Theme Park Review's 4th Annual Coaster Video Contest!

[DegoRed]

Interesting batch this round. Peter Davie's video I liked, though nothing really jumped out at me. Adam's was pretty decent, good mix of on and offride shots, with some people mixed in. Though I agree on the name should be something along the lines of Florida parks. Matt's Indiana Beach video was my favorite this round though, as the video had great pacing, though the transitions were a bit overkill. And the last 2...well I couldn't really watch all the way through. The Disneyland one was mostly people and you really couldn't hear all that well, and the Europa Park one the song choice I just couldn't understand

[FLIPDUDE]

Peter Davis' Camping & Coasters

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Fantastic video! Choice of song was fantastic in my opinion, and the footage was FANTASTIC. However, the quality of the footage was kinda "Eh"(part because the video had ot be scaled down to size so it can be uploaded, and part because some shots were taken form bad places(with a tree in the way, or the coaster appeared dark, etc.). But overall a really grea,t fun video, tha tput a big smile on my face!

 

 

Adam Roth's Theme Park Entry 2006

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Ha ha! Awesome video! I really enjoyed it. Especially he vids of Ryan tryign to pound everyboyd. However I think that hte opening and credits music was a little on the anticlimatic side. But overall an awesome vid.

 

Matt Jacob's Indiana Beach

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Awesome video, hwoever I already saw it so my enthusiasm has probably been cut down to size by now. I don't know how much that song says "Indiana Beach", nor am I sure you really got a whole lot of the park's atmosphere in the vid(though in your defense, an atmosphere like IB's is hard to catch on video), but overall this was a good, fun video

 

Jordan Ryle's Disneyland

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Good video. However, while I am very much a "people having fun" video fan as oppposed to "Strictly coaster footage", I think you forgot that htis is after all a coaster video contest nad there were almost no rides shown in this video, mostly just people who are on rides.

 

Fam Andreen's Europa Park

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Eh... The footage was alright but with a park like Europa park I think ti could've been more thrilling. Plus, I seriously do not get the correlation between the slow-paced, mushy, 80's madonna music and a modern thill riding amusement park.

[Mr Pete]

Thanks for the comments guys, they are much appreciated whether they are good or bad. I was surprised my entry made it, as there is a lot of excellent videos entered.

 

Good luck to everyone that has entered.

 

-Pete

 

Oh and Juggler, your backside always gets the last word!

[jedimaster1227]

Thanks again to everyone for the comments on my video! I am surprised it made it in, considering how great the other entries that have made it in so far have been--I haven't seen one I've disliked. JimmyBo's PortAventura is actually my favorite so far, but I'm looking forward to the other 15 entries to be released as well!

 

Are all 30 videos going to be on one of the DVDs for an upcoming release?

[robbalvey]

Here is the next round of entries...

Dave Madore_TPRmidwest.wmv

Dave Madore & Tomi Zandshtein's TPR Midwest Trip

Chris Charles_PortAventuraHalloween.wmv

Chris Charles' PortAventura Halloween

Nicolas Chavance_asterix.wmv

Nicolas Chavance's Parc Asterix

Kevin_Gillan_opening.wmv

Kevin Gillan's "Opening Segment"

Bruno Lancetti_geforce.wmv

Bruno Lancetti's Expedition GeForce

Dave Madore_TPRmidwest.zip

Dave Madore & Tomi Zandshtein's TPR Midwest Trip - ZIPPED

Chris Charles_PortAventuraHalloween.zip

Chris Charles' PortAventura Halloween - ZIPPED

Nicolas Chavance_asterix.zip

Nicolas Chavance's Parc Asterix - ZIPPED

Kevin_Gillan_opening.zip

Kevin Gillan's "Opening Segment" - ZIPPED

Bruno Lancetti_geforce.zip

Bruno Lancetti's Expedition GeForce - ZIPPED

[FLIPDUDE]

Hey, before I review the vids I just want to point out that I had nothing to do with Dave's video except the ending scene. All other credit goes to Dave.

