First Time Filmaker new to DVinfo.Net
 

Hey everybody I'm Bill and I stumbled onto DVinfo.Net and the watchdog just today. Great articles and insights and answers to my questions. I bought a Canon XLS1 last weekend and am trying to figure out how to use it. What an amazing piece of equipment!

My brother Justin has been here in LA for several months now trying to be a professional actor and facing all the challenges associated with such a dream.

I've been visiting Justin and his friends here on the weekends when I'm not working and all they ever talk about is making movies but not actually doing it.

So I challenged them last weekend when I showed up with the Canon. With about 5 dudes we went and shot takes for an entire afternoon and got some interesting amateur looking scenes. Another one of the guys took some of it and did some post-production work and put together a slick little trailer. I'll post it if folks are interested. I believe I have found my calling! I want to make a great movie!

I am a visual artist (painter, photographer) with no creative out let for the past 10 years or more. Been stuck in the biz world as a consultant. I've learned much in the way of business, project planning and management, and how to get keep teams motivated and get work done. I think these skills will be useful as a producer.

Anyway the director dude is writing a script for a feature length based on my brothers character and I have committed to begin filming over the summer lin LA ong weekends through the fall if required. I know I have much to learn and look forward to the process. We will film trailers and shorts in the meantine to get a feel for the process.

I could use some assistance in the way of a DP or additional camera/cameraman. We have no money, a script idea, a camera, some cool locations, wild imagination, and a bunch of dudes that love making movies!

I am also promoting my friends band in San Francisco and they are showing short films at the every mon. night venue ( http://www.vivandamovie.com ). We are actualy having trouble getting submissions from filmakers up in the bay area. Let us know if you have any films for this.

That's it for now I have to figure out how to get this 4 track sound working. Look forward to sharing knowledge with y'all.

L8,
Bill

Welcome, Bill
 

Sounds like you've got the ingredients for some good work out there. Glad to have you aboard! I look forward to seeing you around the forums.

Hey Bill, good to see you here. I'm a newbie to DVINFO and to DV in general also. Good to hear of that you've got motivation and friends to help you out!

Getting off and doing your first thing is the biggest hurdle to face I reckon. I've been umming and erring for a long time but finally sat my butt down and started writing. I've got about 3 or 4 small script ideas already started and while I don't expect any of them to launch me into a career as a filmmaker :) I have something solid that I can now take and actually film. That will be the fun part!

Anyway, good luck and I'm sure anything you want to know can be answered by someone here. There's heaps of knowledgable people on this board with all types of experience.

Cheers
Aaron

Hey Bill, I would love to see that trailer sometime. Are u gonna post it somewere??

Bill, if you need server space, I can probably host it for you. Just let me know. Welcome aboard,

Thanks for the replies folks,
I am amazed at all the encouragement and how supportive everyone is in this biz.

Aaron - I think you're right it's a matter of getting a story together that is worth filming. Between all the guys here there are probably half a dozen unfinished scripts kicking around. My guess is that there will be some racing to the finish now that we have some production capability and a camera. I think I will eventually write a scrippt and have already started jotting down my ideas so I feel at the beginning of a long journey.

Chris, I'll let you know on the trailer - I'm waiting on the compressed version from the post-guys. Should I just e-mail you with it?

Bill

Welcome aboard Bill! Glad to have you with us. Sounds like your
in the right environment and mindset to create something nice!
Would love to see what you did so soon with your new cam, isn't
she a beauty? Good luck with your future endeavors and see
you around here!

* * TOURIST TOO * *
 

Welcome Bill,

Excellent to hear you are working and including the actors in the bunch. I'm on the opposite coast, here in NYC and new to this site also. I introduced myself on the intro pages.

Sounds like you are a "Do'er" and that is excellent. I am in process of moving my feature from paper into action. XL1S and tools needed are moving into place.

Keep me in the loop of your endeavors.

Cheers!

Derrick
derrick@dpbegin.com
http://www.dpbegin.com

bill,
welcome, glad you found this great site. I know the rush from working with people on a project, it's always better working with someone, my friend and I will start shooting the short script he wrote in a couple of weeks. Have fun and let us know when you post the trailer.

Chris,
I've seen that a lot of people post their videos on their site, maybe there is a way to get some space for a dvinfo.net video section, it would be great to have everyone's videos in one spot, then we could see all the videos people here have made. If server space is a problem, then at least maybe a forum just for people to post a link to their videos. People could give a brief intro about the movie and post the link. Also, I saw a thread before about the links not working, you have to copy and paste the url to see the page.
any word on getting the links to be clickable. BTW, I met Adrian up in Tokyo last sunday, cool guy, got some homemade cookies from his wife, will hook up with him and John next month in Tokyo.

Thanks Rik,

Great to hear you could hook up with Adrian and meet his better half, hope I get the same opportunity someday.

Plenty of server space available on dvinfo.net for this type of video sharing, I think we can implement that pretty soon, just have to get through DV Expo first (next week in NYC, a big deal indeed).

Chris,
have fun at DV Expo, next week I'll be at the world cup finals, doing some camera work for a doc on the fans of the world cup, when the people doing the video get the trailer cut, I'll send you a link so everyone can check it out. the director has been in korea and has access to the USA team and got interviews with them, we've been using a GL-1/XL-1 combo for the video crews(korea and japan).

A quick question: How many people in dvinfoland are into the world cup?

looking forward to seeing the video link forum. take a bite out the big apple for us over here in japan.(john/adrian/me)

Hello Rik:

You lucky punk! I hope your work goes smoothly overseas. Enjoy the cup finals. Count me as one of the DVinfo, world cup fans. I'm glad that the US is still in, but sad to see my boys from Ireland having to leave. At least both of them made it to the second round.

Shoot well and I like the idea for the video links in a central location.

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

Doc,
I rode the train back with some Scottish and Irish fans, great football fans, can't seem to get their "F--K England" song or hairy ass when one of them lifted their kilt and "smiled" for England & my video camera, out of my head ;-)

the crew in Korea has had a much wilder time, things are pretty tame here in japan, but I'm still having fun.

a good website for football is www.soccerphile.com ran into and interviewed the guy in charge of it.