George, okays, so I'm gonna repost it. I was a bit tired at the time, so I put in a few clarifications for 'getting near the end of COL' effect. And so people would understand what i meant with hopefully their ego's getting hurt a little less.
Also, i don't understand why there are interlacing problems in some of the videos? I've tried it on my DVD player and my computer and they both have it. Sometimes it goes away within one persons video and then comes back for the next. Faisca, Rossi and Pineapple Pete are the ones affected. Is it just a PAL region thing? Is NZ NTSC?
anyway: back to the old.
Fire Dance with the Light. Good props, energetic dancing, but not super technical. Good and crowd pleasing thou, and since it was a performance, I guess that's what counts. Props for the uber staff. I want one.
Fire sisters: Much better than last year. Some nice ideas (the use of the wick in the middle of a chain has interesting ideas in it) and bits of routine, let down by some shonky camera work, and not exactly beautiful backdrops. (Er white corrugated metal wall?) Also, if it's supposed to be synchronised, don't put the bits that aren't in fact synchronized in. There was a beautiful shot of you starting out your poi routine indoors, and then later a shot of the routine again and you weren't synchronised, why put it in??!!? Some of the staff stuff lacked confidence also. You seemed much happier with the poi. Again, much more enjoyable than last year, even thou it wasn't specifically filmed for COL. Even thou it was performances, it seemed less contrived and there was even a smile in there.
infinitos: Nice duetting, including girl in guy poi sandwich moment. Wasn't convinced by the group fire shots. They were okay when everybody was in sync but after a while it seemed like you were trying to make fire grooves video from last year, but with less money spent on production. Plus if you don't change move during a shot, it kinda just looks like you're just doing that move over and over, and it's not part of any greater routine. Yes good promo, and yes, better than most COL videos of ages past, but doesn't seem like the type of thing to win. But if you just wanted to get a video on COL, good job, you did it.
Michael Kevin Farrell, good locationising, the graffiti particularly nice, not so convinced by the other fire spinning area, is that an old school hoover in the background? Sometimes you're spinning works to the music, sometimes not. Hoop and close up face a climax does not make. I'm guilty of it too, using more fire and less skill to make a finale, but I'd rather see you do inversions on fire with the poi as an ending, than some basic hoop. Props for getting inversions in a COL video.
Bender! Props for dancing on uneven ground! Yeah! Plus was that a behind the head catch with a fan? Tech!
Spiral hoop dance: semi clothed chick with a hoop enjoying herself at various performances. Excellent Hooping. Would be very good, except the music wasn't very fitting and the quality of the footage not taken in a studio was uniformly atrocious. It should have been all the studio footage I think, cos that rocked. Smiling, looking at the camera, good presence... but then it had to cut back to some super high grain noisy footage with you really far away and the hoop the only thing really visible... Noooooo!
Poi story: Correct use of ellipsis at the end of a sentence!
yeah!
Nosh: almost a story... I didn't really get it. Nice use of night to day, day to night. And the random people you interacted with those bits were really funny. I had no idea why you were doing it, but it reminded me of crazy film hijinks, like in Priscilla queen of the desert. I almost would have preferred it if you'd done the interesting stuff without the story... various ways across that bridge and more things like that. Some nice bits well filmed, but also some not great bits: poi duet, where you lost most of your physical character. With a bit more work on the filming to show what both of you were doing I think it would be great. (You're barely able to see she's got into bridge or that you are straddling the bridge and she walks between your legs.) Swamp to cave thou... errrr, I don't get the story again. Somebody! Explain it to me.
Burning match: Get a better camera. Sooooo grainy! Noises are funny, but framing of shots is bad. If that guy can do a standing back tuck, why can't he do a clean carthweel using the staff? Straighten your legs! It's a good fight, but it suffers the same fault that most fake fights have, it doesn't look real, cos of hesitation and the slowness of the attacks. And if you had a big flaming stick, mostly you'd just hit people with it, instead of doing fancy twirling.
Pineapple pete: are you chewing gum? You have some movement, but it's very stiff, doesn't seem ever to involve your head or gaze... Only occasionally your torso. You need more dance and character. Or more tech and less silly flowers. And by silly I mean ridiculously techy.
asaf and Elhanan: some nice transitions in your routine, but lots of doing one move for extended period of time. And it needs to be much much more synchronised, and more movement and character between you two. Plus obviously, better backdrop and costumes. Also, it's a very front audience routine, so side angles were unnecessary and kinda useless. One of you is the guy who was at play right? You can spin better than this I think. Get on it.
Short Fusion: Graceful, some good clean acrobatics. Clean b-kick I like. Powerful looking, fast and confident, good stopping points and good short routine. Good use of the stage, but clearly a routine for impressing a lay audience, and not for impressing spinners. Graceful pirouettes thou, nice. Good to see some muscley guy who's not afraid to point his toes.
Nox Incendio... isn't this machina candeo... I don't understand. Good production values. It reminded me of gladiators, the tv show. The up down poi in the traveling shot is the best bit, otherwise the skills are mostly beginner and that makes it kinda boring. And the costumes don't seem to make sense: gypsy pirates? Clearly made the best out of what you had thou. Fire easting shots were good the first time, third time it was boring. Yeah sorry if it seems harsh, it's a good promo video for non-fire-jaded-spinners, and it's definately a strong promo, second only to the Fire Groove one. It has more focus on the individuals and highlights different 'segments' of your act, but to a spinner, it's just a promo, and doesn't bring much new technique to the table, other than the film making techniques.
Poism:
Cut down, and with really unfitting music at finale... I prefer the full length music copyright infringing version I think. Mostly cos I love the Zaitoichi soundtrack. Yeah the finale is super fast high energy, and the music is totally out by that point, being much more in tune with the beginning. Don't know if it was your choice....
Elias WTF is that music? And is the costume a homage to RHD?
Ninaruna: What is the medieval knight thing about? Why? And no need for the here are all our skills bit... Is it a promo or not? I am indeed, by this point sick of promo style videos. The curse of being near the end of COL. Now it has affected YOU! Can't win eh, at the start or the end...
Blazing phoenix: You need more synchronisation, especially at the start, first impressions count. You had some synchronisation later on, but you started with some not very synchronised stuff. Didn't seem like a great editing choice. More camera angles would be good too, help keep interest. You need to give more thought to the transitions and to the routine itself. There were some nice ones, but the reasonably frequent cuts and lack of tightness in the choreography made it seem more like a practise run, rather than a performance.
Tulic: Not a great backdrop. You have massssive dinosaur hand when doing one staff, and your doubles are severely deplaned. Clearly you're more comfortable with poi. Good effort thou. Good lighting, but I think you could be closer to magic hour to film, and either with a nicer backdrop, or the sea. See the fascia entry. Also, you could stand to make eye contact with the camera more.
Fiesty: Well it was a video from a performance. The background wasn't great, but it was well lit thou and you could see everything. Didn't see much point to the cat makeup, you didn't really do much character stuff with it. It was entirely uncut as far as I remember, which is pretty brave. I felt it could have done with more partner choreography. It seemed very much like one person, bit of interaction, then the other girl doing her thing.
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in advance... cos I know yours rocked and you should really stop being so down on yourself.
congrats Dai! Nice work. (And it was nice meeting you at the Vulcan!)
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