30-sec TV Spot for your critique

Looking for constructive criticism on my first TV spot. It is for a Toyota car dealership. The owner wanted to do an "image commercial" that included sights from the town. This is still a work in progress and I still have the option to re-shoot if need be, (though I certainly prefer not to as I am over budget already). I still need to make tweaks to the timeline, add titles and at least one effect (shallow DOF to the carnival statue). Music is not final either.

I'm especially interested in opinions about the color grade. I've attempted to go with a grade that is more suitable to a film rather than commercial TV. Are there TV commercials with this look? Is there a reason why this grade is a bad idea? Also note the first two shots are letterboxed, but the rest aren't. This is intentional, as I feel it adds to the cinematic look of the first two shots, but I was loosing too much information on the other shots and it wasn't adding that much to the feel. I think the jump from letterboxed to non-letterboxed is not noticeable unless you look for it. What do you think?

password is:
hatillo

vimeo.com/85516363

Thanks in advance.

Can't view it. It's a private video.

Password is:
hatillo

The grade inside the store is inconsistent and doesn't match the look of other material, especially the first shots. The wide shots inside are not strong and the people seem stilted. Like the exteriors and the look.

Thank you very much for the feedback. I was surprised to hear the people look stilted. Then I re-watched it and I kind of agree on some shots. It’s funny how being so close to the work makes one blind.

What is it that makes the wide shots weak? I’m only asking to see if I can go back and reshoot.

And about the color grade, your comment has prompted something I’ve often wondered: Suppose you color correct all the shots so that they match. If you did the correction step correctly, when adding in the same “stylized grade” to every shot, I would expect the shots would still match. (except for very minor corrections). This is what I did.

The first two shots currently have the same grade as the rest. So anyway according to you if I tone down the grade in the first 2 shots to be “weaker” than the rest, in your opinion I would get a better match. Looking at the footage I think you’re probably right on this as well. I will try it tonight when I get home.

Thanks again for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

I would prefer if you brought the color look of the first two shots into the rest of the video. The first shots are typical orange and teal, warm highlights with rich blues. I need the same warmth in the interior shots and the contrasting cold areas. The interiors are weak I think because for the most uninterestingly wide. Need more focused shots. Not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at. My eye wanders. I need to see exactly what you want me to look at. Closer shots almost always look better. This is just my opinion. I'm sure every one has a different view.

Your colors have no vibrancy, the skin tone of the woman looks like she's dead. Not exactly the feeling you want to project for car sales. Your sky is all washed out & not blue. The opening shot is pretty & draws us in, I would have preferred that type of angle when you show the cars, perhaps a flyby sweeping pan, not the straight down shot, which is all fisheyed & a shot that doesn't make the cars look good. That's why you rarely if ever see that shot in car commercials. Personally, I don't think I've ever seen it, & for good reason.

You can always go on youtube & look at car dealership commercials, take note of what works & what doesn't. You've got your basic premise, the girl finds the car she wants, but a lot of the rest just doesn't work here. For a TV spot you don't really want to start in letterbox & then lose it, be consistent throughout, keep the letterbox for your art-film project later, for the commercial stay broadcast. As Tom says, you need to be consistent with color throughout too.

Your set has some nasty colors, I'd try to reshoot a few of those shots, we want to see people who are happy making the deal, having a natural time interacting warmly in maybe a slight zoom tracking medium 2 shot, not such a long shot where 80% of the frame is a giant red wall, red couch, red shirt, all these red things make our girl look even more pale, like she's a zombie from Walking Dead. The inside of the place needs to be warm & friendly like Tom says, not pale, washed out with blue gray tones which are cold. Our warmth needs to come from your color adjustments, not from red in the set. Her skin tone should appear a natural warm pinkish like the living. The shot when she sits in the car is so cold the entire frame is cold.

Also, we fly in over the beach, the church, why not flying in on the dealership building & sign, then this shot drops down to sweep past all the FRONTS of the cars, ONE shot like a moving crane dolly with the camera changing altitude. That adds value, right now your fisheye straight down shot actually removes value as it looks so cheap & quadcoptery.

I like shots that make people wonder, "Wow, how'd they do that?"

Since you've got a minicopter; instead of your final shot being the low angle up tripod static looking at the sign & building, I'd rather rise up there with your copter, give us a majestic ending like we have in films the crane goes up as we see the perfect frame of the signage & building. Speaking of static, why have any static shots? Your commercial is about a dynamic place, where things are happening, every shot can have slight movement, I like a slow dolly zoom effect on each shot, even a 3 second shot we can move in 5%. That you can do in post & psychologically we are drawn in more.

