Hello all, this is my first ever post of some of my video work.

Here is a link to my short films page. In it are several things that ive done.

http://www.rich-lee.com/shortfilms.htm

Precursor is a short film i made last summer, it was my first shooting experience. its a bit rough, its not an action film, so if you have some patients and 5min it might be worth a look. maybe...

I also did a small film festival trailer last november which is also on the page. Anyway, would like to know what you guys think.

thanks!

Rich

Rich - hey first off, nice short, I liked the building of suspense - I wasn't sure what was going to happen until it happened - I thought what really shines for you on this short is your framing and composition - very nice on all your shots and obviously - your skill in post production effects work. You image really looked superb - I must ask - What camera did you shoot this on and how much post work was done for color correction etc. (magic bullet?). These were your real strong points - I thought the weak points were that at times - it drug a little - don't get me wrong, I love long takes but I think I began getting bored when she put the clothes out on the line - however your fast frantic part of the alarm ringing had akward editing flow to me. I felt as if there was no rhythm other than that you wanted to simply have some quick cuts there. The pacing was a bit off as it seemed each cut was the exact length in that quick cutting sequence. I think what you were trying to hit with a frantic jarring sense was there, just not quite executed in the editing process. Well that being said, everything else was done very well and I really really loved the framing of your subject through the bunny ears, I laughed out loud when I first saw it because it's just a fun shot - it seems to take the control out of the woman and put the emphasis on the TV, like a machine was the main subject. Anyways, awesome look, great special effects, AMAZING color rendition and filmic feel(I'd guess 24p but I could be way off) - Thanks for sharing and best of luck in the future!

It was a nice short. Definitely worth the 5 minutes. It looked
fantastic indeed which probably comes from your experience
in the real film world (nice bio!). The payoff with the TV and
what finally happened was nicely done. I especially liked the
last bit when she bows down to get another piece of clothing.

Can you tell us a bit more about how it was made?

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Bryan and Rob for your comments and your time!

I shot it in a day out near joshua tree last summer. I shot it with my xl1s and a 3x lens in frame mode. I used a polarizer and some nd grads for the exterior stuff, and straight up 3x for the interiors. I edited in premiere, composite/color correct in after effects, and did the cg elements in softimage xsi. did a bunch of stuff to the image in ae, including removing a house that was 15' from the trailer. the effects at the end were a combination of animating some archive images of clouds that i found online and a kinda cheesy partial system in xsi, particals definitly arent my game. oh and the clock in the shot where it falls into camera is cg, just couldnt get it to fall just right, so i just shot the plate and put it in later.

I agree with you bryan, it drags for me at times too, some people say otherwise. I just didnt grab enough shots to cut to or anything and at the time i definitly didnt pay enough attention to how long things took to happin. although, i did shoot a million ways for her to go in and out of the trailer door! ha, lesson learned. the fast bit around the clock could definitly lose a shot or 2.

Thanks for the comments so far guys.

Hello Rich,

Great to see "Precursor". Beautiful composition, mood and bizar plot. I'm not thinking it's dragging. The movie transfers a pulsating tension, also thanks to the sound track.

Please share more of your work, looking forward to see it.

Peter Sieben

Fantastic work, Rich! I didn't feel it dragged at all. It just added to the tension. The visuals were beautiful and haunting. I can't wait to see more of your work. Great job!

I liked very very much the short. Great plot and AWESOME look!

Did you make the 60i to 30p or 24p transfer?

The use of overexposed areas was excellent.

MOST excellent! So simple, yet so creepy...love it.

I have to say that the shot toward the end, where she's putting the clothes on the line, is good just the way it is--nice and long. Sitting there, watching the movie, you think "that progress bar's gettin' near the end...when's something gonna happen?!", and then all of a sudden, without a sound, it does.

I certainly didn't see it coming, but man, was that powerful.

The premise of the film was good enough on its own, but the presentation was absolutely superb; one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, hands down.

Keep it up!

Thanks guys! very encouraging to hear all your kind words!

Peter there is a little 1min intro movie i made for a festival on my site. it was for a little film festival that a friend had, her company is called fuss factory and the show was called "the fuss factory pre-rejection film festival", it kinda started as being a festival that would showcase films that have been entered into sundance, but havnt been rejected/accepted yet. meant to be a bit tounge in cheek. they ended up just showing anyones film weather it was sent to sundance or not and was a very fun night...will shall see what happines this year.

