Any tips or comments for my POV driving video

suhhh

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Don't really have much editing experience at all so wanted to get some opinions on a little mini edit I did

Girlfriend got me a gopro for my bday so trying to utilize it as much as possible haha, not sure if the video is a bit too dark and I need to work on lighting, also not sure about the sound balance and if my gopro needs to be mounted a little higher (i was holding it by my mouth)

any criticism is welcome :)

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charleswrivers

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Don't really have much editing experience at all so wanted to get some opinions on a little mini edit I did

Girlfriend got me a gopro for my bday so trying to utilize it as much as possible haha, not sure if the video is a bit too dark and I need to work on lighting, also not sure about the sound balance and if my gopro needs to be mounted a little higher (i was holding it by my mouth)

any criticism is welcome :)

I don’t tend to watch vids like this but I think it’s well put together.

The lighting, like you mentioned, would be the only feedback I’d give as, at times, it’s pretty dark. It could be as much a product of where you’re driving and the light sources outside of the car as adding any light inside the car. The small amount of lighting given by our controls is kind of weak... the the thing that pops in the video is the instrument cluster and the infotainment. I wonder if the optional LEDs or an aftermarket equivalent that provide a touch of red ambient light would provide any fill and cut the darkness where you can’t make out much of anything (especially the steering wheel). The GoPro may have some setting to bring out the darkness a bit... but you’ll need to counter it by holding those two screens fairly dim or they’ll overexpose.

If you have a flashlight and can put a red gel/very thin red cloth you could shine it onto a piece of paper taped to the rear glass and it might bounce back a diffuse red to give the same effect to just test what it’d look like before you consider spending any $$$ on anything. That or maybe a red light in the rear dome that’s on all the time for some diffuse ambient light... a piece of colored plastic around the light can make the effect. We use red gels around fluorescent tube lights on the boat to red-out the light to retain our night vision while giving just enough ambient light to see. You just don’t want to make hard shadows.
 
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suhhh

suhhh

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I don’t tend to watch vids like this but I think it’s well put together.

The lighting, like you mentioned, would be the only feedback I’d give as, at times, it’s pretty dark. It could be as much a product of where you’re driving and the light sources outside of the car as adding any light inside the car. The small amount of lighting given by our controls is kind of weak... the the thing that pops in the video is the instrument cluster and the infotainment. I wonder if the optional LEDs or an aftermarket equivalent that provide a touch of red ambient light would provide any fill and cut the darkness where you can’t make out much of anything (especially the steering wheel). The GoPro may have some setting to bring out the darkness a bit... but you’ll need to counter it by holding those two screens fairly dim or they’ll overexpose.

If you have a flashlight and can put a red gel/very thin red cloth you could shine it onto a piece of paper taped to the rear glass and it might bounce back a diffuse red to give the same effect to just test what it’d look like before you consider spending any $$$ on anything. That or maybe a red light in the rear dome that’s on all the time for some diffuse ambient light... a piece of colored plastic around the light can make the effect. We use red gels around fluorescent tube lights on the boat to red-out the light to retain our night vision while giving just enough ambient light to see. You just don’t want to make hard shadows.
Thank you man! Glad to hear you think it's well put together, huge compliment to me because I've never made/edited any videos besides some projects when I was in school so my editing skills are based off of stuff I've seen in youtube videos haha, also you gave some really good feedback and advice

But yeah from what I've seen online, it seems like the gopro isn't the best in dark settings although some settings could probably be tweaked to make it a little better.

I've actually been looking into getting some LEDs, I think it'll give some good contrast light/dark and might help night runs look a bit better, gonna have to experiment with that and hope that the lights won't be too bright and distracting. I think it mostly will come down to placement.

The advice with the flashlight and a thin layer blocking is a really good idea too, I have to figure out how I'm going to place it, maybe I'll look into one of those dome lights like you said and try to mess around with it.

Cheers bro
 

charleswrivers

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Thank you man! Glad to hear you think it's well put together, huge compliment to me because I've never made/edited any videos besides some projects when I was in school so my editing skills are based off of stuff I've seen in youtube videos haha, also you gave some really good feedback and advice

But yeah from what I've seen online, it seems like the gopro isn't the best in dark settings although some settings could probably be tweaked to make it a little better.

I've actually been looking into getting some LEDs, I think it'll give some good contrast light/dark and might help night runs look a bit better, gonna have to experiment with that and hope that the lights won't be too bright and distracting. I think it mostly will come down to placement.

The advice with the flashlight and a thin layer blocking is a really good idea too, I have to figure out how I'm going to place it, maybe I'll look into one of those dome lights like you said and try to mess around with it.

Cheers bro
Just to do a test... I’d have it on the center console and shine on a piece of white paper taped to the middle of the back seat or on the middle of the headliner. Hell... colored paper might create a colored light as well. You just want something diffuse to fill in and prevent the GoPro from focusing on the (relatively) Uber bright infotainment and display and essentially making everything else so dark you can’t see anything.

Have fun with it. I was never good with cutting up and editing things back when I did it a little bit back in school (we were still using tape) but I thought it was a good early effort... especially given the lack of a proper mount.
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