be pretty damm close to having your self not only a good video but a great one. keep it up man!

This was stunning.

Absolutely incredible man! Both you and your grandpa! +k

thanks again everybody for the critiques and compliments.

I went back and changed a couple things and left a couple things as is.

two main changes-

took out the color of the eggs.
replaced the shot with my reflection. I guess I was too optimistic with including that and thinking people may not notice me...but then it seems that everybody saw the reflection hahah so I switched out that shot.

things that I didn't change-

I kept that manual zoom in because personally I like it. I think it adds to the feel of the piece. I think it makes it feel more homemade and goes with a lot of the other shots because most are handheld. Mainly, this was a personal choice, but I understand the critiques about it. I tried both when I was re-editing it and kept it as is.

also, I kept the flower red, because at this point he is basically talking about the moment for him that it was life or death (infact he has a bullet hole in the hat that he was wearing when he got shot down) and I think a flower is often seen as a symbol of life.

very good idea for a piece. kept me interested the whole time. also makes me want to learn more about my grandparents. great job

So, disregarding everything i tried to help with about the suspension of disbelief and going with what you personally like? When i edit i try to realise what i am biased to and remove it if it doesnt serve a purpose or if most of my views will not be as fond of it as i am. Yes its your video and you do what you want with it, but unless you plan on not showing this to anyone and keeping it only for you, you need to concentrate on your viewer. You personally like the style of the zoom but the audience will feel distracted by it. I would remove personal preference and take the shot out. For the color, ias a viewer i should be able to understand the concept without needing an explination like you gave us. It makes sense but if you cant explain it with film language it has to go. Sorry for being so insistant but its frustrating to see such high pottential being stopped by personal bias.

yeah? there's no rules so you're wrong

Well done.

In a personal/raw piece like this I'd say all kind off effects is wortless (in lack of other words). Especially things like the "leave out color"-effect. That one little thing changes the mood of the whole piece from the moment it's shown.

Other then that I personally don't mind the rack-zoom at all, and thought you had a lot off good shots in there.

i really liked it and i'm gonna have to agree that the zoom at 1:30 was a little weird.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! It's a little piece that means a lot to me personally.

Because of all the comments, once I have some free time from other projects I may re-edit it and change the color and the zoom. However, at this point, it doesn't bother me enough to have to change it right now.

Yup, most of my family is from/lives in Duluth.

i remember watching this a while back. aweesoomee video, good story as well

Great Video. The aspect ratio is fire. Good shit.

The B&W is Sexy as fuck. You told of story of the past using no images from the past. Only relics and visual references. Also good shit.

Having a grandfather who was a WWII vet, this hit proper.

I've been considering doing something similar with my Grandfather (also a WWII vet). First hand stories of the War will most likely be lost as their generation slowly thins. I'm encouraged to log what my own father has to say about it after watching this. Well done. This is great and will hopefully live for as long as the internet allows.

Bless brother. May non-fiction storytelling remind us of the insane history of craziness in this world. You've done a great job to help preserve some of it. Proper shit.

The zoom was risky. Many people here seem to have been put off by it. I appreciate your attempt though. Whether it was planned or a split second type thing, keep fucking around. Playing at the margins will payoff big, you just have to stick around and reshape things to your vision a little bit to where they fit in the context of the video you're creating.

Keep it chill brutha. Peace and well done.