Gustavo, i shot in the frame mode that the xl1s has. so its faux 30p, it might be a bit soft, but i love it. The over exposed parts inside the trailer was done in camera.

now that u mention the 60i thing, i just read some posts about shooting in 60i then converting each field to whole frames and being able to do some slow motion that way. sounds like i'll be busy this weekend muckin about with some slow motion tests!

Those jibing clotheslines must have been a pain and a half to mask.

I loved this movie and look forward to your next one.

Thanks Robert.

The jibing clothsline was a pain in a half. I tried running the shot through boujou, to get a nice track of it so that the cg elements would stick to the image and not slip. but boujou just couldnt deal, it didnt have enough areas to track to. So i had to track in after effects, which was such a pain. the end result was ok, if i had more patients it would be better.I could only get certain parts of the image to track at a time, before it failed, so i had this crazy hiarchy of null objects parented to each other, each one holding a bit of tracking data, then once it gives out, another null picks up the torch. i think 16 nulls total. Then i had to animate a mask for the woman and for the cloths, then used that as a track matte for the cg elements. i also animated the varying amount of flare that would happin as cloths covered up the clouds.

Next time, i hire tracking and roto monkeys.

I liked the overall feel of the film. But the special effects jumped around and the last effect just didn't feel real at all. In fact the plumes of smoke, then the last explosion [which looked like it came from about 20 feet away as opposed to really far away], then the blast wave... it just looked cheesy to me.

But I still liked the overall feel. And don't get me wrong... I know how much hard work it took to do that and I couldn't do it personally. So I'm not bashing you. But if it looked more realistic, the film would be awesome. A bit slow for my taste, but still awesome.

I hear ya, Marty. I get that alot from friends of mine that do vfx for a living. But I dont have the ambition or patients anymore to do final visual effects. So, after getting really tired of working on those shots and wanting to move on to something else, i just threw in the towel. I figure, whats in now gets the point across.

Glad you liked the feeling of it overall!

"Next time, i hire tracking and roto monkeys."

I actually get sometimes pleasure out of tracking and roto work; I can't explain why. It's modeling and rendering I've less patience for.

Yeah, i'm the opposite, i love modeling.

"Next time, i hire tracking and roto monkeys."
I didnt mean for that to be derogatory, hope no offence was taken.

I understood what you meant, Rich.

I am maybe a fan of strong plots and drama in movies, but you won five stars from me for the overall picture and look...

First thing I thought when I pressed play was "hey, wait a minute, this is DVcommunty, I didn't know that people submit movies shot on film here"... :) Then I noticed that the movie was shot with XL1s... really good job.

:) Thanks Neboysha!

If anyone is interested I just put some stills up from Precursor. Some are stills from the movie, others are of shots i didnt use or from just messin around. Also a couple stills of the camera on the jib/dolly. None of them are in any sort of order.


http://www.rich-lee.com/shortfilms.htm

click Precursor stills.

You say you did color correction in AE. Was it a lot? Perhaps you
can put up a before and after shot? I've been working myself
on changing the way the XL1S looks with varying degrees of
succes. So any extra information you can shed on that would
be nice.

Thanks!

Hey Rob, Yes i did alot of messin around in after effects. I forgot to mention all the things i did. Unfortunatly i dont have any of the source material loaded up, i will have to dig around for it and capture a few frames, im in a bit of a crunch right now starting a new project so i wont be able to get to it for a while. anyway, i can give you the lowdown on how i did it.

magic bullet was a starting point for me, i downloaded the demo version and messed around with some looks, and figured out a way using standard after effects tools to mimic the way they get their looks. which wasnt to far from what i had been doing anyway, which was just a desaturation of color, increase contrast, warm it up by taking away some blue, and diffusing the image by overlaying a blured copy of the same image over itself and adjusting the opacity. i think i may have used the soften interlaced effect to make it diffused, i cant remember...i used an nd grad and a polarizer to help darken the sky, so to increase that i made a grad in photoshop and overlayed it over all the footage. i did all this using an adjustment layer, that was above the footage and grad. this way it helped blend the grad into the footage as well as the overlayed blured image. Hope that helps. Oh, by the way, i have all softness in the camera set to low. and saturation turned down a bit.

