Pretty interesting. I know you said you're new to editing, so obviously whatever people would take issue with in that sense would be dealt with via practice. Coming from a childhood and teenage years on dairy farms, sheep farms and even a chicken farm I've had first hand experience of some of the topics brought up. Artificial Insemination, milking season etc. And of course being in rural New Zealand, hunting seasons abound too. One thing that really got me, was the chap at 7:02 explaining that stroke, heart disease and so on could go away like "that". I assume this is hyperbole, but I was curious about his research, any further links for that? I would be interested in giving that a read if you have it to hand.
Thank for watching the video. I also grew up on a small farm and in a hunting environment and didn't think anything of it at the time. I've written a bit about it before. The China Study is probably the most well known long term study about nutrition and how different diets affect health. It's available on Amazon. The works of doctors Neal D. Barnard, Caldwell Esselstyn, Michael Greger and John A. McDougall also follow the same train of thought. I also highly recommend this presentation by Dr M. Greger about the Leading Causes of Death quoting a bunch of studies: http://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/ actually the whole website http://nutritionfacts.org/video is excellent and has a wealth of nutrition information based on scientific studies.
If I could make one change, it would be the pacing. There is a huge difference between the opening sequences and the sampling of youtubers. The former feels well done, that latter is... frenetic at times. I had a hard time getting engaged with parts of the film because of that. Other ideas: - If I find one person's story compelling, there isn't a way for me investigate that further. Maybe show their name or a link when they first appear? - Pizza shirt lady feels forced in. She does offer opposing views which then get addressed, but this video is a collage of film snippets anyways. Those snippets don't really need an opponent to answer. It doesn't change the message of the film (or at least the one I got) if you just skip over her.
I tried to keep the video as short as possible while including as many people as possible and still have a somewhat cohesive message so that's probably why the pace got compromised. I'll bear this in mind in the future. Your point about naming the speakers as they appear instead of relying on credits is also a good one. I was hoping that, pizza shirt lady or Sorsha Morava, would lighten things up a bit with her satire of meat eating arguments regularly heard by vegans. I understand they don't add to the message but I was hoping it would give non-vegans an insight of what those meat eating counter arguments sound like against the arguments for animal rights. Thank you for watching and the constructive feedback.
The informational parts are good, but the ones where the activists talk are a mess. Some of those men look quite effeminate, and in many men's mind this is going to reaffirm the stereotype of the vegan as a limp-wristed weakling. Some of those activists don't sound very smart, they can't articulate their message very well, or it's not even clear what their message is. I think you should have chosen 1 or 2 activists, perhaps a man and a woman, who look good and normal, and can express their points eloquently.
Thanks for the feedback. I haven't done much video editing so my skills probably didn't help punting the message across. But hopefully it was good enough to show the diversity of the vegan/animal rights activist community. Out of curiosity which men did you find effeminate and "limp-wristed weakling"? Tim Shieff the world freerunning champion?
Patrik Baboumian the strongman champion?
Richard (aka Vegan Gains) body builder?
Or the very first shot of Sam's handstand (aka the vegan gardener)?
I'm particularly interested to know which bits you found compelling?