My first Video - looking for some constructive criticism

[Scuddzy]

Total beginner, with Davinci Resolve and I have only had my Mavic Air since June. I'm Looking for a little constructive feedback for the first video compilation I made. It s a video of the town and house my dad grew up in. A cool Victorian home built in 1885 and the some sights around this idyllic rural Canadian village. Be easy its my first go at this.

 

[Mazdaman323lx]

The opening shot was great , but you went from a marine theme to church and grave yard shots quickly. If it was me and I'm only a newbie myself I would have kept the water based shots together as their own video.

 

[SmilingOgre]

Some very nice clear footage. Nice choice of background sounds or audio captures. The subjective part is that the scenes change too fast for me. I see a lot of this in advertising but it is hard for me to watch.

 

[THE CYBORG]

I am no expert so only my opinion for what it’s worth.
Some very nice shots & good sound effects.
BUT.
For me a lot of it was to fast.
I like the inside / outside of the house idea but I would have used a fade through transition rather than just a fast cut.
You have some good ideas so keep it up

 

[Scuddzy]

.
For me a lot of it was to fast.
I like the inside / outside of the house idea but I would have used a fade through transition rather than just a fast cut.
You have some good ideas so keep it up

Thanks for looking! I agree my transitions were totally a weak point, any chance you could point me in the right direction of a fade through transition? I struggled with the speed, being new to this, i felt like clips were either far too long in duration to play at normal speed, but playing a shortened normal speed clip didn't give the footage the credit it deserved. I think i need to somehow find a balance.

 

[Scuddzy]

Some very nice clear footage. Nice choice of background sounds or audio captures. The subjective part is that the scenes change too fast for me. I see a lot of this in advertising but it is hard for me to watch.

i cant seem to think of away to link the scenes together in a way that makes sense, i think i did a good job with the flight leading to the church, but the rest of it didn't jive.

 

[Scuddzy]

The opening shot was great , but you went from a marine theme to church and grave yard shots quickly. If it was me and I'm only a newbie myself I would have kept the water based shots together as their own video.

Ya that may be the direction i have to go. It makes sense for the (really limited) intended audience, but not others. I really LIKED the textures on that iron train bridge and rusted water tower.

 

[vindibona1]

You asked for critique, so here it is. I will try to be as constructive as I can. In no way should any of my thoughts be taken beyond trying to describe what I see and what I think could make your video even better.

You have lots of good footage. Actually some terrific footage. I loved the opening shot. I liked you going under the bridge. I liked some of the rushing water shots. But I think if there are elements I'd list to think about to improve this video they would be:

1)Keep it simple and direct unless you have a particular purpose. This applies to video and audio. Anything that isn't simple is a distraction and takes away from the quality of your production. Other elements listed below illustrate some of what I'm getting at.

2) Be deliberate both in filming and editing. Let your ideas guide you to you edits and effects. You don't have to throw every trick in the book at something. Allow your footage to speak for itself. Many of the shots were so good they didn't need "sweetening" with effects. Know not only what you're going to show in the final edit- but why. Don't duplicated footage without purpose, especially just for special effect's own sake. [0:18-0:35] When you do use special effects, keep them tasteful, again with deliberate purpose. Something that was branded into my brain many years ago was "When you overdo a special effect it is no longer special". I found some of the speed ramping unnecssary and/or overdone. Your footage is too good and didn't need it. Sometimes a gentle zoom here or that can provide additional unique perspective. More angle variety would have fully explore the bridge and immediate area.

3) Continuity and flow. This applies to both sound and video. Pay particular attention to the continuity of your sound. While counter-intuitive, breaks in sound are much more psychologically disturbing and disruptive to the viewer than breaks in video. One techinque for avoiding the jarring audio is to work into the next audio segment BEFORE jumping to the video portion of the scene. When appropriate that sets the view up for what comes next visually. Not to beat this to death, but really pay attention to how the sound glues a piece together or fragments it.

4) Be careful that your transitions don't call attention to themselves. There were a couple spots...

5) Make (and/or keep) your theme obvious. I really didn't understand why you totally broke away from the bridge/water theme. You were doing so well. I think you might have explored that area to a greater degree. I'll bet you have other great footage that you didn't use. I would have left out everything after 1:25. It seemed like a totally different theme with a story behind it that you could have stand on its own and wasn't a contiguous part of the first 1:24.

6) Don't be afraid to walk away from your project and come back to it looking at it with fresh eyes and ears. Don't be afraid to make multiple revisions.

Again, I think much of the footage is terrific and it looks like you have a handle on Davinci Resolve. I know this has the potential of being a terrific short video. BTW... I liked some of the video footage so much I was wondering if you would share some of the technical specs; drone, camera settings, Davinci Resolve settings and anything you can and would like to share.

 

[Scuddzy]

You asked for critique, so here it is. I will try to be as constructive as I can. In no way should any of my thoughts be taken beyond trying to describe what I see and what I think could make your video even better....

2. Wow thanks for your detailed reply/critique. A lot of these comments are hitting the same themes so, over some time I'm going to rework the footage into separately theme videos, with less 'attempted effects.
-Water theme, -The house, -church, -water tower and broken architecture ,-graveyard


3. I've never done anything with sound before so this was all knew to me - getting the sound of the locks to appear more distant in distant shots etc. Audio was worked as an afterthought to the video, BUT i think im hearing you say it should be considered while cutting the video. That's something that didn't dawn on me. Thanks!

4 Overwhelming advice seems to be i need to do away with the transitions or make them much much more subtle Im going to do this .

