Show Your Work 2003

[Paul Sedillo]

<<<-- Originally posted by Dylan Couper : Here's a trailer for one of the paintball videos I've done recently.
http://www.badlandspaintball.com/hom...p2k3movie.html
I know the quality of the clip sucks, sorry in advance. -->>>

Great job Dylan! So how many welts did you get while shooting?

[Nathan Gifford]

Looks like you shot in 16:9. Did you use electronic or anamorphic?

Great luck catching that head shot.

[Yang Wen]

shocked is a rather subpar short. Exposure i think looks homevideo-ish, i almost dozzed off watching it. Sorry, but I'm telling the truth.

[Charlie Tran]

Hey, just thought I'd share my crowning achievment in high school with you guys. "Switch" is a short film based off of Guy Ritchie's "Snatch", and could be loosely described as that movie in a high school setting. We filmed it in about six weeks using Canon Opturas and XL1s, and used FCP on our school's G3 systems to edit.

Switch Website - Movie is in DivX.

A few months ago, I put together my own PC NLE system, mainly consisting of an Athlon 2000+ and a Matrox RTX100. Having nothing to do because community college classes aren't particularly captivating, I decided to test out my new system by making a music video using Switch footage. I set it to Jimmy Eat World's song "Get It Faster", since it's one of my favorite songs with hard chords you can set cuts to.

Get It Faster Website - Also in DivX.

Just wanted to share with you guys what high school kids are still capable of. Love the community, and the talent I've seen just browsing for the past few hours is incredible.

[Dylan Couper]

Nathan, 16:9 was done in post, I framed with that in mind when I shot it.

Paul, I can't remember off hand, it was a few months ago. I got shot in the family jewels from 30ft while shooting a tournament last year. It dropped me to the ground, but I kept the camera out of the mud.

[John Locke]

Dylan,

How have sales been? (You don't have to give specifics if you don't want to...just wondering if something like this brings in a reasonable profit for the effort)

[Jim Ioannidis]

Cool stuff

that must have been a blast to make.
I really liked the Split screen scene.
The audio needed to be a bit louder, the conversation in the begining was hard to hear.

The video was nice too, but i would have tried to mix up the footage in the video, but thats just me.

Ok, go do Fight Club now

[Amelie Stein]

wow, that was excellent! I watched it this morning at an internet cafe and these people sitting beside me started watching it too... that was a lot of fun to watch! I wish I was part of that team! you have *got* to post more stuff up :)

[Dylan Couper]

John, this video was for a local tournament, about 30 teams. So far the store that hosted the tourney has sold somewhere between 30 and 50 copies. Glad you brought it up, I think they probably owe me some money!
I only make $15cdn per tape as a wholesale price, and have about $3 in duplication costs per tape. I spent a 10 hour day shooting, and 12 hours or so editing it, so when you add it up, it's not really worth the money. The larger annual local tournament I did last year sold alot more copies, so was almost worth it.
However, to help make it worth my while, the paintball store that hosts the tourney takes care of most of my paintball gear and paint costs, and gives me wholesale prices on guns, which usualy saves me a couple grand a year that I'd otherwise spend (being addicted to paintball is almost as expensive as video production).

[Amelie Stein]

<<<-- Originally posted by John Locke :
You know the one thing I don't like about a lot of indie productions is when someones suburbia house is used for the location when it doesn't fit the theme of the movie. This type of story needs a scary old house or building. Somehow, seeing the evil woman framed by a modern bare spackled wall and vertical blinds and shag carpeting kind of takes the oomph out of it. -->>>

Behind the aliminium siding, all of suburbia's a freakshow... that's the true horror of it. Just check out a Todd Solondz film if you don't believe me

On the trailer:

I only saw the first one, Relentless, because I'm on dialup right now, so I can't comment on the second one. I would have to partially agree with John's critique though - the suburban bits don't look very real and neither does the 'scary' bits... but it all comes off as being suspensful, which is what any horror/thriller film aims for.

I think it's kind of weird how you go from suspense to 'scary' scene (for lack of a better name) and then back to a 'normal' scene, as opposed to just making it one big suspensul road to a climax that never lets up (as most movie trailers do).

On a side note, congrats on the sound - it's really well edited; I'm impressed :)

[Andrew Petrie]

haha, that's great. I'm also going to do a paintball vid to help promote my brother's online store, should be fun.

One thing I'm investing in however, is a jockstrap/cup. :P I used to play a lot myself, but this video hobby's pricey!

What mic set up did you use Dylan?

[Dylan Couper]

Bah, I used to play with a jockstrap when I started out in paintball. Now I just take the pain like a man... I drop to my knees and cry... :)
I've only taken two bad hits there in the last couple years anyway.

I think I used the Senneheiser MKE-300, but possibly just the stock XL1 mic, I can't remember.

[Benjamin Taft]

I watched the short film Switch.

I liked the idea of letting the actors face expressions do the talking in many cases. I guess that's a Guy Richie/Snatch thing but you did it well.

While the picture was very video like there were many cool shoting angles and neat cuts that made it easy to look past that.

I wish I had been doing stuff like this in high school. :)

[Zac Stein]

I just watched it.

Very enjoyable, someone has a nice eye for visuals, editing could have been tighter, and more varied some instances.

2 things though.

1. That was the WORST and i mean WORST english/northern london accent i have ever heard. Seriously consider if you can't get an actual english person to do it, or someone who can really do accents, then do your own spin next time, and maybe have a hardcore new yorker do it, with that slang to give it your own slant.

2. Check your audio levels while you are editing, it varied all over the place and i found myself going up and down with the volume all the time, watch out for that.

But good job.

Zac

[Charlie Tran]

Thanks for the compliments and criticisms all of ya, they're well appreciated.

About the accent: blargh, don't get me started. David was convinced he could pull a decent one so we let him, and kinda just went with it.

Funny story, when we got our score sheets from the student film festival, most of them were in the 8-10 range (out of 10) with positive comments. However, one sheet just said: "Accent doesn't work" with a score of 4.

At any rate, I'm well aware of the film's problems, having watched it roughly forty thousand times. In my opinion, the largest one would be my (severe lack of) acting skill, but hey, that's just me.