Patrick Haighgannon's brilliant DLP video.

[AndyJ]

As requested, some feedback on the video =)

haighgannon/disney_montg_vid/index.html

Great things in the video:
The opening shot of the plane in the air.
Mickey straight after, showing just what the subject matter is.
Interaction with the kids next, so we know this is a family video.
When you wish upon a star framed by a "Wishes" firework. I've just done this in my (unfinished) Florida Montage with a one of the Star based fireworks.

Loads of character interaction and the kids having fun.

"Scene setting shots": Outside of Space mountain, then the queue, then the ride itself. Walt loved this sort of thing.
Same on Thunder Mountain and the castle later.

Shots into the sun of the Orbiter I loved.

Nice smooth pan accross the bag-jump of the car show. Very neat. You have often made a great choice of pans or not.

Very well exposed Fantillusion footage and fireworks.


Couple of small Ideas:
De-Interlace.
I would have used the sound of the fireworks at the end to go out with a bang!


A great video. Love it.

[phgannon]

Thanks Andy for your feedback on my video and I'm glad you liked it. Thanks also for pointing out the bits that you especially liked - just the kind of info that I was after. It's always good to get the opinion of another videographer such as yourself.

Not a lot of people have picked up on the matching of images to lyrics - this video is about a month old now and has been shown to a number of friends and family before it went on my website. There's a few image associations with lyrics in there. Can you spot anymore?!

I'm a strong believer of using establishing shots to set the scene because the audience needs to know where they are or they'll just get confused and stop watching. You see establishing shots all the time on TV and in movies but you don't often think about it. There is, when you think about it, quite a lot to remember when you're filming... establishing shots, cut aways and / or reactions to things happening (like the shots of my stepson watching the Stunt Car Show), varying shots (wide, medium, close up) but without zooming, etc. I have to say that shooting the Stunt Car Show was very hard as I'd never seen it before and had no idea as to what was going to happen or where the cars were coming from next. But I didn't want to shoot the whole lot in wide angle. Knowing that I needed a variation in shots to make the final edit work made it really hard!

When it came to filming on the rides it's quite a different thing to film on It's a Small Small World compared to Space Mountain Mission 2! I had to ride SM a few times before I plucked up courage to hold my little camera on the ride. I was terrified about dropping it during mid loop as I'd only had it a couple of months. I do like the bit on SM when it goes through the red neon spiral.

I'm going to export the video again tonight and try and de-interlace it in the process. I take it that it'll just be a tick box somewhere in the export options of Premiere Elements. I had been wondering how to get rid of those pesky lines that show up on white/bright subjects/objects (like when Mickey's waving at the camera).

I couldn't use the sound of the fireworks at the end because we were so far away it sounds quite faint on the soundtrack. The Disney fireworks are always so quiet! I suppose they want the show without the bang otherwise it ruins their soundtrack. I could find a firework effect from somewhere to use as an overdub. In fact I'll try that and see if it works or not.

Generally speaking I didn't want to use the audio from the video clips. Not because they're useless but because the cuts are so quick (sometimes just a few frames) that the soundtrack would have been all over the place. I knew from the outset that I wanted a slow and dreamy opening, a fast middle and a slow down at the end so that the film had a sense of dynamics or light and shade. I didn't want it all to be at the same pace because, again, the audiance switches off. The idea to use Don't Stop Me Now by Queen came easily. The only problem with the track is that it's quite short and I would have really welcomed an extra minute or so because there's tons of stuff that had to be left out.

To overcome this the plan is to create a DVD with the montage as the main feature and then have other items on the DVD menu - one for the rides, one for the character interactions, one for Wishes, etc. These sections would still only last 3-4 minutes each but would focus on just that so you get more detail on each of the sections. We really did get a lot of time with the Characters and our kids love them... well, most of them anyway. I think Josh's reaction to Tweedle Dum is fab - his face says it all. He actually says "so silly" at the end when Tweedle Dum walks away but it's too faint to hear properly. Shame.

Thanks again for the feedback and the tips. It's been really useful.

[Andre]

Re holding the camera on rides: wrap the strap around something solid, such as your wrist. Or even loop it through a belt-strap if you're really paranoid. You may still drop it of course, but you won't lose it.

DLP fireworks are specially designed to be almost silent, as the local residents made complaints about the shows being too noisy at 11pm every night. You can see their point, but it is a shame. You could always dub in some firework noises from elsewhere, one big bang is very much like any other!

I spotted some of the lyric links too -very cute.

I agree with using music rather than too much live audio - just the odd few audio snippets work very well. The whole of the edit has been very well thought out, and as you say you make great use of cutaways.

Not sure if Premiere Elements has a de-interlace for web option, I tend to do it the hard way via VirtualDubMod plugins (I'm a glutton for punishment). If you use DivX encoding for your video, I know there's an option in their encoder settings.

Andre

[phgannon]

Originally Posted by andrewilley

Re holding the camera on rides: wrap the strap around something solid, such as your wrist. Or even loop it through a belt-strap if you're really paranoid. You may still drop it of course, but you won't lose it.

DLP fireworks are specially designed to be almost silent, as the local residents made complaints about the shows being too noisy at 11pm every night. You can see their point, but it is a shame. You could always dub in some firework noises from elsewhere, one big bang is very much like any other!

I spotted some of the lyric links too -very cute.

I agree with using music rather than too much live audio - just the odd few audio snippets work very well. The whole of the edit has been very well thought out, and as you say you make great use of cutaways.

Not sure if Premiere Elements has a de-interlace for web option, I tend to do it the hard way via VirtualDubMod plugins (I'm a glutton for punishment). If you use DivX encoding for your video, I know there's an option in their encoder settings.

