Please critique my first commercial

I've just completed my first commercial for our church. Those of you who will, please follow the link below and view the Windows media file of this video. It's about a minute and a half and almost 3MB in size. I'm looking for objective, constructive criticism and honest opinions. I'm new to this, so I'd like any guidance that I can get. Thanks for your opinions.

Greg

http://www.basssax.com/Easter.wmv

When you say commercial, do you mean for TV consumption?

Yes, it is scheduled to air the week before Easter.

Thanks,

Greg

Tremendous concepting and use of mood and music to evoke emotion. I applaud your result... it is bold and attention getting.

Several thoughts:
- The same 'shots' are used several times. This is a no-no in editing live action... and should be avoided in animation. Can you extend your shots, slow them down, or animate a shot from a longer focal length to use at the beginning?

- The CG (graphics) are a little lackluster. What software did you use to overlay the text? If your software will allow, I would suggest making it slightly opaque, removing the stroke, and possibly animating it so the text slides (very slowly) in the opposite direction of the 'camera moves'. Also, the text looks a little stretched in its width, which is not a good idea... text shouldn't be stretched (but I may just be seeing it incorrectly.)

- The Service Times graphic is difficult to read through, can you cut out some verbage and possibly use 2 different fonts sizes?

- Great music. If it is copyright legal then I greatly applaud your effort at finding such a fitting piece!!!

Just some random (albiet mildly picky) thoughts... All in all though, an EXCELLENT piece. I would be proud to have my church's name on it!!!

Great Work!

[David Reddel]

Ditto to all of the comments above. Very nice job!

I assume the animation is created by you or you have permission to use it. Same with the soundtrack. Have that copyright information to provide to the station, as I know that stations here want to see that.

I like everyone else love the musice. It sets the mood well, fits with with the imagery, and I think will edit down well to 30 or 60 second spots.

There are 3 things that bother me visually (other than the repeated footage as mentioned earlier).
1. That all camera movements are in the same direction... from right to left. If I counted right, you have 4 shots that move R-L then 2 static shots. Changing this up a bit with some L-R or some zoom in/outs would be less monotonous.
2. You've done a great job drawing the eye to the crosses. Your composition is excellent. For me though, that made pulling back to look at and read the text difficult... OK, so this is either a good or bad thing depending on how you want to take it. But, my concern is that in one viewing the message you are trying to convey may not be read because the text isn't central enough to the overall message... or doesn't stand out enough to draw the eye away from it's natural focal point. Adding motion to it as others suggested above may do the trick.
3. This is probably petty to some, but I don't like the serif font... Maybe it would look better with different effects on it, but I think the serif's get lost in all the background and effects and make it less noticeable...

Overall, I really like the work. It think it will make a great 60 second commercial. Good job. I'd like to know some of the tech stuff behind the making of it... Please share.

Thanks for your encouragement and suggestions. The animation is from Digital Juice Vol. 13. The animation is 30 sec. and I slowed it down to 50% and looped it to fill the time I needed. The music is from a friend of mine. She has three CD's and has given me permission to use any of it for church related projects. The reason I had to make it a minute and a half is that the phrase of the music didn't resolve until a minute and a half. I tried to shorten it, but couldn't find a place to cut it and it still sound correct, musically. Maybe if I go back, I can find a place to cut it on the front end. I'm a musician as well and things like that bother me. I can't wait until I have the extra money to get BackTraxx from Digital Juice.

Everything was done in Premiere. I don't recall which program/plug-in I used for the text. I think it may have been "Inscriber". It came bundled with Premiere. The Windows media file suffered some in the conversion. It looks much better on the tape. To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea how to do some of the suggestions that were made. I'm new to this and I'm learning as I go. I may go back and use some of the suggestions that have been made here to improve the commercial. Thanks again for your input.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a place to learn more about video editing, tips and tricks, etc....?

Thanks,

Greg

[sempei13]

Musical phrase or no 30-60 seconds is the standard for tv ads.

Could you take the beginning and end of the phrase and chop out some of the middle?

Otherwise, what the others said is right on.

Paul

I just looked at this again.. backed it up from the end 60 seconds (to about where "for you" comes up) and I think you've got a good musical intro point right there. I dont' think a 60 second spot would require any real effort to cut down to... If you go back 28 seconds from the end, there is a pause there that you could come up in... won't have quite the same feel, but could work... You might be able to cut to 30 and 60 using those two musical clips. Try it and see what you think.

Since the animations are bought, the only think I could suggest with those is that maybe you do create a zoom with Premiere on one of the static shots... We've found that you can to 110% on most everything without noticeable loss of quality, and some things you can go a little higher 115-120%. That would give a nice subtle motion into or out from an image that would change things up a bit.

[Charlie Brown]

I can't get it to play. I recently upgraded to Windows Media 9, so maybe that is my problem. It plays, but it is just black with no audio. Anyone else having this problem?

It's got about 10 seconds of blank at the front... did you let it run past that?

great job on this commercial! good concept great music.

all the comments above are right on.

If it were me, i would work hard to get the commercial down to :30, it's a bit slow especially with the repeating of shots. you could also overlap your text a bit more, seeing "Jesus Christ" a little higher on the screen, with "willingly" coming in just before the first text goes out.

you could also make the text different sizes or have Jesus Christ linger longer on the screen at 20% opacity throughout some parts of the commercial.

great spot! this was just my two cents, and everybody's got an opnion!