"Broken Minds" - short filmed with Mod'ed Letus

[David Delaney]

I noticed some vignetting in the outdoor scene where the guy talks to his girlfriend, upper left hand corner - blue sky - is it just the lighting or is that hotspoting?

[Ben Winter]

Sigh...yes, that is vignetting, although I haven't been able to recreate it.

[David Delaney]

That is interesting, especially since you are using the Beattie, right? Do you have the century optics macro on that shoot as well?

[Ben Winter]

Yes. I think it's because I didn't zoom in enough. When I'm zooming in, there is vignetting, but then as I zoom in to fill the frame it dissappears. Weird optics thing. Try to figure that one out, I dare ya.

[Forrest Schultz]

not to be the asehole critic or anything. i liked the movie. Great job. but if your going to use a 35mm adapter to acheive film's dof, to get a filmlike effect, then you must shoot like you are using a 35mm camera. not a handheld dv cam. Everything was right about your movie except for the camera movements, and framing. use more still shots with a tripod and frame your characters in a dramatic fitting way. then you will acheive a more proffesional and realistic film result.

[Mikko Parttimaa]

Yes, I agree with Forrest there. Shaky cam can be used to achieve this documentary feeling, like in the TV-series The Shield wich is shot in 16mm using horribly shaky cam, wild zooming and wrong exposures. It doesn't look too much like film (but it fits for the mood of the series!). Shaky cam can make even real 35mm look plain horrible.

There is one place where shaky camera movements are actually needed. It's these fight sequences. Professionals can use steady shots in their action sequences (sadly these days it rarely happens) because they often (not allways!) have good stunt teams and good coreography. Amateurs (like you and me) who don't have either should allways use shaky cam and fast cuts to try to hide the fact that the action going on actually happens to look horrible.

[Ben Winter]

Originally Posted by Forrest Schultz

not to be the asehole critic or anything

Not at all--I agree with you. I'm definately a firm believer in camera movements being a prime aspect of the "film" look. But for one reason or another, I wanted the shaky movements. I think it's because I've been watching a lot of Lost lately. If I had the time to pull out the dolly I probably would've.

[Jeff Cottrone]

Hi Ben, I enjoyed your short and agree with most of what's been said. One of the things I thought made it work the most was the scoring. You said you used Cubase with some plugins. I'm just about to start the scoring on my project, although I have Adobe Audition (newbie). What kinds of plugins did you use to actually make all the music? An instrument plugin? I know it may not be the same one for Audition, but I don't quite know how the process works yet. It seems Audition is good for editing and looping already made files, but how do you actually compose new original music? Anyone have any advice?

[Rich Hibner]

Fruity Loops

[Ben Winter]

I used Cubase SX. A bunch of examples of VST plugins I used were Edirol Orchestral, the "Audionaut Fresh Killed beat", DrumFact2, etc. Search around and you'll find a bunch.

[Alain Bellon]

I just found this thread, after looking at the Letus Redisigned one.

So let me say again that I think it is great work Ben.

Also, I concurr with some of the comments made regarding the creative critique. There are some audio discrepancies that jump at me slightly. Also some cuts could be a bit tighter (I feel there is a slight pause sometimes, just fractions of a second).

Oh and as I said on the other thread... you could try tungsten|SOLID CinemantiQ for the color correction. :)

I can provide you with presets and online instruction on how to perform some color correction tasks (both in general and using CinemantiQ).

[Andreas Rylander]

Ben! =)

Excellent work, the filmography is tight, and full of feeling. Occationally I am not sure the focus is 100%, but it feels dumb to nitpick when I am quite sure I wouldn't make it better myself ;)

The color correction is pretty much where I disagree with the setup, feels like it would be neater to go with a grittier feel, it looks a bit too 'au naturelle' for my taste, except for some really nice shots right at the shooting in the end. Brilliant use of DOF. I like it all.

I have decided to not discuss the acting in depth, since everybody who knows me here already probably knows how sharp my knife is when I slice into acting reviews. In a word, I found it horrible =)

In any case, I really dug the camerawork and feel to it all - excellent work as a technical director, Ben =) Inspiring stuff, especially for me, since I am trying to become more oriented towards technical aspects of directing =)


regards,

Andreas Rylander

[Ben Winter]

Great comments Andreas! Thanks! I need to thank Alain Bellon for letting me test the beta version of CinemantiQ on the project for that "grittier" CC, which you can take a look at here:

http://media.frozenphoenixproduction...nminds_new.mov

This is the version I am submitting to festivals.

I would redo the actor's voices for the outside scene, but unfortunately I am no longer on good terms with one of them.

[Alain Bellon]

Congrats Ben. It's only fair that I thank you for helping out with the beta testing.

For anyone interested in CinemantiQ:

http://mentemagica.com

[Andrew Todd]

im watching them side by side right now.. how long were rendering times with this software?