Will Start 2011 Show Reel

WillStart

WillStart

Active member
Just finished up my show reel. I know they should be under 90 seconds, but to be honest that length doesn't do it for me, I always wish reels that short were longer. And considering I'm still in school I doubt this reel will be getting used a ton.

Hope you guys like it, let me know what you think!

 
bravo, bravo

I just saw your Suicide in C Sharp piece, very moving!

You are basically my role model when it comes to filmmaking!
 
http://vimeo.com/33648127 here is a link to Suicide in C Sharp and I agree with everyone above Will I loved every shot in this especially the introductory shot of the wheat haha you continue to be my role model in film keep up the good work!
 
haha oh man. i'm actually not a fan of the final film, but oh well, i had no part in writing or directing it (aside from some blocking). but it was definitely fun to shoot, so i'm glad you guys are stoked on it!

thanks guys!
 
wow that was amazing! the filming and colors were top notch, its just my personal opinion but i felt as if it would have gone better if there was less slow mo, still awesome video!
 
loved it will. also liked seeing some of those shots from urban with PBP that we didnt see in that short edit you made.

I know someone said something about a dolly, do you only use that or do you use a slider in there as well?
 
Thanks guys! And thank you *cgski* for the bit of critique.

I did only use the actual PVC track for the dolly shots, no slider. Hopefully I'll be able to pick one up at some point in the future.

And yes, that kid is ridiculously hipster.
 
Love that brick wall skate shot. And that second wedding shot. Nice work man.

How does the Glidecam fit into your overall wedding shoots? I haven't used mine for weddings yet and I was wondering if it's a hassle fumbling with it or if running around with it has worked well for you. Do you switch back and forth between that and sticks a lot, or do you stick to the glidecam?
 
Thanks man!

Basically I only used the Glidecam for some establishing shots before the ceremony started. After that, I was on the tripod the whole time. It was also just a wedding for a friend's dad so it was a very low key production and I wasn't too busy with the filming since they only wanted me to catch the important parts.
 
Gotcha. Do you use a quick release with it? I got a manfrotto QR for mine, but the base of it isn't flush, so I can only mount it on the side holes of the Glidecam plate, and even then it rotates.
 
Awesome reel, but I have to say that I disliked the plot/story of the Suicide in C Sharp piece. Being a violin/viola player myself it's unbearable when you see people who can't play the instrument, try to look like they're playing it. But the cinematography in it was excellent.
 
as janky is it may look, i've been using this setup on and off the hill for over a year now. hasn't moved an inch. quick release plate is different then my manfrotto tripod plate, but works really well.

and yes i used way too much gorilla glue, but that plate is not moving, ever.

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Which plate is that? It looks nice and low profile, unlike the weird slider one everyone uses. I thought about using glue, but since I'll likely sell my Glidecam when I upgrade from a DSLR, I figured there would be a better way.

Here's the plate I'm using. Since the base isn't flush, I have no choice but to mount it right off the edge, and sideways (stupid). I cut a small square of exercise band, folded it over, and threaded the screw through that. It works better if the rubber is in between the Glidecam plate and the QR plate than underneath it. It works fairly well; the screw doesn't come loose anymore, though there is just a hair of rotation if rotational force is applied. However, there's enough friction so that it won't rotate unless you intentionally do it, or you bump it.

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damn that looks nuts. it just seems like too much work for a quick release system.

the qr plate is a manfrotto 394. i think it was around $40.

it mounted flush to the plate, but did move with any jerky movement. so that was why i used the gorilla glue. defintely understandable if you want to sell your glidecam in the future, but im sure its not too expensive to replace the black plate a year or two down the road

i'd recommend it. low profile and clips in
 
That plate looks really nice, especially with the leveling bubbles. How big is the camera plate? My main concern is that it will be too big and get in the way of my lens collar.
 
its about 2 inches by 3 inches - ish

i've never used a lens collar though, but what lens would you be using the collar for?
 
