the shooting ground

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john ingham
Posts: 221
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:29 am
Location: Exmouth

the shooting ground

Post by john ingham »

I thought I would take the camera up with me , I was having a play with the rifle and doing a bit of zeroing,

https://vimeo.com/49980707
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
Jill Lampert
Posts: 113
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2011 8:04 pm

Re: the shooting ground

Post by Jill Lampert »

The great strength of your film is the cinematography. The visuals are a pleasure to watch. The framing is gorgeous. Every shot is absolutely steady. The music is just the job to enhance the sense that this is your feeling of being at one with things.

The problem is that the viewer is an outsider and it's difficult to be with you without knowing anything about your world and the context of the film.

To make this film more accessible to a wider audience, I would suggest:

a) Create a voiceover that tells us your thoughts/feelings, remembering that most of the audience has never been to a shooting ground.
b) Avoid repetition of shots
c) Try to make it a story which will give a viewer the feeling that it begins at a natural beginning and ends at a natural end. One way of thinking about this is to imagine yourself telling your friend about your feelings. When you do that, you are forced to find a beginning and an end that feel good to you. You may have to rearrange your shots to fit the story.

The fact that you have such a good eye gives you a head start.

Jill
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TimStannard
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: the shooting ground

Post by TimStannard »

I wish I was capable of shooting such great shots. Jill is dead right about you having a good eye.
In addition to Jill's comments - which are sound (although I recognise that you had tried to make a narrative out of it) I have one or two observations. Apologies if these seem harsh or picky, but I'm sure you'll take them in the spirit in which they are intended. And they're not necessarily "right", just my opinion.

1. Too many zoom outs. Personally I'd avoid zooms altogether unless there is a very good reason. In the case of a zoom out, this is normally a reveal, either to place something in context - either showing a mountaineer in action, then zooming out to reveal how very far up he is and/or the surrounding landscape, or an intriguing detail of something which you then zoom out to reveal what it is part of. In both cases the zoom out is motivated. In the first instance we understand what we are looking at and the zoom is used to change our perspective of the shot - it adds to our understanding. In the second instance we see something, but aren't sure what it it and the zoom provides the answer (Whilst writing this I suddenly remembered the opening titles of Thunderbirds were we saw a detail of each of the Thunderbirds followed by a zoom out, and a rotation, giving us the reveal). You have very nearly a good example of the second type of zoom in your film with the zoom out of the rifle. But in other cases, for example the bales of hay, did the zooming out actually add anything?

2. Cutting on zooms. As with pans it is generally best to let the camera movement come to a halt before cutting to a still shot. If you cut in the middle of a zoom to a still shot the viewer experiences the visual equivalent of - I was going to say an emergency stop, but hitting a brick wall might be a better analogy. I think you'd be OK cutting from the middle of one zoom into the middle of another zoom of similar pace - more experienced film makers might like to comment as it's not something I've tried (being rather traditional and "safe")

3. Crossing the line. Be careful of cutting shots together which reverse the action. You were good with the car at the beginning - always moving right to left (though we did see it begin moving from a standstill in two consecutive shots at 0:32 and 0:37) but most of the shots of the gun are of it pointing towards screen left, then at 2:37 we see you lying down with it pointing towards the screen right. Even though you'd put a neutral shot in between this and the previous shot of the gun, I'd become so accustomed to seeing it from one side, this felt like I was looking at someone else. That's personal and many would, I'm sure, disagree with me. However you then cut directly to another close up of the gun facing the other way.

4. The colour was way out on a couple of shots (eg 3:50). This was a great shame and a distraction as generally the colours were terrific. Also the shots around this time seemed to be hand held pans and thus not up to the high quality of most of the other footage in the film.

5. Music. Unless Vimeo did something to mangle it, you recorded the music at too high a volume. The lovely high quality piece was going along nicely until it peaked. Beginning at around 3:30 there is an intense section which is distorting horribly. In digital recording, unlike analogue you must never exceed -0dB

I loved the intro, by the way. It immediately creates empathy with the film maker if we see him/her - especially when you introduced the subject in such a confident and relaxed manner. I presume I don't need to mention the unfortunate wind noise, but I think in this case you would have lost more by leaving out that piece to camera. Right decision to leave it in.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
john ingham
Posts: 221
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 7:29 am
Location: Exmouth

Re: the shooting ground

Post by john ingham »

Wow!! Jill, Tim, a million thankyou's ..... that is what i want to hear.....when someone else tells you what they see. then and only then ,you can start to look and think what others are suggesting, the shot that was out of colour..i pondered for ages to leave in take out..i made the wrong choice ...

the wind...I know, I smacked my own wrist on that one..there were no excuses, I have a blimp :oops: my actual aim on the day was to capture some footage of deers, but none came to film, so decided just to take some stock footage..

voice over...... I am not confident enough yet, what with my devon tones , to me my voice comes over as a local bumpkin on helium
thankyou guys...as i have always said..please please tell me ........

john
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
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