I would pan across a still of the big crowd in the opening rather than the jerky video.
You need to show the hat at the end, not just the bbq sauce.
Other than that, pretty good.

I like the "pan on a still idea" and I did have a pic of the hat, I wish I would have.

And thanks for the comments..

The crowd clip was from last years jamboree.

Where was the Voice Over recorded?

Just in the office.... I added reverb later.... too much or would you have done something else? I was trying to get that "live" mood thing....

Too much reverb for my taste... makes it sound amateurish to me. Used car dealer ads have made reverb a cliche in TV ads.

I went back and forth on the idea.... I kept going back to adding it.
I get what your saying though....

You really know how to cut to the bone.... amateurish ;-)

It's a good thing I didn't get paid too much for this or I would start feeling guilty. ;-)

Apologies... Didn't mean to imply you were an amateur. That was the just the first thought I had the instant the VO started.

As has been discussed so many times before, audio can make or break a video. I think a "dryer" sounding VO would have elevated your piece considerably. But that's just my opinion. I'm confident others will disagree.

"Too much reverb for my taste"I like the reverb, but only because it matches the video background i.e an announcer at an outdoor assembly.

...Jerry

When you show the first product shot, you have an extra "a" in your type.

And I agree, the reverb is a bit distracting. But otherwise, the spot sells what is intended. Need to watch those typos though :)

Dave T2

edit. I guess it is not an extra "a" , it is supposed to be "and"

Personally, I thought the reverb was OK given the arena / state fair setting.
OK, a bit corny but it works in context. Just my 2c.

The customer didn't seem to mind the reverb, but he's not too picky about those sorts of things. I'll probably watch this over in a few months and say......"yep, Jay was right"......

I appreciate your honesty, not offended at all. I know all to well that everyone has their own opinion, I'm the worst.

"The customer didn't seem to mind the reverb..."

I think the reverb is cool. The way you composed the video, it can be viewed/"taken" in two ways: 1) As an advertisement announced at the event over the event P.A. system, or 2) As as a standard TV commercial.

Since you started with the shot of a live event, the reverb gave the impression/"feel" that the ad was being announced at that event and shown on the big screen.

So my 'put is, the reverb was added as a result of your attempt to be creative; don't lose that creativity...keep experimenting. Push the envelope but be sure to satisfy you customer as you seem to have done.

Thank you.

I appreciate the comments. The reverb was surely context specific.
I had thoughts of automating the FX, but the Express Reverb FX doesn't allow automation, which baffled me.... why not?
So, I left it in. I guess at some point you just say that's it... I'm not tweaking this thing any more..... upload the darn thing! =-)

Having made many commercials over the the years I can tell you that the reverb was perfect, it fitted with the feel and look of the ad. The (jerky) panning of the crowd at the start was very uncomfortable to the eye. A nice slow pan would of looked so much better. Also when the text came up for " Now you're smokin" it did not stay up long enough to read, it needed at least another second or so. If it was me I would take it out and use that time on another area of the ad. I loved the music which again was perfect, but try and time the music to finish at the end of the ad instead of a fade out, it just adds that extra polish to a commercial. Apart from some tweaking (re my comments) it gets the message over to the viewers.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

For a local commercial I thought it was good. I agree w/ others that the jerky panning of the crowd was distracting and what was the text at about 0:35s? It came and went so fast I wasn't able to read it.

Nice job, especially liked the bit where the ad covered the stage.
I'm ambivalent about the reverb, but it does kinda fit the mood of the commercial. Plus if the customer is happy with it, you should be too! I usually add a little reverb just to build the sound up, dry recordings seem lifeless to me.

Like others, not too certain about that reverb. The idea is good but the actual reverb used doesn't sound like it was from the PA in that venue, it just sounds too clean.

The "Mak Grills" logo troubled me. The hard edges from the "stripes" in the stars and stripes is distracting when it's composited with the alph letting the background through. Maybe add a plinth or something solid behind it.

The picture in picture bits didn't work and they're not centred in the frame. The remnant background around them says nothing and is just distracting visual clutter.

Obviously the pan, not just that it's jerky but it goes one way and then back.

At the end you have a nice textured background with text etc coming and going but the background is panning. That was taking my eyes with it to the left when you wanted my eyes in the middle of the screen to read the text. A very slow zoom in on that background would give it some movement whilst keeping the eyes where you need them.

Bob.

The reverb was a good idea, but the first time I heard it, I thought you did the V/O in a bathroom. If you wanted to simulate the sound of an outdoor PA, you should depress the highs and boost the midrange a bit, like cheap PA speakers. The decay on the reverb should have been a lot longer.

The pan of the crowd sucks because any fast pan will not encode well.

Otherwise, I like it.

Steve

I'd get rid of the reverb on the v.o. entirely.

The crowd pan looks terrible. Cheap camcorders do a horrible job with pans. So does Youtube. Cheap cams don't have adjustible apertures so they adjust exposure by speeding up the shutter speed entirely. This looks okay for some things, but fast pans is not one of them. They end up looking really jerky. Also, they are using low bitrate encoding schemes. So does Youtube. Between all these things, I would never shoot a fast pan with a camera like this, especially if I was putting it on Youtube. What I will do when I need this sort of shot is shoot a panorama with stills and stitch them together in Photoshop, then animate the pan in Vegas.

With video you could shoot a wide establishing shot, then a couple of closer zooms. With an event like this though, I know you have to use what you have.

am I the only one seeing the typo?

Dave T2

Illuminating.

Grazie