How to make my videos look professionals?

1. theunhidden
   Member

   
   Hello everyone,
   
   I am looking for a way to make my videos look professionals. I have the following equipment:
   
   1.- Cannon XL2.
   2.- Adobe Premier CS3
   3.- Matrox LE real time editing card.
   
   I have invested a lot of money into my equipment and I still can't get the quality of video production I know I can produce with this equipment.
   
   Now, I am mainly speaking about outdoor videos. I live in Florida and I shoot during the mornings with a beautiful sun light, after I capture and edit my video it still looks like a home-made-video. NOTE: I am speaking of the image, the colors. It looks if I have recorded with a home mini camera.
   
   What do you suggest I buy or do to make my video crisp! I want my end result to be something like this:
   
   

   Get the Video Plugins

   
   
   You notice the outdoor shots and the car shots are really crisp, the colors are great. What should I do to make my videos look like this? Do I need a dif camcorder? Do I need some other software? or do I just need to read a tutorial on how to do color correction?
   
   Any help would be appreciated. I have been doing this for a few months now and I haven't found a tutorial or the right software to make my video look professional.
   
   Thank you in advanced.
   theunhidden

   Posted 4 years ago #

2. theunhidden
   Member

   
   After reading some posts here on the forum I noticed I was doing one thing wrong with my XL2. I was recording at 60i, instead of 30p or 24p. I have changed my setting to 30p for now, I will do some a few tests and report back.
   
   I also learned about Magic Bullet from: http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/magicbulletsuite.html
   
   I will download the trial version for Adobe and try it out... Hopefully some of you can give me some other important inputs on how to make my videos better.
   
   Thank you,
   theunhidden

   Posted 4 years ago #

3. kkmac
   Member

   
   White Balance! You won't believe the difference.

   Posted 4 years ago #

4. theunhidden
   Member

   
   kkmac, thank you for your response. I do white balance in every take. I continue to search and find more and more greatful information on this forum. I found this feature tour under the Cannon section:
   
   http://dvcreators.net/media/demos/xl2featuretour/xl2featuretour.html
   
   It taught me a lot from my XL2. I was considering on selling my XL2, after watching this video I realize I still have many things to learn about my XL2.
   
   I will continue to research and hopefully I will get other inputs and responses from other members of the forum.
   
   Thank you,
   theunhidden

   Posted 4 years ago #

5. matjusm
   Member

   
   You could try a little color correction. Try using curves to add some nice contrast for example.

   Posted 4 years ago #

6. ian515
   Member

   

   its going to be hard to compete with film. your best bet is 24p and then try and color correct, maybe soften up the image a bit, might help.

   Posted 4 years ago #

7. chuckengels
   Member

   

   90% of creating excellent footage is the lens and the lighting, if you want to spend upwards of $20,000.00 you can accomplish this too :)

   Everything you wanted to know about Premiere Elements
   http://muvipix.com
   Because There Are Stories To Tell

   Posted 4 years ago #

8. videolab
   Member

   

   ��� What chuck said!! It is all in the lighting. A cheap camcorder will do better than any expensive camera if the lighting is bad with the pro cam and good with the cheap cam. Also learn how to use the camera better. Learn how to use the manual settings. Having good equipment does not magically make you a good shooter. The best thing you can do is go to your local community college and take a class on television production.à Field Production (most colleges that teach television will have a class with this name. Might also be called ENG or EFP) is a great class to learn how to properly use a camera, and edit to boot. All the software in the world will not make poorly shot video look good. I am not at all trying to put you down man. My stuff looked horrible when I first started. Its something you have to learn. And it is something that you will learn. Everything you shoot will look better than the thing before it. Your stuff looks pretty good just need some polish. Get a large bounce card to put under your subjects to bounce some soft light up at them. Get a piece of gear called a Scrim Jim if you can afford it and use the diffusers that come with it over your subjects to soften the light.

    http://www.fjwestcott.com/fjw.com/products/sjkits.htm

    

   Posted 4 years ago #

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