I don’t usually participate in these critiques sessions because I was told that I need to work on my diplomacy. I come from the old school where a swift kick in the a$$ is the quickest route to the brain; but I try to be nice.
I’m talking about the stunts piece; the old lady riding on the backseat of a bike isn’t a story. Here in Florida we have women in their 70s with wrinkled tattoos riding real Harleys, not even those with training wheels. Now, that’s a story.
The reason that I’m replying is because you’ve done a few things that I really like and you should build from there. Your photography is excellent; many of those shots would look good framed on the wall; excellent composition and good lighting. Are you by any chance a photographer moving into video? When I made my switch from still to film, (this was back in the late 70s) I had the very same problem; I was creating beautiful still photos on film but took me awhile to put them into good stories.
I also like that you used the main characters to carry the dialog, who would know better about the activity that they do. I really started hating those VJs or OMB that suddenly are becoming primadonna on camera, or those monotone narrations that sound like they are delivering a eulogy at a funeral.
To start you have a good established shot of the two subjects; but the public like to see faces to go with voices, after the wide establishing shot move in and give us closers shots of the two, there’s no need to stay wide. We have established where they are, I might want to show a bit more rocks, now let's see who they are.
The downside of this piece is that there are too many beautiful shots used as filler and with no direct connection to the dialog and as a consequence the story doesn’t flow well and has no continuity. There are too many wide shots followed by other wide shots and by more wide shots. A wide shot is to establish the next segment, or the story within the story; once you’ve done that move-in to a tighter shot and some CU, then repeat the process and start again for the next segment or use CU to break into long wide shots.
Looks like the sport requires a great deal of concentration that would call for some CU of the faces while executing those stunts, we haven’t seen any of those. Also looks like there’s a lot of balancing done with the handlebar, we haven’t seen many CU of those either.
There’s a fine art in asking questions, here I would have like to hear if this is an organized sport? They said that they part of a team and they are talking about event organizers, where are these events held?
Considering the easy accessibility of the sport a disclaiming warning would also be appropriate; I can see kids filling the beds of the local emergency room. Don’t forget that we are here to serve the public.
I could go on and on but overall I like the piece, mainly because of the photography, build from there.