Thanks! I started with a lot of similar things myself as well, but
need to do some more experimenting for future work. Thank
you very much for your explenation! Good luck on your next
project.

Great work, visually it kicks ass, save for some of the dodgy effects, but for the most part it's stupendous.

Just a quick critique on the plot.

I felt disconnected from the main character, mainly because she leads a really boring life, and maybe you intended to show a very realistic situation, but i think it would be more appealing to have this woman a single mother, she's got kids to care for, and she lives in a small shit hole trailer. But the love she has for her children far outweighs her poverty.

Then when the bombs drop we feel a real sense of loss because this woman, and her young children were wiped out, much like the rest of The states.

Just an opinion.

Trevor

Thanks Rob! Good luck on your future projects as well. I just started a new gig that danny boyle is directing, should be interesting!

Trevor, In the beginning i had thought of a situation where maybe she had a kid and a husband, and maybe the kid grew up and went away, and the husband died. i was going to put a little dream image outside her window of a young boy and a man doing some yard work in the desert and have them both look at her, could have been a bit chilling. but in the end i decided to have it just be a person with a boring life, who sits in her house, and pretty much just lets time pass over her. kids would have been interesting, but, i wanted to make it more simple. also, just a note about the title, precursor wave is what they call the first wave from a nuclear explosion. i also like that the precursor to death is life, and she doesnt have much of one. Thanks for your critique Trevor.

Actually, way in the begining, i was going to do this thing where the tv goes out, so she turns out the raido, which is just static as well, then she does some laundry, or dishes, whatever. comes back in, and tries the tv again, nothing, then tries the radio, nothing, then the phone, nothing. she then starts to mess with the radio again and flips on the shortwave. and tunes into a news report from the city close by, something like people fleaing from a devastating nuclear attack, and getting reports from other cities. she is in shock, and she then hears a loud deep thump, that rattles the trailer. and she runs outside just in time get incinerated by the aporaching precursor wave of the explosion. but, i thought it was way to involved for what it was. so i did it more simply. However, i was thinking it would be cool to do a series of these momments from other peoples prespective.

Anyway, time to get back to work.

Have you ever considered directing someone else's written work.

Because if you ever have the time, I'd love to write something for you. It's awesome seeing someone with such god given talent turning something you've written into a masterpiece.

And I think you're the man to do that. (I'll be the man to do that eventually, after I've got more work experience under my belt.)

Just an idea Rich, keep up the good work.

One shot which would have been nice to include is when the woman notices the Nuclear explosions you could have cut to a tight shot of her eyes, and the reflection of the desert in them as it is bombarded with nukes.

Ciao for now.

Trevor

Yeah, i definitly am not a writer, and dont want to be one. would much rather work from some ones writen material and go from there. I dont think i am at a point yet where i feel comfortable doing that. i need to play more with the tools, i have some interesting projects coming up that i will direct, so i would like to get these things out of the way first. Thanks Trevor.

Very nice work!
to work with Danny Boyle must be interesting! Cool. Does he continue using DV or is he back using film?
I love his work. (Do you need any help? ;-)

Yeah, its definitly cool to be working on a project of his.
We have all the help we need on this one Alfred, thanks.

First of all, kick-ass. Second of all, kick-ass.

Now, to preface the rest of this, keep in mind that I am highly-critical when it comes to movies. I love being surprised, and I love seeing unique portrayals. I can't stand cliche, or stories that have been done a million times before. I hate catching mistakes that directors or producers or writers should have caught. Now, to continue . . . .

That was simply awesome. I loved it from start to finish. It was definately NOT too long. If people got bored watching her hang clothes or fiddle with the TV, then that's success. This woman obviously had a very boring life, and the pace of the movie captured that perfectly.

I thought the framing and the color were simply outstanding, and the filmic effect you got with DV is great. The story was perfect as well. No hitches or flaws that I noticed.

The clothesline scene makes me wish this were a feature film, because that would be a classic scene in film history in my mind. I'll still never forget it. The timing and the patience you showed were beautiful. I love it when a producer refuses to rush the story. And the end . . . wow . . . totally unexpected . . . .

My only complaint, and it is very VERY minor, is that I totally could have done without the special effect at the end with the bomb blast. Don't get me wrong, it was very cool, and I'm sure it was very difficult to do. But for me, the movie might have been more powerful if you had just let her walk away from the clothesline and go back in the trailer, unaware of what was happening in the world around her.