5. You couldn't be more correct, I have a literal shitload of footage, I drove 2 hours at before dawn on 3 separate occaisions running through a total of 11 batteries on the drone. Probably close to 160 mins of flight time, all of that either setting up a shot and filming. There was something cool to film every where i looked. I also attempted doing ground level cut scenes with a go pro but couldn't get the footage to match the Mavic Air. This isn't at all wasted footage or bad though, the cold/snowy season will be coming soon where i wont be flying and id like to have a bunch of footage stock piled to work with, re-work and learn from. It's a long winter.



Im basically a hack trying my best to learn off off the davinci resolve online books, this forum and youtube. Drones are pretty new to me although i've done some video stuff with Gopro's. I don't ever expect to be a great film maker but id like to get to the point where i can make something and its all around good with no obvious/ glaring weak areas.

Settings:

I used Mavic Air filmed at 25fps (mistakenly set timeline settings to 24fps), filmed in 4k although I rendered in 1080P as i don't have a 4k monitor yet. I used a polarized ND4 filter for the water scenes to take glare reflection off water/ rising sun. I'm open to sharing whatever even footage, I'm just not sure exactly what settings would be interesting/helpful to share.


Learning curves,
As far a shot selection and angles there was an amazing video on Namibia posted by @rikk08. that I want to dissect and really study how he used different angles and cutting into the sound. I think i can learn alot. I find it fascinating how your brain doesn't even realize these subtleties unless you really really focus on each aspect of what your eyes are seeing (angle, framing, directional movement, relation to sound etc).

The one major thing i learned was footage looks drastically different (colouring) depending on time of day, especially in the rising sun even if only shot 4 or 5 mins apart.
I know i don't know enough about colour space settings, and how that effects input and output in Davinci, I also tried using LUTS, in an attempt to make it easier to match up colouring as the sun rose the colouring of the footage was getting too distinct and didnt match, and that was a disaster.

Thanks again for taking the time!

 

[vindibona1]

2. Wow thanks for your detailed reply/critique. A lot of these comments are hitting the same themes so, over some time I'm going to rework the footage into separately theme videos, with less 'attempted effects.
-Water theme, -The house, -church, -water tower and broken architecture ,-graveyard


3. I've never done anything with sound before so this was all knew to me - getting the sound of the locks to appear more distant in distant shots etc. Audio was worked as an afterthought to the video, BUT i think im hearing you say it should be considered while cutting the video. That's something that didn't dawn on me. Thanks!

4 Overwhelming advice seems to be i need to do away with the transitions or make them much much more subtle Im going to do this .

5. You couldn't be more correct, I have a literal shitload of footage, I drove 2 hours at before dawn on 3 separate occaisions running through a total of 11 batteries on the drone. Probably close to 160 mins of flight time, all of that either setting up a shot and filming. There was something cool to film every where i looked. I also attempted doing ground level cut scenes with a go pro but couldn't get the footage to match the Mavic Air. This isn't at all wasted footage or bad though, the cold/snowy season will be coming soon where i wont be flying and id like to have a bunch of footage stock piled to work with, re-work and learn from. It's a long winter.



Im basically a hack trying my best to learn off off the davinci resolve online books, this forum and youtube. Drones are pretty new to me although i've done some video stuff with Gopro's. I don't ever expect to be a great film maker but id like to get to the point where i can make something and its all around good with no obvious/ glaring weak areas.

Settings:

I used Mavic Air filmed at 25fps (mistakenly set timeline settings to 24fps), filmed in 4k although I rendered in 1080P as i don't have a 4k monitor yet. I used a polarized ND4 filter for the water scenes to take glare reflection off water/ rising sun. I'm open to sharing whatever even footage, I'm just not sure exactly what settings would be interesting/helpful to share.


Learning curves,
As far a shot selection and angles there was an amazing video on Namibia posted by @rikk08. that I want to dissect and really study how he used different angles and cutting into the sound. I think i can learn alot. I find it fascinating how your brain doesn't even realize these subtleties unless you really really focus on each aspect of what your eyes are seeing (angle, framing, directional movement, relation to sound etc).

The one major thing i learned was footage looks drastically different (colouring) depending on time of day, especially in the rising sun even if only shot 4 or 5 mins apart.
I know i don't know enough about colour space settings, and how that effects input and output in Davinci, I also tried using LUTS, in an attempt to make it easier to match up colouring as the sun rose the colouring of the footage was getting too distinct and didnt match, and that was a disaster.

Thanks again for taking the time!

I'm largely in the same boat as you, being relatively new to flying and digital video. Like you, I don't own a 4k monitor yet. I got my desktop computer/monitor only a year ago not imagining that I'd be doing video editing at all. At some near point I'll have to invest in one of those, probably after I get my Part 107 and can go after paid work.

As you've discovered as I have, Davinci Resolve can be a pretty intensive learning curve. Color grading can take time to learn but not especially difficult once you understand how it works. Have you had any experience with Photoshop? But since sound was, IMO, one of the biggest areas that needed revisiting, have you experimented with Fairlight yet? It's pretty powerful considering it's a module within a video editing program, but fairly intuitive if you've worked at all with sound. How did you record your ambient audio tracks?

 

[The Scary Monsters]

Total beginner, with Davinci Resolve and I have only had my Mavic Air since June. I'm Looking for a little constructive feedback for the first video compilation I made. It s a video of the town and house my dad grew up in. A cool Victorian home built in 1885 and the some sights around this idyllic rural Canadian village. Be easy its my first go at this.

Great!!
VERY well composed shots! Incredible use of the light. Seemed fresh and not boring like the usual stuff we see here lol

Try and reign in your speed ramping a bit, try only using that to tell a story, not so much of using it because you can.

Amazing stuff though, I’m a pro producer and could work with your vision with some minor tweaks.