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Commercial edited in FCP 6.0
Posted by markshyers
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Re: Commercial edited in FCP 6.0 April 12, 2011 07:05PM |
Very nice use of Shallow Depth of field and focus.
How much did Apple and AT&T pay for product placement?
How much did Apple and AT&T pay for product placement?
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Re: Commercial edited in FCP 6.0 April 12, 2011 10:47PM |
Quick First impression: Did not know what it was about until I watched it a second time. If this is a commercial spot, you only get one chance to make a first impression and you have to do it on the first try.
I think there is too much Swing Tilt (DOF). Text is hard (almost impossible) to read on the phones (dark / blurry). Since that is where your silent dialog is it is important to get that point across. I would have composited the phone screens clean.
You didn't actually do this for a client without permission from Apple, did you? Prepare for a C & D letter from their lawyers if that airs.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
I think there is too much Swing Tilt (DOF). Text is hard (almost impossible) to read on the phones (dark / blurry). Since that is where your silent dialog is it is important to get that point across. I would have composited the phone screens clean.
You didn't actually do this for a client without permission from Apple, did you? Prepare for a C & D letter from their lawyers if that airs.
When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.
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Re: Commercial edited in FCP 6.0 April 12, 2011 11:27PM |
The photography looks pretty good. But you spent too much time -- and way too many cuts -- on the "texting" part.
To be honest, I think this "texting" concept is being done to death. Yahoo has a concept like that, and so does Google. Even at the 0:04 mark, you already did two unnecessary jump cuts and four different angles. None of those angles was that great that you needed to sacrifice continuity to squash all of them into too short a time. That shot of her at the table, out of focus, doesn't serve a function. I would have taken that out, let her enter the diner in one shot (rather than the ugly jump cut), and then let her sit down in the shot outside the window, which conveyed a point of view and made the story more interesting.
The actual texts had the opposite issue. It's interesting how shots work. You stayed too long on the texts. If you had cut them back and forth faster, we wouldn't be trying to read them, and I'm convinced you wouldn't actually have a problem as long as we saw the first "Hello, beautiful" in a nice, big, steady close-up insert. The details of the conversation are irrelevant. But by shooting with such shallow focus and staying too long on each phone shot, you led us to try to read the text...impossible.
Really, the only two relevant texts to the story were "Hello, beautiful" and "Turn around". Should have shot those ultra-clear (possibly done them as composites, as Joe suggested), taking your time, and then all the ones in the middle could be montaged much faster so that we get we're not supposed to read each of them.
I feel the commercial didn't quite have its priorities right. You spent so much time with the vague interaction...and then almost no time at all with the final message telling us what the business is. Those things tend to have to stay onscreen for at least 2.5 to 3 seconds. I've never had an agency that didn't go crazy any time the end message is shorter than two seconds, unless it's just a simple logo. Your final card was only two seconds...and you made it last a lot less than that by using a dissolve at the end.
Most importantly, the product shot was from a bad angle. It didn't show the beauty of the earrings (?) (or, if the earrings aren't good-looking enough, you have a different problem). It's the punchline to your whole piece. If you don't get that right, then it'd be a lot like those Geico commercials with the talking animals. Nobody I know, including myself, ever gets what talking beavers (?) have to do with insurance, so we get annoyed at those commercials because they're too smartass for their own good. I think you should have done a macro-lens, beautifully lit shot on that ring, flares in the background, the works. Otherwise it doesn't pay off the rest of the story, which wasn't particularly unique to begin with. (Though the back-to-back two-shot was nice)
www.derekmok.com
To be honest, I think this "texting" concept is being done to death. Yahoo has a concept like that, and so does Google. Even at the 0:04 mark, you already did two unnecessary jump cuts and four different angles. None of those angles was that great that you needed to sacrifice continuity to squash all of them into too short a time. That shot of her at the table, out of focus, doesn't serve a function. I would have taken that out, let her enter the diner in one shot (rather than the ugly jump cut), and then let her sit down in the shot outside the window, which conveyed a point of view and made the story more interesting.
The actual texts had the opposite issue. It's interesting how shots work. You stayed too long on the texts. If you had cut them back and forth faster, we wouldn't be trying to read them, and I'm convinced you wouldn't actually have a problem as long as we saw the first "Hello, beautiful" in a nice, big, steady close-up insert. The details of the conversation are irrelevant. But by shooting with such shallow focus and staying too long on each phone shot, you led us to try to read the text...impossible.
Really, the only two relevant texts to the story were "Hello, beautiful" and "Turn around". Should have shot those ultra-clear (possibly done them as composites, as Joe suggested), taking your time, and then all the ones in the middle could be montaged much faster so that we get we're not supposed to read each of them.
I feel the commercial didn't quite have its priorities right. You spent so much time with the vague interaction...and then almost no time at all with the final message telling us what the business is. Those things tend to have to stay onscreen for at least 2.5 to 3 seconds. I've never had an agency that didn't go crazy any time the end message is shorter than two seconds, unless it's just a simple logo. Your final card was only two seconds...and you made it last a lot less than that by using a dissolve at the end.
Most importantly, the product shot was from a bad angle. It didn't show the beauty of the earrings (?) (or, if the earrings aren't good-looking enough, you have a different problem). It's the punchline to your whole piece. If you don't get that right, then it'd be a lot like those Geico commercials with the talking animals. Nobody I know, including myself, ever gets what talking beavers (?) have to do with insurance, so we get annoyed at those commercials because they're too smartass for their own good. I think you should have done a macro-lens, beautifully lit shot on that ring, flares in the background, the works. Otherwise it doesn't pay off the rest of the story, which wasn't particularly unique to begin with. (Though the back-to-back two-shot was nice)
www.derekmok.com
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