Andre

See more...

Thanks Andre for your note. I don't think that I had the strap with me but I'll try and remember it in future because I would have felt a heck of a lot safer with a strap around my wrist!

Like I wrote in my reply to Andy I'm going to try dubbing a firework effect on at the end to see if it works. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it if it doesn't work because I think it works nicely already. Shame I couldn't squeeze in some more fireworks shots but that'd mean that something else would have to go. I'm already packing it in as it is!

I'm also going to check out the de-interlacing option in Elements but if it doesn't then I'll export the movie (in native DV AVI format) from Elements and load it into Prem Pro (which I also have but didn't use for this project because it doesn't like MPGs and MJPEG AVI's very much even though the blurb says it does!) and re-export it from there because Prem Pro definately does have a de-interlace tick box.

Thanks again for your comments and support regarding my first Disney video project. I've got loads of other footage to edit - especially of our two week trip to Orlando over Christmas '04.

We did everything (well, quite a bit!) on that trip from Discovery Cove, Kennedy, Sea World, MK, AK, MGM, day on the beach, stayed at the Polynesian, Fantasmic, Cafe Mickey and so on and so on. I don't think that'll be a 4 minute video somehow.

Speaking of which, do you know of anyone who has done a video of their trip to Florida? Have you done one? I'd like to see one before I try and do mine! Not so I can crib but so I can gain inspiration because, to be honest, I'm a but daunted by the prospect. But then, I guess, once I start dragging stuff onto the timeline it'll come together like it does! Having a soundtrack to cut to helps a lot!

[dcmax]

I always tend to overdub with a CD of the original score and dub in the audience using the sliders..(see the wishes video on the mgm video)..

I always find its easier to place the music in the timeline on the prime audio track number and then put the audio the video has recorded live at the event with the video into the 2nd or 3rd audio tracks.. You can the use the sliders or virtual sliders to blend in the sound (its a good way of checking your in synch as well) but be careful to watch for peaks.

All the videos below will show different examples of this taking place..

My only geeky criticsms come with shadow delineation which I think is a combination of the rendering process, the interlacing and the medium it was recorded on..


Our Florida vids are all below .. The neptune server should load up a menu for you automatically.. Theres 12 vids all lasting about the length of song

The Epcot one from last year came in the top ten of last years TPR awards

[phgannon]

Thanks dcmax.

Your method to audio seems fairly similar to the one that I used. The audio from the footage was there on the timeline - it was just faded out until I wanted it. At which point I faded it in using Prem Elements Fade In/Fade Out buttons and tweaking with KeyFrames.

Many ways to skin that cat!

However, you have completey lost me while talking about "shadow delineation". I have no idea as to what that is! I can't even find a topic for it on Wikipedia! Please could you be so kind as to explain what you mean and give me some examples i.e. point out sections in the video of what's wrong and why it's wrong.

My interpretation of what you're saying is that the composition, content and editing is fine. It's just the quality of the exported picture that you have a problem with.

Is that right?

Originally Posted by dcmax

I always tend to overdub with a CD of the original score and dub in the audience using the sliders..(see the wishes video on the mgm video)..

I always find its easier to place the music in the timeline on the prime audio track number and then put the audio the video has recorded live at the event with the video into the 2nd or 3rd audio tracks.. You can the use the sliders or virtual sliders to blend in the sound (its a good way of checking your in synch as well) but be careful to watch for peaks.

All the videos below will show different examples of this taking place..

My only geeky criticsms come with shadow delineation which I think is a combination of the rendering process, the interlacing and the medium it was recorded on..


Our Florida vids are all below .. The neptune server should load up a menu for you automatically.. Theres 12 vids all lasting about the length of song

The Epcot one from last year came in the top ten of last years TPR awards

See more...

[dcmax]

Yes its the point at which blacks and blacker than blacks (yes there is such a thing) go muddy.. Basically there is no detail in the shadows.. Now I cant remember but what medium did you record the film on that may be the answer...

ps you probably cant find it because i have probably spealt(sic) it wrong, lol

[phgannon]

Aha! Now, I do know about blacks being blacker than black. I've learnt such a thing by reading a lot of reviews on various TV sets!

The footage for that montage was shot on two digital cameras and not on a camcorder (I do have a camcorder but chose not to use it for the sake of convenience). The 2 digicams are a Sony T9 which records in MPG format and a Canon S3 IS which records in MJPEG AVI format.

So, what with the compression from the camera and the compression from exporting the video into WMV so it can stream from the website plus the fact that I didn't know about de-interlacing has all added to the problem.

I'm going to try de-interlacing (there's a note on my PC keyboard at home to remind me tonight!) and then I'll upload the new video onto the site.

I have to say that the video looks much better on our 36" TV at home than it does on the website!

Anyway, thanks for clarifying and now you've explained it I'd say that the camera probably has the biggest impact.

Originally Posted by dcmax

Yes its the point at which blacks and blacker than blacks (yes there is such a thing) go muddy.. Basically there is no detail in the shadows.. Now I cant remember but what medium did you record the film on that may be the answer...

ps you probably cant find it because i have probably spealt(sic) it wrong, lol

See more...

[dcmax]

That will be the case.. The compression on the footage will heavily be applied to areas that are black or in shadow...

Just noticed did we have the same idea of increasing the speed of the last 20% of the SM launch when it gives up momentum for a second.. Or r u nearer the front..?

Love to know your thoughts on my florida footage...

Danny

[AndyJ]

At the end of my DLP video, I had explosions from the chinese new year fireworks - thoses did go bang !

I have a couple of bits of Florida footage below, but it needs work.

Now I have a workflow, I need to start thinking about the actual photography.

Can't way to see more!