Hey all, just wanted to say hi and meet and greet and say happy holidays!

[azgetaway]

Please check out my Youtube channel, Scott Parsons. I play all the music underneath the videos and would love your feedback on the content. I've been on Scuba board for many years and its been a big help, saved me tons of time and money, hopefully I've given back some measure of what I've received here.

My family and I are wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season.

Scott

 

[Cthippo]

Not bad. You have the basis for a good video there.

Your cinematography is good and I am impressed by your musical talent. What it needs is a framework of a story to hang it on and a purpose for that music.

Filmmaking is a form of storytelling and watching the video on the Odyssey it was never clear what story you were telling. Was it the story of the ship? Of her sinking to become a marine park? Of your journey to her? To borrow a line from The Hurricaine Riders, a kayak group out of Canada, "Turns out making real films is harder than we thought, so instead here is three minutes of surfing and a sick track". That can work, but it's not the most satisfying.

As for the music, it was good, but it didn't seem to be setting the tone. Music is how we, as filmmakers, tell the audience what they are supposed to be feeling about what they are watching. Is this supposed to be scary? Adventurous? Triumphant? How should they feel about the story they are being told?

Below is a video I did very early in my career about how music sets the feel of a video.


Finally, your text descriptions took up a lot of the screen and the viewer's attention from the footage. I know narration is hard, and honestly scary, but in this case I think narrarating rather than printing on screen would have made for a better end product.

I think you are off to a good start and by thinking about your storytelling from the viewer's perspective a little more you can make some awesome videos.

 

[Cthippo]

 

[azgetaway]

Hey Chris,

I just want to say sincerely thank you for the time you spent looking at my YT channel and the critique, this is invaluable feedback for me. And from a real film maker! I watched your music and video guide, the range of emotion from the first music selection to the scary music is huge, thanks for that and your encouragement. If you want access to some of the music I write and record and hold the copyright too please reach out to me DM. Or az.getaway@gmail.

 

[Cthippo]

Hey, I'm gad you took it in the sense it was intended.

 

[azgetaway]

Hey, I'm gad you took it in the sense it was intended.

You gave me lots of food for thought Chris. I'll be mulling your words over and over again in developing future videos. What I'm trying to communicate here is my music #1, so a typical video starts out on the surface with some verbal back and forth, then as the descent begins so does the music. I use these videos as a vehicle to communicate with other musicians and potential collaborations, almost like a business card. I have a vision of a future video that opens up like my typical video but then starts break up into a video of me in my studio recording, kind of pulling back the curtains type of feel. I especially liked what you said about narration, and how the text descriptions take away from the story. I like how open and honest your narration is, your voice is made for it. I saw one of your videos with 27k views!

 

[Cthippo]

Have you considered doing music videos for your music?

They can still be dive themed (Which would actually be pretty cool), but place the focus on the music and you as the musician.

Also, I don't know if you have talked to him, but @Eric Matyas also makes music, but his is often specifically for video and game production.

I think the one with 27k views either one of my horrible fish finder unboxings or the one on the USS Plainview. There is a big market for fish finder review videos and if I wanted to be YouTube famous that is probably what I would do, but I don't fish. I used the fish finders for hunting wrecks and at the time I made those was still barely trying to figure it out, which is why the dislikes on them is close to 50%, The Plainview video I am rather proud of, but the only reason anyone noticed it is that the US Naval Institute did an article on the ship and linked to it. Most of my videos come up short of 100 views, but I am OK with that. I have a small, but devoted, fan base who are into adventures and I am not doing it for a buck.