Raja Ampat Video

Here is my latest video effort:

[vimeohd]36230800[/vimeohd]

http://vimeo.com/36230800

It is the 4th in a series that I've been doing to help promote a pair of dive boats that operate around Southeast Asia. I have also made a longer, 30 minute, dive log video on Bluray for use on the dive boats and at dive shows. The other 3 were Thailand (Similan), Singapore (South China Sea) and Komodo.

Technical details:

Canon XF100 camcorder for surface with Audio Technica microphone

Canon XF100 camcorder for underwater in BS Kinetics Takla Makan housing (dome port and flat port)

2 x Sola 4000 lights

Edited and Narrated in FCP X

Royalty-free Music in SmartSound

Any suggestions for improvement?

Regards

Peter

I liked it!

Cheers Pete.

Because there is so much information, videos and photos on the internet of interest and my time is so short I usually find that any video over about 5 minutes long has me skipping through to get the basics of what the content is. As it turns out, this was a great production and kept me interested! My wife and I ended up watching it on our Roku and the quality looked great on the TV. Nice work!

Hi Peter,

Lovely footage as always. I enjoyed watching and would definitely consider a trip on the Black Manta from your review of the trip.

Many thanks,

Jo

Really nice video,especially the underwater shots.

My only comment (if you are looking for feedback)would be i think there is too much narration.e.g "diver looking through a hole, baby white tip shark & turtle" Narration is ok for unusual critters but not for everything.. Let the excellent footage speak for itself...just my opinion of course.

Nice video, good to see the black manta, I can only say good things about this boat, I went on this boat back in 2008 to the similans.

I agree with the above re the narration, let the wonderful footage tell its own story!

My only comment (if you are looking for feedback)would be i think there is too much narration.e.g "diver looking through a hole, baby white tip shark & turtle" Narration is ok for unusual critters but not for everything.. Let the excellent footage speak for itself...just my opinion of course.

Thank you for the feedback. I agree that I do have too much narration in this video.

My problem is that I am struggling for a balance. In one of my previous videos, Komodo (http://vimeo.com/29676466), I did more sparse narration. Then, a couple of my non-diving viewers asked for more narration so they could understand what was happening. So, I guess that this time I overreacted. As you say, even the non-divers would recognise a shark and a turtle.

Next time, I'll shift the balance a bit leaner again.

Regards

Peter

I really liked that Peter. Nice footage and the maps you include are really useful. I love that school of ribbon sweetlips.

I like a video with voiceover explaining what we're seeing. There is perhaps a little bit too much of stating the obvious in this one, but don't reduce it too much!

For me, the pacing is slightly fast in parts. In several places I wanted you to hold the shot a second longer. Sometimes sounded a bit like you had to rush to get the voiceover in before the shot changed.

Oh, and it's a cobia, not a rainbow runner.

For me, the pacing is slightly fast in parts. In several places I wanted you to hold the shot a second longer. Sometimes sounded a bit like you had to rush to get the voiceover in before the shot changed.

Thanks for the great feedback.

It's not from shortage of footage. I shoot most clips way longer than I will probably need. Learned that lesson the hard way. But I do always have trouble cutting down my footage for the short highlight video. Want to leave too many clips in. So I end up trimming it too tight. I should chop out more whole clips and give the remaining ones more space. I guess that's the downside of editing your own footage - too enamoured with the stuff I shot. Next time I'll do better, I promise.

Oh, and it's a cobia, not a rainbow runner.

Ouch, you are right. Should have looked it up in the fish book. I'd better fix the narration.

Regards

Peter