I made a short with a lightsaber duel, would love input

Hey so I write for a website called www.ihogeek.com and we started doing video shorts so I figured I'd practice my editing skills. The second episode we did has a lightsaber duel so please let me know what you think and share input =) And SORRY that the video uploaded so small when I rendered it from After Effects. I haven't figured out why it did that so if anyone has a tip to fix that let me know.

Well here it is!

http://youtu.be/CpzIg1uzmFU

 

First of all, congrats on getting your (presumably) first lightsaber film done!

A couple of points

The rotoscoping and masking is pretty good, so kudos. But some flashes when the sabers collide would make a massive improvement.

But one thing really bugged me was the black frames inbetween each shot.

 

Yeah, I got a comment on the black spaces in between scenes so I'll be not including those in episode 3. I appreciate the rotoscoping compliment as it took me FOREVER to do 4 light sabers worth of it.

 

What would you recommend for flashes? I hadn't thought of that before.

 

A quick google search should help you out there. But what you shouldn't use is lens flares!

Have a read of the lightsaber sticky thread at the top of the forum

http://boards.theforce.net/fan_films_fan_audio_scifi_3d/b10015/22268323/p1/?256

Hope that helps!

 

First lightsaber video? Amazing! My first one turned out so bad I never even posted it Well done!

 

I'm on board with exactly what Resister said....for a first attempt pretty awesome!!!

Props

 

I've never really understood the desire to do flares without artifacts. I did a flare made to match the real flares from the sun, with artifacts, in my LCC entry this year, using kramer's optical flares plugin.

 

Cuz that's how it is in the movies? Sure, the sabers are inconsistent, but that's how the flares look.
I just find the extra artifacting to be a distraction. The simple flash is enough.

 

Nice work with the lightsabers. I already read the sticky thread, and did some work with lightsabers in photoshop but I'm wondering if there is a good, easy to understand tutorial on how to do lightsabers in after effects. Any suggestions? I know this is a repetitive question, so sorry in advance.