A Video

[YRAMagicMan]

[video=youtube;TfVwMx4d1po]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfVwMx4d1po[/video]​

What do you guys think?

My sister shot this video and I told her to follow me with the camera like she'd follow me with her eyes. This is exactly what she did, and considering that she's never done anything like this before I think it turned out well. I wasn't expecting such a narrow camera angle though, and that makes things hard to follow.

Any criticism from an editing standpoint? Please keep in mind that I had to work with the footage that I had, and I only have entry level software. (iMovie, thankfully it's better than movie maker by a long shot.)

 

[Delusional]

The effects were very well executed. From an editing standpoint, magic can be really difficult to edit. When I edit magic videos I try to take a little bit of inspiriation from the recent magic trailers. I look at a trailer like the one for Blake Vogts Re4m and try to take inspiritation from it. Quick cuts, things coming into focus, time lapses, mysterious piano music. If I were to re-edit this video, instead of having random spots of the video muted and the music volume raised, I would have done maybe a cut to a black-and-white clip of the audiences reactions or something like that. Also, since you have iMovie, I would have applied the "Heat Wave" effect to the video to give it a really modern look. People on youtube and the internet in general like to see quick videos that get to the point as soon as possible. The same is true with magic. "Remove what you can" is something that I always consider when editing. Otherwise, you did well.

Ps- The possibilities with iMovie are endless. Dont set limits because there is alot that it can do.

 

[YRAMagicMan]

I'm glad I have iMovie. It's the not quite the current version, but it still works great.

Thanks for the tips on editing. I quickly discovered the difficulties of editing a magic video, especially with this footage. I had over 30 minutes of footage that I cut down to what you see here. I like the black and white idea, and the heat-wave effect.

My main difficulty here was showing the entirety of an effect, but keeping the video short, like you said. I also wanted to have some variety in there. The last trick that I do takes about 3 minutes, making it worthy of its own video, but none of my other tricks got the reactions that I was looking for and I didn't want to cheat with my editing. So I left it in and we ended up with a five and a half minute video that doesn't move at light speed like a lot of videos do now.

The music originally the soundtrack for 90% of the video, but after getting some critiques from people in my family talking about dead time and confusion, I made the "voices" (the audio from my camera) more prominent. As a result, I lost a lot of the feel. What probably I should have done was just cut out the confusing and parts. This is where I really ran into the issues mentioned in the previous paragraph.

 

[YRAMagicMan]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll probably re-edit some of this footage, and other bits of the half hour of footage from that day, into another video later on. (Side note: I got the best non-reaction from card-to-mouth while I was filming.)

In editing this I wanted to show the entirety of the effects I performed. This presented problems, especially on the last trick which takes about 3 minutes on its own. The problem was, that trick got the best reactions, and I wanted some of those reactions in the video.

The music was originally much more prominent, making up about 90% of the sound track for what was going to be the final video. The only bits of audio from the original footage that were in my first "final cut" were me telling the guy "you're not supposed to fool the magician," the girl saying "that was scary," maybe a short clip from sponges explaining the hand and pocket thing, and the reaction at the end of the video. Then I showed it to my family and my dad pointed out some dead time and confusing bits near the end of the video. I compensated for this by turing on the video audio and lowering the music, effectively killing the feel that I had originally created. Looking back, I should have either ditched the music, or cut the dead time and confusing stuff.

 

[Delusional]

well, you did well with what you had. But, the bottom line is that the good footage you need wasnt really there to begin with. As George Lucas once said, "You can't shine sh**". Meaning no matter how you embelish something subpar, it still may not come out well. I know how tough it can be to have a family member/amateur to film for you, and your sister did just fine for her first time. I've been through that plenty of times with my little brother. My advice would be to have an older person who is not only taller, but possibly has a steader hand, to film for you. I've been filming magic for almost 2 years now, and here are a couple tips on the filming process of a magic trick. It helps if you have your camera man step back a foot or two from the action (so that you and the audience are in the shot) and plant their feet in that spot. Then all they have to do is pan and zoom as they follow your hands, wich ensures that nothing ever goes out of the shot.

ps- Sometimes when you have a camera present while performing for some people, they will not give their honest reactions. This is because many people are intimidated by the presence of a camera. That may be why you werent getting the reactions you hoped for. Alot of people are camera shy