[FLIPDUDE]

Bruno Luncetti's Expedition Geforce

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[Review of first bit because the video stopped playing in the middle and now it's loading]

NOTE: this review ended up a ltitle harsher than i intended, please take all of this as constructive critisism and keep in mind that overall i think this is a good video.

 

Hmm... Well, right off the bat this starts off looking(and sounding) like a commercial video you'd find on the park's website(it's like any second now the white text is going to start listing ride statistics) and not as an exciting andrenaline pumping coaster , while the footage is good, and I understand why you might not want to start off the video with a fast paced shot when the music is still slow, you have pretty much the exact same shot of the train cresting the lift hill's top repeat over and over again from practically the same angle.

 

[Finishes watching]

Alright, my opinion hasn't really changed.

On the plus side, the quality of the shots is fantastic and it is rare to see footage that shows airtime well even offride. Plus, this video has high marketability, because like I said, this si something I would expect to see on a park's official website. On the other hand, aside for what I said earlier about this looking too commercialy aznd not coaster-video-y enough, it also seemed like you were getting a little too excited with all the different effects your video editor can do, because every shot had a different effect, including several shots that had an old movie effect, which makes no sense considering geforce should be shown as a modern sleek thrill machine.

 

 

Kevin Gillian's opening segment

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WOW!!! That was REALLY exciting and really fun and funny! do you know the guy that makes voices for movie promos or something?! I LOVED the preview segment, it was a great build up... Which is exactly why it was so disappointing and anti climatic to have like maybe 4-5 shots after the "preview" part and then have it end when I thought it was jsut abotu to start. I understand that htis is probably just an opening segment for a DVD or something(which I want now), in which case it probably works perfectly, but as a standalone video in a contest it just created too much build up for an anticlimatic ending. Also I think it wouldve been ebtter if you lef the background sounds on the last several shots of POVs. screams, wind and rattles would've done that bit good. but overall a fantastic video and got me interested in whatever this is an opening segment of!

 

 

Nicolas Chavance's parc asterix

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First though: hmmm... too much french. no idea what everyone's saying.

 

Really good video, great footage, great editing, good choice of song, only things that bothered me are the fact that there was too much french considering this is an english website, the fact that there were about a million text baloons popping up(youd think that as a cartoonsit i might like that but maybe its because they were in french so they basically just distracted me), and the fact that in most of your shots the people looked underwhelmed and bored. but these three problems were not very significant and I really enjoyed this video.

 

 

Chris Charles Port Aventura

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Wow! Defiantely one of the more interesting videos of the trip in the sense that not only d idI not know Spain celebrates halloween, I was also surprised by how big of a deal it is in that park! It was also very funny and cool listening to "This is halloween" in its spanish version. However it wasnt very sutiable for those more thrilling coaster-esque shots. Which bring me tot he next point - there werea hrdly any shots of the park, almsot all the shots were of the halloween parade or halloween related stuff. but overall a very fun interesting video

[BarryH]

Bruno Lancetti’s Expedition GeForce

First impression I had was with the music. It sounded like a combination between music from a NES game and 70's porn. The video game a lot of good off-ride shots of Expedition GeForce.

 

The only problem is that I felt I saw the same thing way too many times. One notable section was at the beginning where we saw the lift hill and first drop shots. I think I saw the lift hill six times in a row. After the 3rd or 4th time, I was yelling at the screen, "Come on, show something else!" I also felt that there was too much back-to-back footage of the first hill and a turn. I know that the song might be shorter than the roller coaster, but a variety of shots of the roller coaster at different angles would have been nice. Near the end of the video, I thought there were a variety of shots of the coaster at different angles and positions.

7/10

 

Kevin Gillian’s “Opening Segment”

This video felt like a trailer to a longer video. You know what, it works! I really enjoyed this video. The "danger" music synced up with the dangerous scenes in the video. I liked how the drums were synced with the song. I don't think I've seen a good POV of Star Tours like I saw in this video. The POVs at the end were really great. How did you get such smooth POVs on Gwazi? I must know your secret! I felt excited by this video so much that I asked at the end, "Where can I buy the DVD?"