Thought I would chime in on the QR problems.. Here is my setup and it works pretty well, the QR plate is exactly the same size as the one on my tripod so I can easily click the camera into either one. Some people had a problem with the tightening knob on the QR not being able to turn because it hit the Glidecams black plate, so I drilled a hole through an old UV filter case and put that under it and it doesn't budge. Not sure if any of that is helpful but I figured I'd give it a shot.

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I use it on my 70-200, as it greatly increases the stability of telephoto shots. It also lifts my camera body off the tripod head, giving me room to mount a QR plate to the body itself. This allows me to just pop my camera off the lens while it's mounted to the tripod. That way the lens stays mounted to the tripod (wether or not the camera is attached to it) and I don't have to rebalance every time I want to shoot telephoto (not that it's difficult anyway, but still).

The Manfrotto sliding plate is useless because I don't use a Manfrotto head, making most of that material unnecessary. It also doesn't fit behind my lens collar, which goes against the entire point of a QR plate in the first place.

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ah that looks like a nice setup. but im guessing there might be a bit of overlap with the plate and collar, although i couldn't be sure.
 
Yup, which is why I need the QR plate to be s-so small.

My solution seems to work for now. If it doesn't end up working, I'll just make an 1/8" riser out of wood.
 
I only feel comfortable saying this to someone as good at this as yourself because everything youve done in the past has blown me away and you've had a lot of influnence on what I'm trying to do when I film, but to be honest I didn't really like it that much.

I think I probably had a lot to do with the song, which I didn't like very much. No doubt that all the shots in it were amazing, your cinematography, as usual, was perfect, but, all together, it just didn't quite do it for me. It felt a little weird to me from the intro.

Cinematography, color grading, that sort of stuff was amazing, the edit just didnt really click with my taste.
 
Just watched it again, figured I should try to target a little better exactly what I didn't like. I didn't really like all the half shots, like you see the skier 270 on to a rail, see it from another angle, and that's it. Personally I would have liked to see the endings to the shots you cut off.
 
amazing! absolutely loved it! but I agree with what MADDECENT said, it would be better if you had shown the full shot. But everything else was great.
 
The way I see it, the quality of skiing has absolutely nothing to do with the reel, and showing entire tricks are mostly distracting and beside the point. Potential clients are looking to see if the person landed the trick, and it only makes sense to sacrifice that sanctity for the sake of keeping the editing in pace to collectively make a good impression.
 
Ah fuck. Well thanks for the honesty man, I definitely appreciate it. It's kind of hard to just straight up say you didn't really like something.

I've been pretty bummed on the general response so far. Aside from a few people being real stoked, it's pretty underwhelming compared to what I was expecting considering I thought they were some of my most clean shots, and some of my best coloring. Not sure what happened there, but oh well.

As for the cutting the shot off thing, to be honest I disagree. It's obviously very subjective, but I hate when filmmakers feel like they have to show every action sports shot until the end of the trick. I feel like you should show what is in your opinion the best part of the shot, and move on. Keeps it concise and moving along. Entire tricks in a reel of otherwise quick shots (or a reel of entirely complete tricks) seem to drag quite a bit. Part of me thinks that it just seems strange to kids on here because we're all so used to seeing the whole trick, as that's a (debatably) crucial part of ski edits. But I could be wrong. I just have a hard time believing professional clients who don't know much about action sports are really going to wish they had been able to see the skiers (who were Matt Walker on the 2 on and swingset blind swap, and Alexi Godbout on the 8 kink, by the way) slide the entire rest of the rail. But once again, I could be wrong.

Everybody seems to have become quite a bit more blunt and straightforward in their critiques lately, I like it. Seems like we're all learning to be a lot less defensive of our own work.
 
Loved it! Colors and composition were spot on. I know it's hard to do while in school, but I was kind of hoping for a little more non skiing material. My favorite reels are always the ones that have diverse content, shows that you can handle anything that's thrown at you. But again, your reel was fantastic
 
Thank you, and I fully agree with what you said. Unfortunately, it was just a relatively small project that we only had two days to shoot, and the director was definitely the type of guy who is ok with settling for good enough, not great.
 
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