Star-Crossed Lovers [The Quickening - Round 1]

[MasterZero8]

Here is my entry for The Quickening - Round 1.

It was my first AMV, so I never expected it to be great.
I did work hard on it and gave it my best effort.

I welcome any constructive criticism and opinions about it.
I know I did things wrong, so if anyone would like to point those out and offer advice on how to fix them or do it better, you are more than welcome to.
Also if I did something good please let me know, as thats always a plus.

Also I have very little video editing knowledge of terminology right now, so if you would please use more basic explanations that would be great.

I had a blast making it and thats what counts I think

[CodeZTM]

Here's my opinion.

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You had a good idea. The concept was clear enough and I saw what you were going for. A cute romance video playing on the cuteness of the couple and the "starry-eyedness" of first loves.

However, the execution needed some work.

Let's go down the line.

Visual Quality: WMV is generally not a good container to get superb quality. Look at the solid colors and you'll notice that it's very blocky. The sides of the videos [left/right] also has a bar of thin fuzzy lines which could have been cropped off. I'm not the best person to ask for visual quality, but we have a video quality forum to help you once you read the visual guides.

Sync/Pacing: I think this was the thing needed the most work with the video. The pacing of the music wasn't accounted for. See how at :37 the music is picking up? The video stays at the same pace that it had been during the slower parts of the song. Plus, there doesn't seem to be much sync. By "sync", I mean that you don't have something that connects your video footage to the music. This can be accomplished in many different ways. This thread explains it better than I could.

Scene selection: Scenes seemed to last a long time. It gets boring for viewers to look at the same footage for extended periods of time. See at 1:09-1:30 you have the same footage type repeating? Combining different footage and mixing it up a bit can be more effective.

Transitions: The transitions in the video are pretty harsh. See how at 1:42-1:43 where you go from an ANGRY DARK scene to a very LIGHT HAPPY scene? It transitions awkwardly because the scenes are so very different and there's nothing to show how the situation changed. This was prevalent throughout the video.
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For the record, I still liked the video. I can see editing-wise where the mistakes are, but it's still cute and pretty good for a first video. I can see the conscious effort at a concept/mood, which to me speaks highly.

If you have any questions, please ask. Oh, and remember that this is just MY opinion. I'm sure there are others out there that have a differing opinion. Take all the advice you get and combine them together with who YOU want to be as an editor and move forward from there.

Best of luck!

[MasterZero8]

Here's my opinion.

________________

You had a good idea. The concept was clear enough and I saw what you were going for. A cute romance video playing on the cuteness of the couple and the "starry-eyedness" of first loves.

However, the execution needed some work.

Let's go down the line.

Visual Quality: WMV is generally not a good container to get superb quality. Look at the solid colors and you'll notice that it's very blocky. The sides of the videos [left/right] also has a bar of thin fuzzy lines which could have been cropped off. I'm not the best person to ask for visual quality, but we have a video quality forum to help you once you read the visual guides.

Sync/Pacing: I think this was the thing needed the most work with the video. The pacing of the music wasn't accounted for. See how at :37 the music is picking up? The video stays at the same pace that it had been during the slower parts of the song. Plus, there doesn't seem to be much sync. By "sync", I mean that you don't have something that connects your video footage to the music. This can be accomplished in many different ways. This thread explains it better than I could.

Scene selection: Scenes seemed to last a long time. It gets boring for viewers to look at the same footage for extended periods of time. See at 1:09-1:30 you have the same footage type repeating? Combining different footage and mixing it up a bit can be more effective.

Transitions: The transitions in the video are pretty harsh. See how at 1:42-1:43 where you go from an ANGRY DARK scene to a very LIGHT HAPPY scene? It transitions awkwardly because the scenes are so very different and there's nothing to show how the situation changed. This was prevalent throughout the video.
.
______________

For the record, I still liked the video. I can see editing-wise where the mistakes are, but it's still cute and pretty good for a first video. I can see the conscious effort at a concept/mood, which to me speaks highly.

If you have any questions, please ask. Oh, and remember that this is just MY opinion. I'm sure there are others out there that have a differing opinion. Take all the advice you get and combine them together with who YOU want to be as an editor and move forward from there.

Best of luck!

Thank you very much for the input!

And yes, after watching my video over and over again I can now see a lot of the mistakes. Especially what everyone is talking about with the sync. That is going to be one of the biggest things I focus on next.

[[madaraxD]]

I agree with Code, but not bad man, good luck!