ConCrit of Be My Luck, by jackiekjono

[permetaform]

Explanation: I'd offered concrit feedback here. jackiekjono's up next with Be My Luck (Cupid, lyrics here).

_{To clarify my Vocab (for us to be on the same page):
feel - something that doesn't sit right in my gut. Whenever I talk about 'how I feel' relative to a vid's beat, I'm talking about instinctive gut reaction, NOT emotional reaction
narrative - levels of storytelling, story structure
technique - the nuts and bolts of expressing a story
beat - includes musical beats and beats from every instrument including the human voice}

Overall Impression: This is so cute! Very bouncy and delightful, a joyful romp through various episodes of Cupid and the various couples that he brought together! Granted, part of this might be because I adore the song and it's happyness but it fits the mood of Cupid (the charater) very well from what I remember of him.

Narrative: I've seen a couple episodes a loooong time ago so I vaguely still remember that it was about Cupid supposedly turned mortal and trying to get enough couples back together to regain his godhood except that nobody believes his mission and they're trying to get him psychiatric help, but I don't remember the stories in depth.

What I've understood of this is Cupid basically getting together the couples. When the lyrics start it's him in the psych ward, the main psychiatrist comes and she brings him out, and then he approaches the first guy that Cupid asks to matchmake him up with someone, "Come over here and save me". Then it goes through various couples and shows him connecting with the psych lady.

It feels, from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't know the show very well, that this vid isn't very narratively complex. You'd need someone who knows the show better to give you feedback on narrative layers in this I think. What I, as a vid viewer, get out of this is that it basically shows the show in a very joyful way, it's good for a casual viewer of the show I think. I'm not sure if it'll make sense for someone who haven't seen the show at *all*, just because Cupid doesn't really have the most solid imagery available. I think you did really great for the source you had available, with facial expressions, head turns, and arm movement.

Technical: THIS IS SO HAPPY. This just puts a huge ass grin on my face 'cause it's so incredibly bouncy and just...bubbly? effescent? The vid is like, happy at Life. It's feels loosely beat-whored, even though it's incredibly *precise* about it and the reason for this is because you use the main beats for huuuuuuge amounts of internal motion.

My personal feeling on this, knowing what it takes to time stuff to this preciseness, is that for every noticible scene change you probably cut it two or three times so that you could speed-change various parts to better time this. A simply lovely attention to detail, but one that probably goes unnoticed, especially because you didn't usually have clip changes on the super-strong beats (that you instead usually used instead for internal motion).

lierdumoa mentioned here that:
"I think the vast majority of live action effects are designed to be subtle. You're not supposed to see them -- you're supposed to feel them. [...] I think anything that's put in to tie the vid together rather than break it apart is going to be harder to notice for someone who's not looking for it."

On a narrative level, you vid might seem divisive since it pulls from several matchmaking storylines. On a gut level, your vid doesn't feel divided, it's stylistically consistent.

0~0:23 - very cute! Noticibly speed-changed but I'm thinking you might have meant that?

0:31 - might not be too clear what this scene is, not sure about how it matches to the lyrics, but a great clip for displaying a character

0:37 - not sure how came from 0:31 to here, but cute clip! I don't remember where this clip came from, source-wise, and I don't know if there was another clip that would have been better used in it's place. This feels like what I would do with black spaces, ie. fill them up with random clips, and sometimes they would land on the perfect place and I would be so loathe to move it 'cause it looks *great*, but honestly I probably could have used another clip to more effect. But again, I don't know the source well enough to suggest another one, or even if that particular clip *does* have intent to support it's location.

0:45 - great match to the vocals! Same with the cut to the guy's face.

0:59 - "open to offers"...is that the bar where he ended up working? =D

1:28 - dance sequence, LOVED THIS! SUCH FUN! =D great movement matches with the spin

1:58 - great time to the kiss!

2:00 - GREAT clip choice

2:18 - subtle, but great matches to the music this whole sequence

2:39 - the light to the chime sound is PERFECT and gives me shivers every time I watch this. The lights to the sound in this section to the strings I just adore and it's just so bouncy and sorta like the uplifting glee of being in love.

2:52 - not sure what to think of this ending. On the one hand I love it 'cause it wraps up that episode, on the other I'm not sure if it's enough of a conclusion of Cupid's narrative. I'm thinking maybe that's what you're going for? A sort of 'ride off into the sunset'?

Ending thoughts: God, this vid is such fun. It's a perky carefree grin, it's graceful in an easy way, and it's hard (I think) to consistently vid joy, but you'd managed to carry it through the entire vid for me.

The accusation might be leveled at this, that it has too much talky-face, but I personally didn't mind the talky face because it usually also synced to head movement or body movement. But then, I personally tend to read face and body more carefully than I watch people's mouths; for a viewer who watches mouths more than I do, I can see this being a problem.

I can also see if a person is narratively inclined, and less audio-visually inclined, that they might get bored at this, because I'm not entirely sure that I can pick out an emotional progression through this nor can I always sense an 'intent' around clip choice that is part of a larger theme.

However, I tend to be more audio-visually inclined anyways and this vid just puts a *huge* smile on my face. To be honest I was a bit stumped when I first saw this because I wasn't sure that there was any concrit I could give, so I just squee'ed alot in this review and tried to point out some things for audiences that I can't even speak for ('cause I'm not part of that audience). Granted, you might not even be aiming for those audiences, but I thought to point out not to expect too much from those demographics.

Aaaaaand I'm all out of words at this point. ::peers at flist:: Any additional thoughts, comments, critique (esp. about my post itself) are all welcome! ::goes off to rewatch vid::

Comments

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

It is hard to fathom. You can kind of fake it by sticking in slug clips on either side and using the "Fit to fill" option or you can just do the mathematical calculations and sort it out that way.

I miss it bunches.