The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127217   Message #2835150
Posted By: Will Fly
10-Feb-10 - 01:16 PM
Thread Name: stagolee
Subject: RE: stagolee
Dick - very nice singing and playing - I slightly preferred the banjo backing to the guitar. No further comment to add on the performance front.

However, I would make some comments on the actual video itself - and I hope that you find them of some use. Many professional performers, such as yourself, don't actually have much to do with YouTube and, when we see them, the video is usually the work of some other individual, amateur or professional. So, if - as a professional - you're presenting your work on YouTube as an advertisement, then you'll probably be judged on the whole package: performance and presentation. So:

• It looks like you're using a webcam plus basic software for sound and vision, and the quality of the performance is suffering because it's diminishing the good qualities of your singing and playing.

• You need more light. Even good camcorders take on a red-brown hue in poort light conditions and, unless your movie software can compensate for that, it not only looks dark but colour-shifted as well.

• I can't see what your fingers are doing on the video because you aren't placing yourself centrally in camera. You're low down and very much to one side - so we're missing all the interesting fingering, particularly on the banjo.

• Any halfway decent movie editing programme will allow your video clip to be topped and tailed so that we only get the main performance. Straight in catches the attention - several seconds of tuning or getting ready, for example, doesn't.

So, to sum up, Dick - a nice performance which could come across even better with some adjustments to the video presentation. If you ever get across to Sussex, call in and we'll do some video shoots in my studio. :-)