Cactus Game Design Message Boards

As some of you know, I'm a university student and a film major. While I spend most of my time screenwriting and working as an Assistant Director, I also really enjoy editing. You tend to get pigeonholed at film school as "the writer" or "the AD" or "the sound guy", and so it's not often that I get to sit down with Final Cut. Occasionally, though, I get the opportunity to edit a project, and when I do it's always a lot of fun. Anyway, I thought I'd share a couple of those projects. Feel free to let me know what you think; I'm always up for hearing different perspectives on things I create.

Also, sorry about the quality. Uploading stuff onto the internet is always undesirable, but necessary.

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"Parked"

This is a short that my roommate and I did last semester. It was a project for a class, and the assignment was pretty open-ended, so we decided that the easiest thing to do was to shoot one of my roommate's short script ideas. I'm not much of a comedy writer, so it's always nice to work on projects like this. It keeps me sane.

Also, the whole thing was filmed on a Panasonic HVX with a budget of $0, if any of you care.



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"Efusjon"

This one is a promotional video that I did for a network marketing company that I'm involved with. This one was actually a lot of fun, because it was very different than the usual editing project; instead of just working with the footage captured on set, I was able to envision the entire thing from start to finish. It was a little bit like being a director, except without having to work with actors.

On a technical note, everything, from the cutting to the graphics to the audio mixing, was done in Final Cut Studio 2 or Photoshop.



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Comments? Thoughts? Critiques?

Yeah, Parked was pretty good IMO. I don't know too much about video editing... so I don't know how much I can comment on the construction of it.

One thing I did pick up on, there was one shot where it looked like the camera got bumped... need to watch out for that. 

The editing was solid, and you handled the transition from strange to comical very well. The only thing that really bugged me was that is wasn't shot on sticks.  I learned basic cinematography on the DVX (the non-HD precursor to the HVX) and really like that family of cameras, but they're too heavy and bulky to do clean handheld stuff.

Thanks.

We shot as much as we could on sticks, but Matt really wanted certain shots to be handheld (and there were others, like the ones inside the car, where we couldn't fit our tripod). I really wish Biola's film program would invest in a nice steadycam. The only cameras we have available for free rental are the DVX and the HVX, so any time you want handheld shots it's always a sacrifice. Give a little bit of quality, get the right framing. :-/

The promo was pretty cool, but it'd be nice to see a testimonial-type interview in there to help convey a feeling of authenticity, just so that it doesn't feel like it is pure theory, but that it has been tested by someone and works.  Also, keep in mind that the music & logos might need to be licensed.  I doubt anyone will care if a YouTube or Vimeo video is using their stuff, but it's possible.

Yeah, I was initially worried about using non-licensed music. However, since it's not an official video from the company, I'm hoping it will be okay. Also, good thought on the interview; I know just the person I'd talk to if I were to go back and do that. It would probably be a separate video, though, since this one is already a minute or two too long, IMO, but you're right that it could use a little bit of credibility.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

One thing I did pick up on, there was one shot where it looked like the camera got bumped... need to watch out for that.

Haha, I know. I was sad that we only got that shot once, and a little bit of the cranky perfectionist inside me died. The opening shot also kills me, but Biola doesn't have a fluid-head tripod for rental to students.