I need some critiques on my resume tape...

[engphotog21]

Hey all,

Just thought I'd see if any of you could give my tape a gander and give me some constructive criticism. It's on my myspace page so only those with myspace can view it I believe. I apologize for the quality, as myspace condenses the video like crazy for some reason... Thanks to all that reply!!!


Nick Pantazi

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.myvideos&MyToken=c2624e48-a490-411d-84c6-ea9256e683b8

[SeattleShooter]

It does not work.

[engphotog21]

sorry try this link.... it should work without a membership...



http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1317086653

[cameragod]

Lose the auto iris and soft focus stuff. Only three or four shots but they do you no favors.

[mkay]

Good shots in your montage. You prove you can handle a camera and capture nice moments. For a resume tape, however, I think you need to show all packages with a variety of stories with no montage. A potential employer will want to see how you tell a story from start to finish. A montage may be fine for a college student trying to break into the biz, but you're knee deep in the game, so you will have to sell yourself as a storyteller. I saw your two features, and they were fine. You demonstrate a good technical sense on a photography level, so keep it up.

Do you have a general news story or maybe a spot news pkg you can throw on thee ol reel? Good luck, and let us know how the job hunt goes :)

[Brock Samson]

Don't forget to think about getting in and out of your story with good positive/negative action shots. I prefer wides, but it's not a hard fast rule. Also, the big ol' mic and mic flag are distracting, and wiring up your subject with a wireless for the duration of the shoot would serve you with some nice nats and good audio of natural moments i.e.- "Damn I missed!" in the golf story, etc. You are sequencing your video, that's good, but in the case of the golf story, you could try gettin a few more shots of the ball going in to complete the thought of the sequences.

Cameragod is right, lose the auto stuff.

One thing you did do well is follow the ball on the shot when he hit it towards you, and that's a difficult thing to do in golf. I suck at it!

[amp]

Lose the montage. If you were sending a resume tape to me, I would have ejected it in 20 seconds and tossed it. I want to see packages. All your montage showed me it that you can white balance and point the camera in the right direction. Packages show me your shot selection, how you edit, and your visual story telling ability.

Sorry to be harsh, but photogs should not have a montage at the top of their tape. That is better for reporters and anchors. Just get straight to the packs!

[Rad]

First, I really like being able to see your work on-line, I like the way you’ve organized it, and I like the fact I can click around and get immediate access to your work. Don’t worry about the video quality of My Space, because I’m looking at technique, framing, effort and other aspects of your work.

I agree with most of the other posts, a video montage is worthless. Anyone can string a few lucky shots together, what I want to see is if you can do it consistently in one story.

It seems most of your work is “follow the action” and not built on individual sequences. In other words, you are pointing the camera and reacting to the scene. Get the camera in closer, make the action come to you. This will give more in/out of frame shots and avoid some of your jump cuts.

Concentrate more on the basic Wide - Medium - Tight format. Especially on the Wide and Tight. Let’s see more close ups.

And if you are the editor on these stories, work harder at blending the audio. It was very choppy in what I heard.

Finally, Use work that makes you stand out. Anyone (almost) can shoot a fire or wreck or even a water/car story. What you need to show is that NO ONE CAN SHOOT IT LIKE YOU!

[engphotog21]

Ok, what I'm hearing is lose the montage, both of them or just one? Also how long would you all sugest i make the tape in general? and what would you put in and what order. I know they say best stuff first, but what all would you take out and what to leave in?

[engphotog21]

I'm going to post a natpack, and hard news pkg in a day or so when i get time. I was thinking about ordering it; 1. hard news pkg, 2. live shot, 3. Feature news pkg, 4. Nat pack, 5 Sports feature pkg. Let me know what your opinions on that are... The only reason i'm putting the natpack so low is because its a year or two old. I haven't done any new natpacks since I got off weekends. Station just doesn't give any time to do them on the weekdays, it was alot easier on the weekends, time wasn't as much of an issue. Heck half the time anymore, I don't even get to edit my everyday pkg's. I work in a market where there are over 300,000 people in the city limits and we only have 6 shooters...

[engphotog21]

natpack and hard news pack are up...

[JacobA]

I'm not at a computer right now where I can watch your videos, but a normal photog resume tape is about 4-5 stories long. Your first story needs to be your best, period. It is usually spot news or general news but it should be your strongest. Second story should probably be spot news if you didn't use the first story position for your spot news piece. If your nat pack is the best thing you have, put it first. You should't disqualify something you did because it is older than your other stuff.

I have always been told that a liveshot is unnecessary. Some people have them, some people don't, but if you do put it on your tape I would recommend it at the very end.

Always think about how the potential employer is watching it. Think like they are always about to eject it and if each second after second building on the previous one doesn't interest him or her, your tape will get tossed out. Montages and live shots do not usually interest news directors.

[Freddie Mercury]

I don't mean to change the subject dramatically, but a question: When you make video available on a website like myspace or anything else accessable by the general public, are there legal issues involved about who has the rights to that video? Engphotog21 has posted video presumably shot for and owned by his employer. Has a station/client ever made a stink about something like that?

[Tom Servo]

the nat pack had some nice shooting in it (nice catch on the frog band ;) ), but it didn't tell a story. I still don't know what exactly the gathering was all about. Car show? Car club meet? Unless you have a hardcore car guy watching it (which I happen to be) you're not gonna hold anyone's interest because the only thing that people almost universally care about is stories about other people.

And even though the hardcore guys will be enthralled by the opening engine revving sequence, after that you don't show enough details of the cars to make them care all that much either.

Street rodders do some of the craziest things you could think of to their cars - there had to be all sorts of weird / interesting closeups to get on that tack.

Then, we needed to know more about the event. I'm sure it was introduced in the anchor intro, but which has the greater impact - a talking head staring at the camera announcing a car show, or someone shouting "it's the 12th annual B-roll.net auto spectacular!" over those revving engines?

Find that character - the old man who made his own hood ornament was a potentially good one - who has an interesting story to tell, and then let him tell it. Car guys will go on for hours about what they've done to their rides, so finding someone would've been easier than figuring out who to use once you got back in the edit bay ;)

[phojorisin]

I've only watched the montage (which it sounds like you've already taken that off of your tape...so that's good!) and the nat pack. But I wanted to post somethings about the nat pack before I watched the other stuff and forgot.
I agree completely with the stuff Tom Servo said. When it ended, I wasn't really sure what the story you were trying to tell. Right off the bat, I thought the engine revs could've been a lot tighter. Start off with three quick nats and three quick shots and get onto the next thing.
Also, as Tom Servo said, that guy who made the hood ornament would've been perfect to use as your central character. Old guys are always great characters! A character that the viewer can identify with will help keep people's attention.
Rather than having one long soundbite to explain what the event is, pick up the pacing with shorter bites with nats interwoven between them. The music is a nice thing to have in there for a nat pop when you showed the dog, but I'm not sure it should've been throughout the whole piece, because it wasn't the focus of the story.
And make sure you try to write in a beginning, middle and end. You had a beginning, but the middle didn't really lead anywhere, and then it kind of just ended.
Hope this critique helps you with your next nat pack.