Anyways, just a thought of mine. Special effects, when they are blatantly noticeable as special effects, just tend to remove me from the mood an emotion of the movie.

Still, if had to rate this movie from 1-10 stars, you'd get a solid 10. Great, great job. Good luck with your future projects, and let me know when you're in the mood to produce someone else's script.

Thanks Travis, glad u dug it! Thanks for your comments as well. The clothsline shot is one of my favorites, i like the look of it and the colors of the cloths. You know, others have said that i could lose the shot at the end, but i really like it, not the look of it, i hate how the bomb looks and the effect of her getting blown away. some day if i ever get access to ilm cg nukes maybe i will replace it, but i just dont have the skill for it. particle effects like nukes, tornados or dust are really hard. i thought it wouldnt be as hard as it was, but it is, same with tracking, its a pain. The vision in my head of her being killed is much different than whats in the movie. its frustrating.
it might be a bit to comical to have her just walk back into the house at the end, with all this choas around. i like seeing her get killed. i was thinking the concept would make a neat commercial, like for rayban, or for some sort of car. you know? like, she does her thing, looks out over the vista of nuclear bombs, reaches in her shirt pocket and pulls out a pair of raybans and puts them on. the blast consumes her, and we cut low on the ground as a pair of steaming raybans fall into the foreground. or for ford, you know? built ford tough, stuff like that....anway. thanks again!

The message being, when the apocalypse arrives, so long as you reach for your RayBans in time, you're still nuked anyway?

Tough sell. But you probably have a good agent...

Don't get me wrong. I thought the end was still well done. I'm amazed that you were able to CG what you did at the end. I wouldn't know the first thing about creating a CG nuclear blast within a video. My only concern is that I've seen similar scenes in too many previous movies, and after you see something too many times, it loses its effect (kinda like how everyone and their brother started doing "Matrix" shots after "The Matrix came out).

I like the ad idea for the Raybans. That would be funny to see the sunglasses survive. I doubt you could sell the idea mainstream, but it would be funny.

I totaly get where your coming from Travis. i just personaly feel that if the vfx looked more realistic it would be less of an issue as to it taking people out of the world that was created in the movie. Know what i mean? especialy if its an important part of the story.

anyway it is true, it could be more powerfull to have her go back into the trailer as all this goes on around her, then it is to show her death. Some of the coolest stuff in movies ( i cant think of an example right now) are when you watch a movie and go, jeez, that was horrific what happined to that couple in the car. but when u go back to watch it again, u realize, they hardly showed anything, the mood of the scene ,music, editing and what not, fed your brain just enough to let it do the rest. oh, i guess the classic case is the shower scene in psycho, i know there are more! cant think right now though. oh, american history x kinda too, you know, put your teeth on the curb, gruesome! not that my movie is at all like those.

Indeed, it's sometimes far more powerful to not show something.
Her getting back in the trailer might be one. Especially if she
starts fiddling with the TV again as we perhaps hear the shockwave
approach as we cut (no fade) to black?

Ideas Ideas <g>

No nitpicking from me! Although I enjoy and appreciate the thoughtful input from the other forum members, I still think "Precursor" was highly entertaining and very well done...as is. I liked the story line, slow tension buildup, and reveals leading up to the climax. Additionally I was really impressed with the cinematic look that you produced with the XLS-1 and After Effects.

Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing more in the future!

And Rich, don't forget to post some raw (unprocessed) frames of your movie, when you find your material(and some time to grab and post)... :)

Like Rob, I am curious too to see how much it was processed in post...

best regards

I've just watched Precursor and the first word that I have to say is "Wow" !

I just loved the clouds effects. Very esthetic. The camera angles look perfect, and the image texture is awesome.
The atmosphere is really good too.
I wish I could create something like that someday.

Keep up the good work !

Rich, I really enjoyed the film.

Don't let the people who say it drags influence you, it's great the way it is.

It builds, you know something is going to happen but not what and you just watch everything. ( I just finished a piece that some people say drags but I say it "builds" : )

Of all the pains you went through on this project with posting the effects in I'm sure you don't need a comment like this but I'll give it to ya anyway: (smile)

The clothes were dry already, why did she have to hang them on the line?

hahahahaha

it wasn't a big deal, just something I noticed in a moment of anal-retentive thought.

