My first commercial

Nice work.. I thought the pace fit the target market. Great colors!

Thanks Drozz. I decided to go with the high saturation because, afer all, it is a Mexican restaurant. I wanted vibrant colors.

The one shot I really disliked was the shot of the "party room" which was my first shot I took during the day. It was impossible to go back and re-shoot it because regular patrons had filled up that room at night while we were shooting in the main room. So I tried to do "ghetto HDR" to lower the brightness of the windows. I was so disappointed with it, I almost went back to reshoot it. No one noticed that??

(this was all shot with the T3i btw)

I was impressed until the daylight shot, and the cut to the wall at the end that screamed "I need B Roll!!". Still impressed though.

That looks great, you did a terrific job on it.

Gantoris wrote in post #14851699
Ok, then I think the pacing was right for the audience. I was trying to target more of the white middle class, since the restaurant is on the border between a hispanic neighborhood and a white yuppy neighborhood. It was for their website, so we assumed the audience already had an interest in visiting the restaurant. Also, we weren't trying to fit it all into a 30 sec spot.

Thanks again for all your feedback. I'm trying to land another commercial this week! It is for this tequila company's website. I'm sure I will be back here bouncing ideas off you guys.

I think you got it right, food looks good, model well spoken and attractive, music nice. Classy look. WELL DONE

btc20mx - You got it right on! Both of those shots were my Least favorite. I took that shot of the wall literally right before I left for the night. I took it completely hand held and warp stabilized. Thanks for all the feedback!

I liked that!

OK you asked for C&C so here I go.Its slow. t has anice smooth pace to it, but i donrt feel excited to go. The food shots were really good but they need to be closer, i almost want to feel like an enhilada on the plate with the others. I would not show so much of the Girl up front for a couple of reasons. One… Who is she… I dont know, you never said who she is. But It does not really matter. 2) She is not the reason i am going to go to El Tipico. Will she work there for long will she get let go and want you to not use her image, will she open the next competing restaurant. These are all things to think about. I think you should have concentrated on the food. Tighter shots , closer shots. Many more shots. I want to get excited to go. The food shots are really the star of this spot, Food looks great and shooting food is tuff, especially to make it look good. The music is slow and too laid back, Again not really exciting.If she were showing me a cabana in Cozumel this feel would be dead on, some place to relax. The last shot of the dining room at daytime did not fit at all. I would remove it completely and use that to get more time for the tag at the end.
This one is really picky, her accent changes when she says the names of the dishes and drinks. It almost sounds like two different people. I would have use a voice that maybe had a little more "Mexican" sound. I understand that you want to be clearly heard, but that could be done and not so jarring between vocal styles. Yes she is very understandable, but IMHO i would have rather heard some accent in the whole thing. This should have been a :30 sec spot. One min is too long and prolly pretty expensive. Also if oit were shorter with a little faster edit, the pace might not feel so slow.

Please do not think i dont like it. The work is very well done. The Food Especially. It did make me want some, but I wanted to see more. More angles, close up shots, internal camera movment. Getting a Rock star commercial is VERY hard to do and you will never be able to sell everyone the one idea. But aim at the largest target audiance you can. I am really trying to get you to a better commercial. I hope you wont let this one guys opinion stop you. Remember there are a million ways to edit and shoot a spot. None are really right and none are really wrong. I will be loking for your next spot. Good Luck.

lecherro: Some tough but fair critiques.

I would have loved to get more shots of the food, but the restaurant was really cheap and only brought out a few dishes... I was fighting for time over the dishes with this photographer too (who taking terrible pictures...). I actually came back another day to get the shot of the desserts and the skirt steak tacos (and paid out of pocket for the dishes!!). I had only 2 hours to shoot the entire thing, including the food. I could not take out the daytime shot because the owners wanted a shot of that room, and that was the only one I had (see my previous comment about why I couldn't get a night time shot).

Thanks again for your feedback.

Well done. Hmmm Mexican

-AP- wrote in post #14835094
Great, now I'm hungry..

Nice job!

I second this!

Well done

Gantoris.. Hey, thanks for taking it the right way. I know what you are facing talking about low budget shoots. This industry goes that way quite often. You id well with the circumstances you had. As am editor myself i look back on shoots and productions all the time and wish i had this and that. I too have paid out of my own pocket to get that extra something for the shoot. It shows great dedication in my humble opinion. Keep up the good work.