Saturday, July 31, 2010

Lucky Scooters: First Clover DVD Review.

So I finally got my copy of the Lucky DVD recently and watched it a few times. I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't quite as good as I'd thought it would be...but it definitely wasn't bad by any means. I'm gonna be nitpicking with a lot of this but don't let that stop you from buying the DVD. Lucky is a legit company and the team worked super hard on the video.

The DVD opens up with an all slomo'd montage of everyone....the slow mo gets a little boring after a while but then James Gee's part comes up. James is definitely a boss, but the whole part felt off to me because of the music choice. Usually in Lucky videos they use rap, but James was some mellow song that I felt didn't fit at all.

Overall the video used a lot of songs that I didn't think fit, or that were already used...I think there was only one rap song, in Evan Yamada's section, which worked all right but not amazingly. There were two or three songs in there that were already used, which REALLY bothers me in videos. I think next time Lucky makes a video, they should stick to using rap, I've gotten used to them using rap and it just feels more legit when they use it.

Riding wise, the video is very entertaining. The Lucky team def kills it. Butttt I kinda felt like I was seeing the same thing over and over again...360 whip, briflip, smith combo, repeat. The split sections did mix it up, Tyler and Stefan have fresh parts. I've gotta say though, from the teasers I expected more. The teasers gave away nearly all of the bangers, which is rather disappointing.

As far as filming and editing goes, I think they did a decent job. There's some clips with a dirty lens, or where the sunshade is showing, steadyshot on with a fish, etc., but then you gotta remember that this is a scooter DVD...a company's first DVD isn't going to be perfect. These guys aren't professional filmers, so it doesn't look quite like a skate or bmx DVD. There were a few different filmers, who use different cameras so some clips look a little different (especially Callum Batty and Gage Casal's part, which was all HD footage). Most of it was filmed with a VX. Now a VX films standard definition, or 720x480 lines of resolution with a 4:3 ratio, but it looks widescreen (16:9) because they upres'd it to HD, which is something you never see with BMX/skate videos. But keep in mind, this isn't a BMX/skate video, its a scooter video, and honestly the level of filming of our sport isn't quite up to BMX/skate standards. So IMO they did a pretty good job of getting the riding on film, there weren't any cut off heads and for the most part they weren't shaky.

So overall I think there are definitely some things that Lucky could have improved on. Now I'm not saying this to bash on the team, as a first video it's good, but hopefully they can take my input and make their next video even better. Even with just different songs, the video would have been 10x better for me. I'm def looking forward to the next Lucky DVD, I know I'll be getting a copy of my own.

You can buy the Lucky First Clover DVD here.

18 comments:

  1. rap/hiphop is disgusting. props to lucky for not using it imo

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  2. um actually, ive seen a lot of bmx and mostly skate videos with the screen resolution stretched to 16:9

    it doesnt look bad, they do that because it makes the fisheye filming look better.

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  3. no offence but i'd rather someone else review the DVD, no hatin'

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  4. Fisheye always looks better in 4:3,
    ALWAYS.
    So to have a skater justify stretching 4:3 to 16:9 to make it "look better" would be ridiculous.

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  5. JORDAN! throwup a tracklist from the dvd? like songs used ;)

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  6. yeah prob would have been sicker with me in it.. haha i would have used some BIG L. nigguhhh
    hahaha
    oh haha seriously lucky sup wit it??

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  7. Okay I'm not an expert but isn't 4:3 the same exact ratio as 16:9 just stretched? lmao.

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  8. i personally didnt like your views but w/e ha
    -andrew mickey

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  9. Hey guys, Jordan has a point knows what he is talking about when it comes to judging a vid so chill

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  10. i thought the song choice was amazing. the only part i couldnt stand to watch was mike montomery's. i LOVE his riding, but since his was filmed and edited with another camera/software there were those disgusting lines everytime the camera moved too sharply, which to me, made it a pain to watch; ESPECIALLY since the song was used. C'mon now guys ;)

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  11. Aaron, you didnt get my point...
    Jordan said you dont ever see the screen resolution stretched in skate videos
    but i have...

    and he judges it because he has never seen it before.

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  12. I think this review was perfect, i agree. I hated the song choice. I actually laughed out loud when Nick Donatelli said "welcome to lucky scooters, thug life B******" Then some gay punk song came on haha.

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  13. mikes song was picked out over 6 months ago for his part, so if it was used before that than that my bad. but it kinda sucked when those guys used it in theyre super 60. it was like a wolf by tv on the radio. but i filmed and edited mikes part and cause of the way i exported it just screwed up his part. sorry guys:(
    -drew

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  14. scooters are cool

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  15. jordan, you didnt say really anything nice about lucky on the review. your filming isnt the best either. its lucky's first dvd, all your doing is putting them down. lets see you make a better dvd... you could of givin some pros not just cons... anyway besides from that everyone's style is different in the scooter community, its not all about the whole world liking their part but its the satifaction of the rider that matters once a video is done... you need to show respect to the riders on all the teams. (post this comment)

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  16. i thought the dvd was awesome for pretty much the first groundbreaking dvd. i can see where jordan thought they made it seem bigger than it was going to be, and how mikes part was kinda messed up, but other parts made up for it. for example, callum battys part looked amazing. and jessee ikedahs part was reckless. and nick donatelli has absolutely no fear. those crashes were crazy. overall the dvd, i thought, was pretty damn good. worth the money.

    -christian

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