10/10

 

Nicolas Chavance’s Parc Asterix

I did take a short trip to France a few years ago. I visited Disneyland Paris, but I missed Parc Asterix because I didn't have time. After watching this video, I regretted missing the park. The video showed off different things at the park very well. I liked the shots of the friends enjoying the coasters. My favorite part of the video was when there was a POV of the wooden coaster. Then it went through a tunnel. When the coaster emerged from the tunnel, it was a reverse POV of the friends. Great editing! Overall, I liked this video. It's a strong, well done video.

9/10

 

Chris Charles’ PortAventura Halloween

This video had an interesting choice of music -- "This is Halloween" from "The Nightmare Before Christmas." The music was in German (I think), no less! The video had a lot of interesting shots of the park's rides. I like how the video showed off the Halloween parade and other Halloween happenings in the park. The problem I had with the video was that there were too many day shots. When I think of Halloween, I don't think of the sun being out! I think of night time. I would have liked to have seen a lot more shots of the rides in the dark. There was the shot of the swings running in the dark. I wish there were more such shots.

8/10

 

Dave Madore & Tomi Zandshtein’s TPR Midwest Trip

Before I saw this video, I thought that this week's videos were a strong, solid bunch. This week's videos were probably the strongest bunch I've seen so far. Then I saw this video. I do want to say something positive before anything else. The video did show off a variety of coasters that TPR rode during the Midwest trip.

 

Now that's out of the way, let's talk about what I didn't like. The video began with a few POVs. The POVs were rather shaky and looked like they could qualify as the Rodney King video. I thought to myself, "Oh no, this is will be a video with shaky POVs!" Then the footage changed to offride footage. A lot of the sounds from the offride footage really drowned out the music. I thought a lot of the sounds were unnecessary and could have been muted. At some points, these sounds were so loud that I almost got a headache! Sometimes sounds went the other way and I could hardly hear them. People would say things and I could hardly hear what they were saying. I'm sure it was funny, but I kept on saying, "what?" when people would say something. Also, the animation at the end seemed like an inside joke that I was not privy to. Since I did not go on the Midwest Tour, I had no idea what the joke was or even if it should have been funny.

 

Also, when did the TPR Midwest Tour go to Dollywood? I thought I saw a shot of the Tennessee Tornado in the video.

 

Overall, although I felt the video showed off the coasters and had some nice shots, there were too many technical flaws in it. I felt it was like the editors sat down to their video editing software and used it for the first time on this video. Video editing takes time and practice. If I were running this contest, this video would not have made it as a finalist.

4/10

 

This week's ranking:

 

1.) Bruno Lancetti’s Expedition GeForce 7/10

2.) Kevin Gillian’s “Opening Segment” 10/10

3.) Nicolas Chavance’s Parc Asterix 9/10

4.) Chris Charles’ PortAventura Halloween 8/10

5.) Dave Madore & Tomi Zandshtein’s TPR Midwest Trip 4/10

 

Overall:

 

1.) Kevin Gillian’s “Opening Segment” 10/10

2.) JimmyBo’s PortAdventura 9/10

3.) Nicolas Chavance’s Parc Asterix 9/10

4.) Darren Bailey’s TPR Midwest Trip 9/10

5.) Cody Kempema’s Tatsu 9/10

6.) Dave Thomas’ UK Randomness 8/10

7.) Justin Saxe’s Dollywood/Six Flags Over Georgia 8/10

8.) Peter Davies’ Camping & Coasters 8/10

9.) Chris Charles’ PortAventura Halloween 8/10

10.) Adam Roth Theme Park Entry 2006 8/10

11.) Ryan Vesely’s Disneyland 7/10

12.) Bruno Lancetti’s Expedition GeForce 7/10

13.) Matt Jacobs’ Indiana Beach 7/10

14.) Jan Andreen’s Europa Park 7/10

15.) Pam & Brian Kanal’s Knoebel’s PPP 6/10

16.) Kevin Aglione’s Cedar Point 5/10

17.) Dave Madore & Tomi Zandshtein’s TPR Midwest Trip 4/10

18.) Matthew Tentnowski’s Six Flags Great Adventure 4/10

19.) Jordan Ryle’s Disneyland 3/10

[robbalvey]

Also, when did the TPR Midwest Tour go to Dollywood? I thought I saw a shot of the Tennessee Tornado in the video.

