New Project - Dogs

I would like feedback on a project I'm just finishing up for a client. I am open to criticism and advice - it's obvious I shot the whole thing handheld and I could stand a lot of improvement on my shooting skills (is it just a matter of muscle strength and paying attention to horizon?)

I tried to edit as best I could with no real "story." The story is just a couple hours spent with the client and her dogs trying to get interesting, active footage that she would be able to enjoy. I decided to divide the beach shots from the woods shots into two separate parts rather than mix them all up.

I struggled with the closing credit segment in Motion. There's a sudden disappearance of the black rectangle just as it's leaving the screen and I posted a query about this in the Motion forum with no responses yet.





Thanks!!! Jamie

I mentioned this on your last "dog" project and I feel the same here: You're using way too many transitions. Why so many dissolves? Just do cuts. They're a lot snappier. This thing's also far too long. I think you have to be a lot more brutal in your shot choices. Even when you have what you consider five good shots, very often you should whittle them down to two or three. When you use too many shots for a beat, beyond the point where the audience has already gotten the point and is ready to move on, the shots cancel one another out rather than augmenting the experience.

I think you should take a step back. You're jumping ahead to techniques -- special effects, titles, transitions -- before you've actually really honed the content to a concise state. Take out the music and do a cuts-only version, and get it down to three minutes. Then play with the toys.


www.derekmok.com

Okay, so take the transitions out and just leave the hard cuts. And take out the fourth and fifth shot of the dog splashing across the water... is this basically the gist?

I feel like such a hack. The tools are so powerful and attractive, I want to make the client happy, but I want it to be GOOD, and it seems like it's so hard to pinpoint exactly what that is... I know when I'm making a painting when I think it's good or not, and usually the client doesn't really know the difference. With video, I am having a hard time knowing if it's good.

Anyway, thanks for looking and giving the feedback. I AM going to improve. I am going to improve. I am...

> The tools are so powerful and attractive, I want to make the client happy, but I want it to be
> GOOD, and it seems like it's so hard to pinpoint exactly what that is...

You're not alone. Every editor starting out is infatuated with the tools. I remember being told by my Adobe Premiere instructor: "Don't start doing titles!" I did'em anyway.

But think of it this way: When you paint, do you try to mix watercolours, graphic pens, charcoal and oils on the same canvas just because they're there and you know how to use them?

Viewers don't care about techniques. They care about content. So it's not that you can't use transitions and effects; it's that you need to make sure you have substance before you start the flashy stuff. My first big job in L.A. was a reality show where I beat out about a dozen other freelance editors -- not because I knew more effects and tools, but because I knew fewer. But I spent a lot more time pacing the content, choosing the takes and making the structure snappy and logical. Cut for decisiveness, rhythm and logic, not superfluous "smoothness" between two shots. I call this "cutting with your brain" rather than "cutting with your eyes".

When you start out, stick to cuts for now. And don't look at cuts; look at the overall flow of the sequence. Above all, editors need to think macro, not micro. It doesn't matter if every cut is smooth or if a certain shot is pretty if your overall scene doesn't make sense.

When I watched your dog videos, I had the sense that I was often watching a lot of takes of the same thing. The dog actions are cute, but you need to get across the cuteness and then move on. Think of that YouTube "panda sneezing" video. Did you need more than one shot for that? No. Because it was much funnier to see the big panda react in the master to the little one sneezing. And people loved it, even though there was no coverage at all. A lot of your shots are good, well above average. You just need to sell them and make sure that if you have Shots A, B, C, D and E, and shots A and C are superb but B, D and E are merely good, that you don't try to use all five unless you have a very good reason for doing so.

For a reverse study in how too much coverage can ruin scenes, look at Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior. Great action choreography ruined by the director's obsession with repeated action, his unwillingness to sacrifice good shots to make the great ones shine. The indulgent repeat cuts made some of the big fight finishes look like a joke.


www.derekmok.com

IMHO, your shooting skills are not bad at all, given the circumstances.

I felt Robert Capa's dictum could have been useful: "If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough." For example, you could fill the frame with the dogs' faces, or even just their happy, wagging tails. Pre-fixing the focus in the water, and allowing a dog to run into it could provide an opportunity for some interesting slow-motion, again just about filling the frame.

I noticed that you avoided the owner's face. Perhaps that was her decision. Yet a glimpse of delight in her face might have been a nice touch.

This point has also another relevance. One of the better pieces of marketing advice I ever read was this: if you want to impress people, find a way of sending them a photo of themselves! It is impossible for us to ignore pictures of ourselves.