I actually copied the film and started doing some color grading but in the end I realized the potential critiques I might make were mostly directed at saturation and hue and a few things that I think I can just discuss here without posting "my" version of the video. I hesitate to comment on the actual videography as I'm not an underwater video guy but it appeared that the videographer, particularly in the early part of the video tried to get the whale into the entire frame instead of just letting it come up naturally which resulted in a very jerky section of footage. When the whale dives and in general when the whale is deeper it appears that the luminosity is maintained...it's not a lot darker...but the hue is increased which is understandable but then, as at 1:37 there is a pretty significant change to the hue. That's a pretty subjective choice I guess but I'd be looking to see if maintaining a similar hue wouldn't look better. Maybe not. 4:40 to 4:44 also has a large change in hue that absolutely could have/should have been corrected for. They are essentially the same scene but it's not just the hue there, the luminosity is also not corrected for. Then at 4:48 it switches back again. That section, 4:40 to 5:03 and beyond are why using something like Davinci or Premiere or Final Cut with scopes (does iMovie have scopes?) would make a huge difference. I think some of it is blown out (the whale belly) that could have been corrected for (if it's not fully blown out) and the dark/light differences could be more easily fixed although I'd think even iMovie could have done it better with more attention to the luminosity. As you jump around between the areas in 4:40 to 6:xx you see all sorts of changes in both hue and luminosity. Sometimes I just watch the luma scope because one gets wrapped up with the emotional content and doesn't even "catch" the change in luminosity or notice the change in hue (which you'd see in another scope). The slomo would have been done much better with a better NLE. It could have been a lot smoother with any of the three NLE's mentioned. It's not horrible but it could be better with a machine learning NLE (which I assume iMovie does not have). It is, however some great...great footage! I enjoyed the footage at the boat, particularly the early part with the Canon lens showing but around 6:50 where the white part of the boat was shown...and nothing else in the scene..that could have been edited out fer shur. Loved the freeze frame toward the end before the "Now it's up to us" title. What a fantastic experience. Our whale watching here in North Pole, Alaska is quite....limited
. This is the kind of footage that you may well want to come back to in a few...weeks..months...years (LOL) and re-edit. It's great footage that is well done and could be improved upon when you take command of a higher end NLE. Resolve will (IMHO) be the most powerful but will take a longgg time to master. Premiere will be in the middle and Final Cut the easiest to learn but does have some limitations, none of which would be hit with this footage. Great job and thanks for sharing. I hope my comments were understood as an attempt to be helpful and didn't come off as negative.
