Customer Reviews

Punk Rock Film School

5 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Knowing that Darren Doane is a professional in the field, and has made some good videos for various famous bands, I was expecting a video chock full of tips on how to achieve different effects, lighting, visuals, etc. Unfortunately that was not the case.

The hour long video, shot in Darren's father's garage, is slowly paced, taking you step by step through each of 6 takes of a band playing the same song. Each take is shown being filmed for the full 3-4 minutes the song lasts, quickly eating into time that could have been better spent elsewhere. Then editing and post-production are touched on slightly, showing you incredibly basic editing and color correction techniques. After that the completed video is shown. While the video itself is not a bad video (if somewhat generic), it is obvious that techniques (such as slow motion and reverse shots) were used in the final product that were never touched on during the tutorial.

All in all, I'd say that if you are someone who's in a band that's looking to make a video, but has never done anything more than use a camcorder to film home movies, you might get something out of it, as it is certainly geared toward beginners, and will provide you with a good jumping off point for you to expand on.

However, if you are like myself, with at least some rudimentary film making experience under your belt, you are best off looking elsewhere, as everything in this video will be common sense, and of little value to you.

I agree with all the specific criticisms made, and these were precisely my impressions as well.

This DVD suffers from exactly the same problem as the vast majority of instructional videos I have seen on any subject -- the rushed, one-shot commentary that is apparently ad libbed and at least somewhat unclear, confused and incomplete.

It does give some useful tips to kids trying to do their first garage-grade music videos and is helpful for what it is.

I was tempted to give this educational film one star, just because the shoddy production values and general lack of meaningful advice make it borderline useless, but it has elements at least for an absolute beginner that (while obvious to anyone who has shot before) could be helpful. I bought this product, I must admit, because I am hoping to create a competing product this year about making indie music videos, but I wouldn't be working on this project if it weren't for the disappointing quality of what else is out there. There is still only one great book about making a professional music video, which just came out last summer (Making Music Videos) and is still riddled with typos but also has amazing information about the inside of the business and the practical side of making a video. I think people, film school students, indie filmmakers, etc. want to see what goes into making a professional music video, not just how to film a shoe-string budget amateur video. In this educational film, for instance, where is the production design? Where is the attention to wardrobe? Where is the crew? Dolly? Jib? Nothing. Not every low budget filmmaker wants to make really poor YouTube quality videos. I started out wanting to make professional work on the first video and I had to spend months of research just trying to learn a massive amount of details, most of which I am still learning, but a product like this needs to give viewers that inside information. I think to do this subject justice a two-DVD set is necessary with a lot more than an hour of footage. Also I was disappointed by the use of the running time -- do we need to see the filming of every shot? Not really, no. Explain what you mean, then move on.

This product is really only useful if you don't know what a camera is and have never done anything before with the visual image, basically. I would rather have seen what this director does on a real music video shoot, what goes into the location planning, finding the right crew, how he comes up with a story, etc. A performance-only video in a mediocre location with a bad quality camcorder on a tripod, no less, or handheld only, is not a professional video. I may be wrong, but I think a lot of people out there today want to know how to make professional videos on relatively low budgets, not total amateur work that doesn't stand out from anything else.