First off, love your camera. LOVE that you sped up those kicks and had some decent sound effects. Why no glass shattering effect when the head gets bashed in at the start? Snow seems like a pretty terrible way to stun someone, ha. Gun shot sound effects are TERRIBLE - very tinny with very little oomph. Is he hitting something? Where is that sound effect?
Both the actors kind of look like they're laughing as they fight - this should be effing INTENSE! TO THE DEATH!
Think you shooting is pretty good, editing is very nice, just could have got the actors to bring a little more life to the performance - also seemed like it was missing a lot of audio design work, just not enough time to fnish it up? You guys have a lot of stuff going right for you on this one, what fight are you going to submit to next? Excited to see some killer stuff in the future!
Overall I give this video a C+
[Disclaimer: I'm kinda tired and rambly, so this comment ended up pretty long.]
Thanks for the critique, Justin!
I'm going to try and address all of your points, explain the things I did correctly, how to avoid my mistakes, etc. and hopefully people will read this and find it useful. (It's like 3am, so this may actually be a dumb idea, I guess we'll find out.)
Firstly, I love my camera too. I really think shooting with a DSLR opens up alot of possibilities that were closed to lower budget film makers until recently.
All the speed ramping was done in After Effects with Time Remapping. I think it really adds a brutal edge to the fight, and can help sell a hit if it happened to be a little off at regular speed. I also added a little camera shake during some of the impacts. Also also, all of the bullet holes and the cracked window were added in AE, and every time an actor walked in front of them they had to be rotoscoped out, etc. I loves me some After Effects.
Ah, the sound design. I am a little bummed this was lightweighted in large part due to the sound design quality, because I actually spent the most time on it out of the whole process.
The Nikon D90's mic is kind of terrible and I didn't have anyone willing to be boom operator in the cold, so I scrapped all the audio and did the whole soundtrack from scratch.
I should mention I color graded and did effects in AE, but I did all the editing and sound design in Premiere.
All the punches and kicks were foley, I just recorded myself punching my palm really close to the mic (in Audacity), then I added some bass for a little more 'oomph'. Everything else was from Freesound.org, and it was pretty hit and miss. Mostly miss.
The face to window love scene is a good example. It was either a huge cartoony glass shatter, or a subtle glass crackle. I went with subtle (thinking the glass doesn't actually shatter per se, it just cracks) But the forehead impact sound swallowed it up. I could have searched more, but I felt like I was spending way more time on the sound design than I wanted to.
The gun shots were a similar case, it was a ton of automatic rifle fire sounds to wade through so I grabbed the first pistol sound and dropped it in there. The bullet hits however were pure neglect on my part. Or if you're kind, imagine he has terrible, storm trooper style aim.
What I'm learning from this is that sound design takes a lot of work, but it's essential to crafting an experience that draws your viewers in. If it's done right it's unnoticeable, but if there's something wrong people will pick up on it and it will take them right out of the film.
I started with the subtle noises; wind, the fountain in the background, and lovingly placing every snowy footstep. Then I tried to do the bigger sounds right after and I was burnt out, so once I got every sound I could think of in place I called it quits. What I should have done is taken a day off and come back to it when I could be more objective.
As for the acting, it was me and my brother so I wasn't ever behind camera. I really should have reviewed my footage after each take. I just said "Hey, it's cold, let's do 8 quick takes of everything then move on", and when I got it into Premiere I noticed we were grinning in almost every take. I did think I took that side mirror to the face like a pro though!
I really want to do an animation for the next minifight, but if that doesn't work out I'll still try and get a live action submission done in time for "Bad Trip."
All the effects were tremendous in this - I thought maybe you had like "gunshot" stickers you put on your truck -it looked DAMN convincing!
I liked the suspense of not knowing what he was going to grab out of the truck for a weapon! Nice bullet hits on the truck too! And wicked work on the cracking of the side window...heck, I may farm out my CG work to you guys!
this was really good! it just seemed a little off to have the visual of a jolt with every hit, but all you hear a tiny slap sound. that guy got totally MacGyverd lol!
ok this was a great film, I just have to say the sound effects need to be a bit more consistent with the hits. Punches need a bit more of a pow sound and the slaps well you know. Try not to use the same sound effects for all your moves.
Awesome affects on the blood, bullet holes, and the window. I'm glad to see it didn't disappear from the shot at the end. I tend to look for those things in movies I watch.
Can't wait to see what you have up your sleeves for the next fight.
u should have found better music, i liked the look of it, the blood in the snow looked good, the punches were different, ive never seen it done like that before but it looks nice, good job
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