The voice-over sounds reasonably professional.

thanks for sharing





J. Matthew
Global Watch Media Consulting
GWM2.com

@GlobalWatchM3

Thanks to both for the feed back. Some of the choices were made were made due to the fact that the surrounding area of the dealer is not pretty to look at. The huge red wall thing... I was planning on adding a 3D effect on that wall, but I changed my mind and am now stuck with the wall. Same can be said of the straight down shot looking at the cars. I wanted to add tracking graphics to that but changed my mind again. That 30-second limit is truly a bitch. It seems to me a 30-sec ad should be exclusively graphics, or almost exclusively live action. It's kind of pointless to add graphics to a shot, when your shots are going to average 2.5 seconds.

So anyway after a few hours of despair dismantling my whole edit with other shots and messing around with the color, I resolved to simply cut about 10 frames from from the big-ass red wall, and lose the grading style of all four aerial shots.

Many thanks. I learned a lot from this and I expect I'll be able to apply my lessons learned to my next project.

I would also agree that half of your people shots (if you have the resolution) could be helped by cropping them tighter, especially the counter shot and even her walking in the door and getting the keys outside. Would draw your eyes to happy faces and less just standing there. I think the material is there to make it better. Some Ken Burns on the static shots for a little motion might blend the whole spot together too.

dinerdog wrote: I would also agree that half of your people shots (if you have the resolution) could be helped by cropping them tighter, especially the counter shot and even her walking in the door and getting the keys outside. Would draw your eyes to happy faces and less just standing there. I think the material is there to make it better. Some Ken Burns on the static shots for a little motion might blend the whole spot together too.

Thanks for the feedback. This is something I'm curious about... Everything was shot 1080p. But it is supposed to be delivered in 720 for the TV station. So I guess I can make huge crops because 1080 is twice the resolution as 720 correct?

BTW, the counter short is already cropped considerably, but the other two you mention aren't. I do agree that zooming in on those shots would make the video better, but since this is an ad about a dealer, I thought I should show the dealer as well, not just the girl going about her business.

I've uploaded another version of the ad. Same password as before. I'll be playing around with cropping the entrance and keys shots tonight to see how they look. Note how I was able to delete the ugly lamp posts and cabling in the carnival statue shot.

vimeo.com/85672216

Thanks to all.

edit: I just noticed the second video can't be watched in HD on vimeo for some reason. I need to look into that since I uploaded it the same way I uploaded the first.

It's a little better.
The shot where she walks in the door, where's the color?
This shot could almost be black & white, that's how much it's lacking any vibrancy or life.
The dealership is almost entirely white & gray, as is the sky, the window frame, the cement outside, etc.
In other words, nothing pops.

Does the scene project a warm welcoming atmosphere?

Would you ever see that color scheme in a broadcast TV commercial?

I like the first two shots. Not liking the top down fly over (too fish eye and seems void of color)
The dealership has the look like it is a dreamy place, but no color saturation. The shot at the counter
in my (noob) opinion needs to be much tighter. Can you crop in on it and keep detail? This could happen on the other medium people shots too The counter shot kind of pans to dead space on the red wall. At the end she is so happy but still so void of color. I really dig the closing shot.

Very nice work! What did you use for the fly and crane shots?

@Stryker
I did a small fisheye correction of the top view of the cars. I had not even noticed it since it is the same GoPro (Narrow FOV) I used for all the other aerial shots. (And I don't see fisheye on the other ones). Now that you are the second commenter to point that out I looked closer and noticed it. Per your observation, I added saturation and made a small color correction to that shot too. I also tightened the shot of the counter further, I had already tightened it, but now I tightened it by eye as much as I could to remain 720P. I also did a Ken Burns effect on the shot where the girl enters the dealer.

I have no crane. Just a a DJI Phantom with a GoPro, and a Blackmagic Pocket with a tripod, and a slider.

@Everyone
I agree with what you are saying about color. But I did not have a set, just the real car dealer. And those are the colors of the dealer. It sure did not help that most their cars where white or black. The tiles on the floor are also a checkered black and white, and most walls are gray except the big red wall. And as you know blacks and whites don't respond to the saturation slider. For next time I'll be sure to keep this in mind while at the shoot. I'll be moving plants and props around to the areas I want to shoot at.

Thanks for the help you've all provided, your comments have made the spot better. Actually as far as the client is concerned, we met today and all he wanted was to add the phone number at the end. All the other modifications came by way of your comments and my desire to make it the best it could be (without re-shooting).

I guess now it's time to focus on the broadcast slate/colors/sound.

