I couldn't resist posting this link. No editing involved. You'll see.

[fcp.co]

10 minutes. I can't see a cut. Can you?

Best

Harry.

Hate to be the first one to throw a stone, but to have 1000 people acting in a piece like that and then decidedly crappy steadicam work just kills me. Why not bring on a real steadicam guy for $1k/day and cut 2 actors from the budget?

That said... it's cool. Really cool. Wish I could convince one of my corporate clients to do a large production like that with a small payoff in the end - I really do believe they work, and better than having the logo splashed over absolutely everything.

It's not Steadicam...it's a rig on the back of a golf cart or some small ATV vehicle (they forgot to mask it out of a window reflection @ 2:26).

Good idea / bad execution. The coordination of the thing must have been massive, but I thought it was corny...especially the handoff to the helicopter operator that reveals the advertisement "Experience Grand Rapids" in the grass at the end. Half the bridges were empty when they should have been full.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I was pretty bored. Yeah, it's one take, but it's also got the exact same curse of all long takes -- how do you hold interest? (Brian De Palma has this issue all the time -- you're stuck spending a massive amount of time to say very little)

Even though there were a lot of different people, it's still mostly people walking around, playing acoustic guitar and lip-syncing -- boring. The opening frame was lame -- accidental rather than meaningful. I was looking for an out after two minutes or so. They also didn't build enough dynamics into the structure. Starting with so many people, they "blew their wad" early. I'd say they should've cut the opening chorus, started with the quiet verse (which the original song does), and start with just one guy, making a proper entrance, such as emerging onto an empty street (unlike in the video, where he's just there).

Ambitious, yes, but I guarantee that filmmakers care a lot more about these "long takes" than audiences. It'd probably work very well if it had lots of ideas and were under two minutes. This video would've been better served if they'd done 60-to-120-second takes, cut together, so we wouldn't have to watch those awkward transitions.

Finally, does it really serve its purpose? I really don't see potential tourists sitting through the entire 10-minute exercise just because it has no cuts in it. This would've been a more effective three-minute video, and they bloated it to 10 minutes just for the sake of a technical obsession that was to the detriment of the feeling and the pace.


www.derekmok.com

derekmok Wrote:
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> I was pretty bored.

Totally agree. I bailed out after 3 mins. But my inbox has been stuffed with links to it for days, so who am I to say ?

you guys are pretty harsh.
This is about showing a community and try make people know about the town.
3.5 million views on Youtube.... I know a lot are from the folks in Rapid but still...

If you guys were bored watching it, I was smiling reading some comments: DePalma, $1K/day steady cam op, reflections of the cart in the window, bridges empty!!! :-)

I respect you guys a lot and don't take this the wrong way, but this time you missed the mark with your comments.... A little too "Hollywoodish"