It didn't. In fact, we nearly disqualified this video for having shots of stuff that wasn't on the TPR Midwest trip because in my mind that was a big huge fail as far as "theme" is concerned.

 

If anything, Tomi's brief animation at the end saved it from not making the cut.

 

--Robb "And I didn't get the joke either!" Alvey

[zebidee]

wow excellent videos, again all very professionally done.

 

I gave the following points,

 

5th- Dave Madore, 6/10

4th- Nicholas Chavance, 7/10

3rd- Bruno Lancetti, 8/10

 

Hard choice for next two I loved the spanish themed halloween and the music was great but gave Chris Charles 2nd with 9/10.

 

1st is Kevin Gillian loved the smooth transitions between coasters and great editing.

[krazekiddd]

^^Umm..so far I enjoyed all the videos but that one. As far as the joke, do you mean the "They left without us" part? I didn't get it either. If anything, the joke should have been when they got mad at everyone else for it.

[FLIPDUDE]

^Naw, he's talking about my little animation at the end. My bad, I forgot that to get it you had to talk to either Freddie or Max during the trip... D'oh.

 

Ah well. Hopefully It'll be better next year.

[Chadley]

1) Kevin (Florida parks vid) - Awesome footage, best of the bunch so far. Incredible footage...good pacing w/ the video...felt like I was watching a blockbuster! Voiceover was absolutely great!

 

2) Dave (Midwest Trip) - Good balance of footage from all parks. Country music??...it worked for you though! Looney Tunes!...yes! Cartoon at the end was a great touch, and it all really flowed well.

 

Honorable Mention: Bruno (Expedition GeForce) - Cool music, vid flows nicely, great footage, graphics were easy to read. Very artistic!

 

This may be nitpicky...but the abrupt ending didn't sit well with me. But the hardest part was the length of the video being that it only covered one ride for the whole vids length. There's always a couple videos that fall prey to this each year.

[krouvi]

In my opinion this week got the best movies as a group. It is really hard to decide which is the best out of the five in here.

 

The Spanish Halloween song got stuck inside my head. Hopefully I wont sing it at work tomorrow ...

 

"Esta Halloween, esta Halloween... la la la "

[methos]

Well I figured i would chime in and explain the joke everyone is having issues getting so far.

 

The they left with out us, was done at Kings Island one day after the rest of the tpr group had departed. We thought it to be funny since 3 of us during the trip missed the bus that we could play on it as we did it again but this time its a good thing. We missed the trip home for an extra day was the whole gag. Angry the day it happened yea who wouldn't be stuck at cedar point and having to spend about $120 in cash to get back to where we need to be. Any one who says they wouldn't be upset at the time would be lier, I was over it when we made the segment.

 

The comic at the end is a jab at all the people who rank MF as the best coaster ever, Superman Ride of Steel at SFNE is a far better coaster. This was a discussion that went on for some time during the trip.

 

Dollywood was in the video because it was part of my midwest trip experience. We hit the park for 4 hours after driving 6 down and drove back to catch up with the tour that same night. I thought it to be appropriate to add what i view as one of the best parks i visited all season. The first segment on the dvd is dollywood, it was not on the tpr portion of the trip, but it was defiantly part of my midwest experience. I really should have taped some of the driving experience on the way back. Isn't that right now Evan, it was a fun trip back to cinci!

 

I am by no means saying my video is the best of perfect, I will say I know I have been beaten in this contest a couple times from my own point of view.

 

So in summery I sent it in for peoples enjoyment, I hope you enjoy the video, if not its ok too.

 

Dave "my video is just O.K." Madore

 

P.S. as for shaky pov's the issue will be better soon, wide angle lens purchased due to many suggestions that it would help. so far have been unable to use for a pov. has given me some cool otherwise not possible shots recently though.

[FLIPDUDE]

Personally I like the sakiness of the avalanche vid because it showes the crazy rattling of that ride

[robbalvey]

The they left with out us

I just wanted to clarify that we did not leave with out you, you guys were late for the bus! Starting off your story like that makes it sound like it was us that did something wrong.