Here is the latest version, I deleted the others to see Vimeo makes it HD since it is supposed to be one HD upload per week, but deleting the prior HD video worked for me before:

Password is still:
hatillo

Vimeo will finish encoding it in about 25 minutes from now, but submitted this post anyway because I need to get to bed.

vimeo.com/85784489

Ok, this is getting much better.

The issues with the dull set can be worked in post. Utilizing a volumetric light plugin, FCPX can make that room gorgeous & warm. Some subtle beams of golden sunlight angled down thru those windows could make us all feel welcome. I purchased that plug online for 25 bucks & it makes shots look like a million dollars with adjustable gentle fall-off & floating dust particles. So real looking...

I think if you reversed the showroom interior pan shot of the cars, so we started on the black & moved towards the red, it would work better color-wise. However, I like the movement from left to right because it symbolizes progress in the direction we read. So, if you flip the frame as in a mirror, we could still be panning from left to right but end on the red. This would also transition us into the other reds. We're also panning in the direction of the window & more golden sunlight again. Always positive. Moving towards darkness is the opposite. Try it & see how it works for you.

Your skin-tones are so much better now, suddenly your girl has a lovely warm auburn tint in her hair, she's coming to life. The shot down the counter is vastly improved. There's only one shot where the color is still off, the sitting at the table scene. It's the same old cold colors, we need that warmer. I'd also like to ken burns zoom in on them as the scene plays. This is your key scene, the completion of the deal, draw us in. She looks friendly & relaxed, as does he, we need to feel we're a part of this comfortable transaction by proximity. At this distance we have little or no emotional connection, let's zoom. Even 10% over the duration.

Your time-lapse sunset ripple thru the clouds at the end also looks warmer.
It's much more presentable now.



The reason the fisheye appears on the cars straight down is because of their shapes (all right angles) & their close distance to the lens. The buildings & especially the beach horizon shots have less noticeable fisheye because the mix of nature & movement draws our eyes, also the distance is near & far so we don't sense it as strongly.

Thanks for the feedback J. Mathew. I reversed the showroom pan like you said and it looks soooo much better now! (Who cares if the dealer if this is a mirror image of the dealer instead of the real thing!). Also made the highlights of paperwork shot warmer and it looks more consistent. I feel the Ken Burns isn’t working on that shot, I see it kind of gimmicky. I think the main reason is the Ken Burns by default decreases its zoom speed at the end. I think that does not work well with that shot.

Can you point me to the website that sells the volumetric light plugin you are referring too? I would love to try that. I’ll be uploading a new version of the spot tonight. Thanks again!

Much improved!
I bet Coremelt slice X could remove the painters bucket from the counter shot.
The shot of the girl and sales guy at the table is fantastic!

Nice!

I have that plug in and had tried it on the paint bucket before but was not successful. But the shot used to be wider so there was a lot of crap to remove. I’ll try it again now that there is substantially less crap. I used SliceX to remove a lot of cables and light posts on the carnival statue shot, but I had to track a mask and composite the missing sky in another layer. The object remover would not work properly for that shot either. The paperwork shot is my fav, well that and the opening one. Looking forward to trying the volumetric light thing to see if I can beautify the “black and white” shots. Were this project a film the opening credits would have to read:

Edited by:
Jorge Molinari &
FCP.CO Community

Hehe.

I've sent you a private message here on this site, because the company I bought the Volumetric light plug from is no longer welcome here & I don't want to risk the post being deleted before you see it. The falling out they had with FCP.co happened after I purchased the plug & has no bearing on the quality of this particular piece of software.

If the zoom seems too much, back it off from 10% to 5, the gradual approach changes the emotional meaning of the scene for the viewer. We're talking here about psychological principles, just like the moving towards color away from darkness for the mood you're attempting to create. These are basic stimuli which work on all people regardless of culture or language. Any number of people may tell you the shot is "fantastic," but anyone at a network will immediately spot the colors don't match. Trust me, you need to appear broadcast quality.

Latest iteration.
vimeo.com/86078344
password: hatillo

This shows the changes I did a few days ago from your suggestions. I got sidetracked by the volumetric light idea. I tried the Volumetrix demo and played around quite a bit with my Hitfilm Ultimate 2 copy. In the end, I purchased Prometrix and boy o boy was that ever $26 (currently on a 48-hour sale) well spent. So easy to use and the results are so beautiful...

I'm not sure if I over did it. I used in three consecutive shots. The last one I used it on (brochure shot) had the background very overexposed anyway. So I added just a tiny amount so the light would leak into the foreground.

Added the Toyota logo.

Suggestions still appreciated but I'm sick of it by now,.