Nice work, I like the soundtrack, great images as usual, and coordinated transitions with the beat.
Since it seems to be the week of some candid evals I'll throw out a few ideas; just throwing spaghetti to the wall to see if anything sticks.
Tell a story. In a larger film-making context that involves conflict and change but even here you have some of the faces showing emotion.
Other basic editing comments:
Use all the frame for images instead of leaving the right side static. Not sure if you have the ability to generate the images with a 16:9 aspect ratio, but if not you can crop or use multiple images with one dominant to give some things more emphasis than others.
Another way to add variety and show emphasis is to vary the timing of the edits, some quick, some medium, some slow. Give your best more time and space.
Vary the fades, including standard cuts.
Consider zooming and/or panning.
Make a 1-2 minute 'AM radio' version to really grab interest in this current ADHD world.
Again, LOTS of really good content there and what I'm talking about is just packaging it.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to analyze and give me feedback on this stuff! Thanks for the kind words and tips!! PLEASE refer back to these first two lines if you think anything I say below is offensive or out of place in any way ;~)) As for candid evals, I wish it no other way. Like László has mentioned previously, not looking for a bunch of "atta boy" comments ;~))
I am just throwing spaghetti on the wall with this stuff. I never intended to do ANY of this electro stuff but got pulled into it via another forum where they have a "Do Something Challenge" which encourages you to do stuff you don't normally do musically, and that is exactly what this is. I also never intended to make videos from the AI image generation stuff I have been making the past few months, but always intended on using it for artwork for my musical pieces. The images however have lent themselves to easy, quick, interesting slideshows for the "challenge" stuff I created, so there it is. This is all seat of the pants stuff I have been doing and doing it very quickly as well, which drives some of my decisions. Your points are well taken though.
When it comes to telling a story, most of my songwriting is based around such a premise, but these videos are generally just collections of images in part because I am just throwing stuff up there as quickly as I can get it done. I have written about 3 dozen songs so far this year, and dozens more last year, etc. And this electro stuff again, is just a new thing that was not planned, so the "story" is not being written for the most part as the first 7 pieces were just collection of images. For "Say What?", I did write a small story (one paragraph) about the "people" in that video. They were all of a "tribe" that I came up with and so that video is probably the best example of a story. A few of these videos were just "what did I generate today in AI" and took the best 100-200 pieces from that days outputs, sorted it randomly and slideshowed it ;~)) "Wilson" has a bit of a story to it as well, with the voice overs I used from "Cast Away" and all images are variations of beach balls. Anyway, you get the point, this is all just spaghetti on the wall for me (and to be honest, I don't care if it sticks as it all came about due to the challenge mentioned above). My next release titled "Garden Of Me" will be much more classic rock style, and I will not be throwing together a slideshow of random images for that. I don't even know that I will be making a video any time soon for that or other near future recordings because I will want such videos to be much more produced and story like rather than a selection of images morphing. For the "Tickle Your Brains" video, I tried to use images that elicited the concept of the brain being tickled although I did use several images that were not exactly a "happy" tickle. I used about 200 images out of 600 I had from the AI based on the title words.
16:9 is great, but this AI program I am using will do them but the total pixel size is to small for a high res video and I am not taking the time to blow them all up, which is why part of the template is static. I also did not want to spend the time of doing individual transitions and am instead doing bulk stuff. When using 200-500 images, it would take so much time to give each one the focus and attention it deserves, but once again, spaghetti on the wall is how I look at these pieces. And do I need to use this many images? Certainly not, but I just want to throw this artwork out there for others to enjoy because I know I really enjoy it so this is more of a "share the images" deal than it is a "produce a compelling video" thing.
The zooming and panning, generally known as the "Ken Burns" effect is something I have seriously considered, but once again, path of least resistance is where I am going with this off the cuff stuff I had no intention of creating ;~)) I have also thought about lyrics (only this piece has any so not really thought about to much) slithering across video and fading in and out is something I have considered but decided to not spend time on for these pieces. I did spend about an hour syncing subtitles for this piece using the youtube studio, but it was a total PIA and would not do it again. The auto-sync in youtube studio was worthless IMO.
The ADHD comment is understood and a good idea. When I am playing these pieces on the synthesizer, I have trouble even keeping them under 10 minutes because I want to just keep playing. Yes, I can edit them and make a shorter piece, but once again, spaghetti on the wall with this stuff so not going to spend the time, too many other, what I would call "real" songs to focus on. I would note that this is one of maybe half a dozen pieces I have ever made that started with a musical composition and I then wrote the lyrics. 99% of what I do starts as a lyric and I make the music to follow it based on what I hear in my head.
Once again, thanks for all your suggestions and spending the time. I am just having fun with this stuff though and playing around with some software to quickly produce some pieces and learn some things about how I will do things down the road and what software I want to use ;~)) Having a blast doing so, but I need to get to work on my other stuff that I care about to a much higher degree!!!
Cheers Prina, you are a treasure!