 

One of the few rules of TPR trips - DON'T BE LATE FOR THE BUS!!!

 

--Robb "We even gave you guys an extra 10 minutes..." Alvey

[SharkTums]

^I voted NOT to give the extra time!

 

FYI, we did send the bus without them on time!

 

Being on time is super easy, it's one of very few rules on the trip. We can't inconvenience 98 people because of 2!

[Bruno Lancetti]

Hey good friends... thank you for your positive and negative comments, both "ways" really apreciated!!!

 

A short note to clarify the music I have used on my video: there are two songs... and both are played by TPR member "Super" Robin Schroeder!!! I have to thank him again for getting me the permission of using the songs!!!

[robinschroder]

^ Ha ha - yes, I think I might leave Barry's 'cross-between a NES game and 70's porn' quote off my next gig flyer...

[DegoRed]

Kevin's video is the one to beat at this point. I liked the departure from the normal vids on here with just footage or friends/footage video. That was a creative, well thought out video, that actually worked. The POVs were great as well. I know Busch has a strict no cameras on rides policy so I'm curious as to how you got the permission as well. Transitions were smooth, music selection was great. This one is going to be tough to beat, at least from my standpoint.

 

To be fair, here's my take on the others....

 

Bruno's Expedition GeForce

REPITITION...turned it off after I saw the same section of track over and over and over again. While the shots were good angles and looked professional, the repitition killed it

 

Nicolas' Parc Asterix

I wasn't feeling this one. I did notice you had a good mix of rides worked in there, and it did seem like you showed off the park, but to me it seemed like you were going for the Robb & Elissa style, and the problem with that is that they are so good at it, that anyone trying to imitate their style will usually come up short. The thought bubbles didn't really work for me either, and I'm from the US and don't speak any other languages so that just makes it that much harder to get into it. And lastly, Blink has been in WAY too many coaster videos at this point, it's bordering on that stupid Vengaboys song

 

Chris Charles Port Aventura

Also couldn't really get into this one. Was not a fan of using the non-english version of the classic this is halloween, but again I'm from the US, and don't speak that language. I will say though the ride shots were pretty well put together, but again, the video was just kinda ok

 

Dave Madore's midwest

First off I agree with Robb, if you went for the theme of TPR's midwest trip, you really confused a lot of people, myself included by including the shots from Dollywood. That being said, had the audio levels been set properly, this would have been a decent video. The shaky POV was also distracting, but mainly it was having a hard time hearing everything. But for this round, I actually give you 2nd place

[methos]

Thank you, I will do more work on my next entrys. I am still geting used to adobe premier, I have perchased a wide angle to help with pov's at the very few parks that still allow them. I am also working on a way for me to get pov's that parks will not object too. Basicly I think robbs lipstick camera is about the only way to have a park who normaly says no way to be ok with it. The set up is about 500 that i am thinking of. I do thank you all for the comments, I have now noticed what everyone is saying about the audio, I will try to do better with that in the futrue.

[robbalvey]

New round of videos coming soon! If you haven't watched last weeks round and commented on them yet, you may do so here:

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=570944#570944

 

--Robb

[robbalvey]

New videos coming soon!

[robbalvey]

Here is the 5th round of videos! Please watch them all and make comments below.

matthew_hicks_draytonmanor.wmv

Matthew Hicks' Drayton Manor

willmontu_wetness.wmv

WillMontu's "Wetness"

andy_korb_parcasterix.wmv

Andy Korb's Parc Asterix

Norman_Snook_dejavu.wmv

Norman Snook's Deja Vu

mark_owens_HKDL.wmv

Mark Owens' Hong Kong Disneyland

andy_korb_parcasterix.zip

Andy Korb's Parc Asterix - Zipped

willmontu_wetness.zip

WillMontu's "Wetness" - Zipped

matthew_hicks_draytonmanor.zip

Matthew Hicks' Drayton Manor - Zipped

norman_snook_dejavu.zip

Norman Snook's Deja Vu - Zipped

mark_owens_hkdl.zip

Mark Owens' Hong Kong Disneyland -Zipped