Joel
I watched both this one and the Mike Rubendell tattoo profile. They both suffer from the same problem. When I used to produce for Ted Koppel at Nightline Tom Bettag, the EP would rip my stuff apart asking the 'so what' question. You have the same problem I did. So what? Looking at the tattoo profile, the shots are lovely but the guy explains why he tattoos and how he does. So what? There is not 'story' here. I compare this with the Precious piece I just reviewed by Kevin. Same technique, stills and voices, but in that piece, there are 2 characters, husband and wife and the husband undergoes a very clear transformative journey in 3 minutes of stills and voices. It has an arc of story. It goes somewhere. Your pieces, while very wells shot, lack any kind of 'arc of story' to hold my attention. Why should I care about the tattoo guy or the scooter guys. You have shot them both extremely well, and they are assembled extremely well, but they both 'sit' there, if you get my drift. The opportunity here is that both inherently offer you an arc, - ie, why is the big guy in tattoo getting his entire body covered in a tattoo. what is he thinking? It's right there in front of you, but you don't go near it; in the scooter thing, they are all going on a trip, from a to b. make that they arc of story for this piece - where are they going? how come? how many? who are they? where did they come from? how long have they been doing this? This will require narrative, which is no crime. You have to make me care about the story. If you spent the day with the scooter club and then came home to dinner with your wife and she asked you 'what happened today', you wouldn't repeat a bunch of quotes. You would say 'you'll never guess who I met today'. that's how you would tell the story to her. Tell the story to the viewer in the same way.