@gavin
nice work for the most part, there was one thing though that I think limited this edit from being "extremely good" though. Some of your movements with pans/glides start too late and are not "fluid", which, IMO, is something to be avoided moving into a high end caliber of work.
By that, I mean that you a) did not keep the camera moving the whole time (usually your starts are static and then you jump into the movement) and b) cut them in post to show this lack of movement at the start. The three shots i'll focus on are back to back, the glide at 0:29, the pan at 0:33, and the zoom at 0:36
0:29 - In my opinion, this shot should have started about 15-30 frames earlier than it did, and contained more motion before you cross behind the rider on the trail. In the video, it starts with some shake as the rider is passing the cam, and it felt like you had been caught off guard (aka OH SHIT THERE HE IS TIME TO SHOOT). I like the concept of the shot, but again, would have been nice if you had tracked him from the previous hit about 5ft behind where you started the clip, and then ran across the track behind him and tracked him with a nice pan.
0:33 - This shot should have been a pan from the beginning, plain and simple. you have at least 1 second of static before you start, which I never like watching. If possible, keep the pan continuous, even if you do change the rate. Start slower and build into that faster whip as he passes by. I will stray off my point and say the ending of the clip is decent with the pan stops in this case, as the rider suddenly changes directions around the next turn.
0:36 - Again, keep it consistent. The beginning of the clip should have had a slight zoom and maybe contained some of that movement that came in the middle of the clip. It was a jerky, fast, rough transition between the first and second parts of the shot, which in a well made edit like this deducts points. The hard stop at the end of the zoom too made it pretty obvious that you hit the wide end of that zoom, which again is another harsh look. Fade in and out of every motion, zoom, pan, slide, but never stop hard. I will give you credit though, that is an incredibly hard shot to do well, and you did decent. Just picking this apart for reference of my point
other shots of note:
Your slides - you have the idea of constant motion down with those. You never cut the slides before they start, instead you always cut from the previous shot into a constant, smooth slide. Good job.
1:37 - Exposure on this shot is poop once he hits the woods, not a fan of it. Would have been better as two shots, one of him just outside of it exposed for that, one from inside the woods exposed for the woods.
1:49 - Nice glide work, a longer shot with pretty good motion throughout (bit shaky but if the broken neck was an issue at the time of filming I certainly can't knock you on that)
1:56 - Well done on this slight zoom tele track. Quicker shot but well done