Lay it on me

Hey there Rena.. Well.. first off, it's hard to gauge you as an editor from the stock shots.. but my first impression is that it moves WAY too slow. What you need to do is go shoot some stuff on your own.. even if you have a non-subject.. and a crappy camera. Go shoot a friend walking around. Get a bunch.. and I mean a BUNCH of different shots. Extreme close-ups of eyes.. REALLY wide shots.. medium shots.. out of focus.. rack focus.. qucik whip-pans.. shaky camera.. a BUNCH. Give the person a prop.. like some flowers.. Have them throw the flowers at ya.

Ya see?.. Really simple.. Then edit the shots to the same piece of music (which was a good choice BTW) and see what you come up with. You couldn't use that as a reel, per se.. but it would give us some way to gauge how you can edit.

The reason why the stock shots don't work is because there is no real sense of rhythm there. The shots only last for as long as they do.. The stock shot has a head and a tail. How are we to know that you didn't just stick them in the timeline.. one after the other? Of course, we know that you worked a lot harder on it than that.. but it's just the wrong sort of footage to be working with.

I'm not being mean here.. but a monkey could have edited that piece. The paramount skill that an editor needs.. is a sense of timing. Let's see what you can REALLY do!

I hope this helps :D .. and GOOD LUCK TO YOU!

Hello again Rena! I'm so glad you found my post helpful. I was afraid that it might have been taken too harshly.. eventhough I didn't mean it to be. My best friend who has been in the business for years, went out and bought a cheap little FLIP HD camera.. He gets GREAT shots with it! So, despite your consumer camera.. I can't wait to see what you come up with! :D

In the meantime.. here's a link to an indie film that I'm working on called "FrIEND". http://shorts.creativecow.net/film/friend-trailer

Now it's your turn to give me YOUR critique.. heh heh..


Take Care Now!


Curt