Movie Critique
The clip starts with an beautiful landscape shot from inside what looks like a cabin, with blurred items in the foreground. It’s a nice shot, but the meat of the video is not yet revealed. Then we cut to two shots of a man asleep (quite uncomfortably) — one close up on his face and another full body shot. Angles are well chose in my opinion. Lighting looks pretty natural with maybe just a little soft golden light coming from behind the camera. From that shot we see a man walking roughly through punching bags — they are medium range shots and Rule of Thirds is used, picking up on the action, but suddenly we cut back to his feet and realize he is a flat pedal rider (a dying breed amongst mountain bikers), the shot is quite basic — still looks like natural lighting. Then out of nowhere, the man is splitting wood, quite intensely. Not a special shot, but adds action and Rule of Thirds is used. As soon as the wood is split the tire comes rolling in and we get three medium range shots of him fixing the bike shuttle. His muscles are showing — probably on purpose. Then we see him drinking coffee from over his shoulder, quickly cutting to a shot of looking back through the window at him drinking and reading, before he walks away and THEN…
We get an amazing landscape drone shot of fierce mountains and a small figure pushing a bike up the ridge — loud music has started. This is the first shot that isn’t still, you get a feel that something big is about to happen. Following this shot is two panning shots from a drone, showing Connor Fearon, the rider, sitting on his bike, like some would say, like a badass. The final drone shot shows him starting hsi ride down the mountain, it quickly jump cuts to Connor blasting his way around a berm. From then onto 51 seconds into the video, the camera follows the rider as he passes by, they look to be free hand shots with the camera only on a tripod or just held. Light is natural and the music is loud and heart pounding. At 0.51 to 0.53 the rider is ran around with the camera free hand and the footage is sped up for an interesting affect. From 0.53 to 1.20 the camera follows the rider as he bombs down the trail, with one drone landscape shot of the same mountain range seen at the beginning of the video. At 1.20 everything slows down and you see Connor ripping a turn in slow motion and then another one shortly after a full speed break. Then at 1.32 there is a really well executed drone shot from above has Connor rides below. The drone is traveling forward at a decent speed. All the shots from then on in the film are repeats of the same action. A mix of drone shots, free hand camera pans, landscapes, medium range shots and one close up of the bike front tire at 2.49. Overall, it is a great little cut with a ton of action and a great story to go behind it. It is mostly completely filmed with a drone, a camera and a tripod. Minimal equipment and super effective results — makes me want to ride!
