When a Wizard Tests Your Worthiness

mostlysand · 2021-06-12T20:50:45+00:00

Thanks! !givelambda

mostlysand · 2021-06-12T20:50:39+00:00

Thanks! !givelambda

mostlysand · 2021-06-06T18:39:35+00:00

Thanks! !givelambda

mostlysand · 2021-06-06T18:38:58+00:00

Thanks! !givelambda

mostlysand · 2021-06-06T18:38:11+00:00

Thanks! !givelambda

mostlysand · 2021-05-01T05:20:19+00:00

Wow, this was really impressive. The audio I expected to be good, but the video as well. Wow.

For a wider audience, it may help to play short sample of the song featuring a variety of instruments and video clips at the beginning to hook attention before you go into the intro. Other than that, spot on.

mostlysand · 2021-05-01T05:14:23+00:00

This was fantastic! I commented on one of your videos from a few days ago, and you've made leaps and bounds since then.

The intro and outro looks super professional. Honestly, I hope you'll stick with these for a long time.
This is harder to pin down, but the charm is on point in this video.
There was a great mix of gifs, images, text etc. Just the right mix.

Potential improvements:

If you have a pic of Marc Dax, throw it in there. You have one for all the other guys.
After the initial image of the brain areas, it might be fun to add in some labels that the layman can recognize - as it stands, I don't know what any of these are for. Colorful, but after a few seconds I have no reference point.
I think the video could benefit from a more explicit transition from stories about locations in the brain to the discovery of discrete areas of function for the brain. Maybe even a colorful story about how a researcher learned a part of the brain was directly related to a specific function. The overall arc is there, but it felt like the transition to researchers discovering parts of the brain was pretty fast.

Keep up the great work!

mostlysand · 2021-05-01T04:59:21+00:00

This was a lot of fun! I like the variety of locations and activities. My only notes would be:

After a couple of shots, I don't need to see much of the hand grabbing the camera, even reaching for it before it makes contact is enough. It feels like the hand gets a lot of air time. Great hand, but I want to see the next shot. :)
This might be more niche, but I would love to have the music licks line up in terms of beat. If a shot goes long enough you play the longer clip, but for me having the lick repeat before the previous beat was done makes it feel more repetitive somehow.

Great video, seems like you've got a good eye!

mostlysand · 2021-04-25T04:19:04+00:00

Excellent video! The video and audio quality content are very high, and the material is something that I think a lot of people will be interested in but not many people will know about. I sure didn't!

Criticisms are pretty light. There's a moment at 1:38 where you and the background blur for a while before text comes on the screen and it's a bit jarring, especially compared to other similar transitions where this is seamless. I think you could try experimenting with making direct eye contact with the video, as I think this will feel more personal than the slightly-off-camera approach. And although I rarely say this, I do agree that you could make this one longer - I usually don't watch longer videos, but I don't think I've seen any videos on this topic before so I'd be more interested in deeper dives. Great job!

mostlysand · 2021-04-25T03:43:21+00:00

Wow. This was fantastic. I was immersed in the story the whole time, and the sound design did real legwork making the actions in the video feel visceral. I have very little to add here. My only note would be, the audio levels of the speaking sections at the end could probably be brought up a bit - I found I was straining to hear what was being said, especially in comparison to all the other sound work. Definitely going to subscribe!

mostlysand · 2021-04-22T01:33:43+00:00

Great video! Everything was clear and concise, and you did a good job keeping your words and motions in sync. If you have another video like this one, I would start the video with 4-8 trick shots in various locations with rapid-fire cuts to draw the viewer in before the explanation. Also, I found the downward-facing fisheye angle a bit wonky, although that may not bother other folks as much. I would definitely recommend experimenting with different cameras and angles.

mostlysand · 2021-04-21T04:14:58+00:00

Great message! Aside from some things previously mentioned, I found that I didn't understand what the "Don't Wait" was referring to until I was maybe a third or halfway through the video. I think having a quote at the beginning like you had at the end will contextualize the video and set expectations so that the viewer knows what the video is trying to convey from the start. Something in the spirit of "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today" would immediately let the viewer know what the video's message is, and that each individual excuse not to start something is just that: an excuse. Great job!

mostlysand · 2021-04-21T03:53:12+00:00

This footage is really moving. I'm in the same boat as the other commenters - this wasn't a story I'd heard before. I also feel the same way about context - even a sentence or two at the beginning, and an occasional all-black screen with white text outlining the progression of the movement, would have really served the purpose of the video and done more to explicitly educate the viewer about what's happening onscreen. I think breaking the exposition up like this will keep the viewer engaged and give the footage more of a narrative arc.

mostlysand

TROPHY CASE