LOVE the Pre-Rejection Film Festival piece. Fantastic.

Thanks guys,

Actually Kevin the cloths where wet, i hosed them down and rung them out with my hands before each take. the wind was pretty rough, so it probly looks as though they have no weight, thus making them look not wet.

thanks for checkin out the prerejection piece...havnt herd too much about that one, but then again i never posted it to a board. it played well in front of the festival though!

Rich

I just watched all your short films. Oh my freaking cow

I've never seen anyone singlehandedly do all that you have! An inspiration for me! I just got started learning Softimage XSI (I built a dual Opteron processor machine) after getting a free copy of XSI from winning a competition:

http://www.glue.umd.edu/~younglee/big3d/regenesis1.htm

And it is my wish to make online short films with special effects. Your film look was absolutely the best I've ever seen. Because of you I will now have to save up to get After Effects.

In your opinion, do you think I can achieve what you have achieved with Panasonic DVX100? Can you also let me know where I can buy the filters you used?

Anyways, I was totally blown away by the last FX shot of the nukes. To be honest, I did feel it drag a bit, but then when I saw those mushroom clouds I was going 'wtf this is awesome.'

Keep making inspiring work

Thanks Young!

have fun with xsi its an amazing app, good job getting a free copy.

Yes, you can totaly get that look with a dvx. you can get those 4x4 filters at most camera/video stores. pretty standard, polarizer and graduated nd's (.3,.6,.9) made by schneider,lee, or tiffen.

Peace

I thought it was an awesome short, showing the polished experience of someone who knows their stuff. All of these shorts I've been watching keep inspiring me to develope my own ideas, and also help me understand what makes a short either a success, or a failure. Yours was a success!

edit: What the hell was that R&D Video?!? Were you guys supposed to be working??? I recorded the sound and extended it in Premiere Pro just to hear what you were really saying. Whack jobs, that was great stuff!

By the way Rich, how's that Danny Boyle thing coming? Can you tell us anything?

hey, glad you liked precursor. in case anyone is interested i entered it into and online film festival, and its doing pretty well, great to get unbiased feedback from people.

yes, r&d was late one night at work. i had just got the wide angle lens on my canon 3x so it was pretty wide. i think it was close to midnite when we made that. so funny, it just happined, no rehearsing or anything, we just started doing stupid shit. anyway, that thing has brought lots of people many laughs!

the danny boyle project ended pretty fast. the studio pulled the plug. too bad, would have been a pretty interesting film.

oh well...whatrugonnado?

peace!

It's a great film, and I think it would work with or without the special effects due to great composition in each shot. This is what most people strive to do when they attempt to make great films, and even the look of the film alone is a great achievement.

-Robert

Hey Rich, Congrats on getting into the Triggerstreet top 10 this year. Good luck with it!

Hey Rich,

I just yesterday bought an XL1s and also just joined this forum. I came across your work and must say that I was thrilled to see the quality of work that could be created with the camera. I loved all your pieces very much, but I especially loved the "Drugs" piece. I hate to ask, for a magician never likes to give away his secrets, but I must ask how you achieved the screen shake effect? This is an effect I've been trying to figure out since "Fight Club". If you don't mind giving it up, I'd sure appreciate it.

Thanks alot man,
Nick Foster

Thanks Guys,

We shall see how it does on triggerstreet, although, im pretty sure it wont make it into the next rounds, 2-3 of the films in the top 10 i can see getting in no prob. and i think there are 1 or 2 more in there that outshine precursor, so i definitly dont have my hopes up for it. glad its doing as well as it is.

Nick- the shaky cam i did for the drugs thing was done by being pretty loose with the hand held stuff. leting it get a little funky. then i did a bunch of warps in AE to get it to be wiggly.

But what i did in that is different then what they did in fight club. To get the effect that they did in fight club, what you gotta do is...

put the camera on a tripod, then shake the hell out of it. then bring your footage into after effects, and pick a point that "should" be in the middle of frame had you not shaked the hell out of the camera. anyway, find that point, and "pin" it to the center of frame, you will have to animate the position of the clip at every frame to keep that point in the center. but in the end, when you play it back it will have that cool fight club shaky feel.

Very impressive indeed. How long did it take you from scratch to get to the level (experience) you are now? I am starting to learn videography to record music/misc. videos for my friends and families.


Lastly, your guestbook is not working on your website.