Slowmotion & Stills... Feedback please

Want to share a great video? Your own work of art or someone else's? This is the place. Get ready for constructive feedback (mostly ;-) or maybe tar & feathers!
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Bibberer
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Joined: 17 Mar 2014 10:08
Location: Germany

Slowmotion & Stills... Feedback please

Post by Bibberer »

I recorded all of this footage some time ago and decided to try making something from it. Does the combination of stills and slowmotion video work? Or is it just boring? Tell me about it... Also I wonder how the blur effect "feels" with the stills, is it too much and just annoying or does it actually fill the background unobtrusively?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVY9iZXn_qg

Thanks for your help.

The cameras I used were:
Nikon D90 with the 18-105 kit lens for the stills and
Casio EX-FC100 for the slowmotion video.
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Stephan
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Joined: 20 Mar 2010 18:51
Location: Paris, France

Re: Slowmotion & Stills... Feedback please

Post by Stephan »

Hi, welcome!

I appreciate the work put into this! About the blurred background on the sides ("à la" iOS 7), I'm not sure it adds anything indeed. I tend to say that the best special effects, usually, are those that unaware viewers will *not* see.

I like the first 40 secs, the combination of slomo & stills looks interesting. Past the 1st minute, it does get a bit long maybe. It's very hard to get viewers interested in one's videos. You know what the Internet audience only wants... CAT VIDEOS! (joke ;-)

Indeed just a joke, please don't throw waterballs at those innocent creatures :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJluxAw4Lt8
Bibberer
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Joined: 17 Mar 2014 10:08
Location: Germany

Re: Slowmotion & Stills... Feedback please

Post by Bibberer »

Thanks Stephan,
wouldn't want to do that to a cat :)
I'm kinda unsure about the blur stuff myself, might try to make it more suddle or just dump it. Don't really know what to do about the interest issue, maybe start with a short "appetizer" including a few of the more interesting stills?
Thanks for your help :-)
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Stephan
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Re: Slowmotion & Stills... Feedback please

Post by Stephan »

What makes an audience feel engaged and want to view your video until the end? Wow, this is the most difficult question! There's been generations of people in Hollywood and elsewhere, building a career to address this question.

When you reach a number of views, there's an interesting Analytics tool in YouTube that lets you know what percentage of people have actually viewed this or that moment in your video (a.k.a. audience retention).

Here's how it looks when the audience likes the video:
Good retention
Good retention
Good.png (32.68 KiB) Viewed 27514 times
And here's when they don't have the patience:
Bad retention
Bad retention
Bad.png (34.03 KiB) Viewed 27514 times
Taking the 2nd example, there's definitely a question of video length. If there isn't enough "fresh" content for the duration, or if I'm not providing what people expected when they came to the video (this is the particular issue I've been having here), people just click and go.

If there's a match (try & define that!!), people stay (1st example). There's something that appeals to them - the video's topic, the atmosphere, the music, the combination of all...

So, regarding interest - and that's a very, very general statement, I'd say that content/duration is key, and then trying to bring something "special" is next. And then, who knows, sometimes success is unexpected and one could also "go viral" and take Twitter by storm for no particular reason (although you might probably need the help of a cat for that ;-) NOT!!
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Doughie
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Re: Slowmotion & Stills... Feedback please

Post by Doughie »

Interesting stuff. I agree, short and sharp is best. People have very short attention spans on the Web.
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