How's it going?
 

We're almost a week into the challenge already! I finally hit on an idea last night; now have to see if it's going to work. As usual, I need an FX man...

I came up with an idea surprisingly quickly, been doing planning work and trying to arrange to borrow some better equipment. With any luck I'll get some shooting done this weekend.

Got a bunch of specifics written out about what I want in my movie, finished reading that reference material I picked up, and I'm about ready to step through the scenes. Once they're arranged the way I want them it's "just" a matter of writing an actual script and shooting something. Now if I can only find enough of the fabric I need to do what I want, I'm in business.

This, of course, doesn't mean I can't help you out with some effects, Lorinda; it'd give me a reason to get around to finally deleting all those image sequences I rendered for "Blindsight", for one thing. No hard feelings if you'd rather go with someone else this time out, but I'm here if you need a hand.

Robert, I would love to have you do the effects! I had a blast working with you on Blindsight. The problem I see is that I think it's going to be really effects heavy this time, and I want you to be able to devote all your time to your trailer.

BUT...if I can't find anyone I might give you a holler anyway. Thanks so much!!!

Funny about the old clips. I finally deleted the ones you sent me last month. :)

Found out that one of the two actors I could usually count on left town. The economy has really been hit hard here and he could not find employment. I sat down with the one actor left and laid some ideas down on the table and he wants to "roll" with it.

So I start scouting locations and working up a storyboard. While we may be able to pull it off with just him, I really hope we can get some supporting cast working too. I think this one is really going to be fun.

Oh, I still have those, I have plenty of space for that; I meant the tens of gigabytes of still image sequences I rendered before I compressed the final HDV2 spec MPEG files. Countless thousands of files, most of which belong to flawed, earlier versions of the shots that I ended up not using. I'm a Hoarder, for God's sake.

I understand what you mean about the time required, and thank you for the consideration. I don't plan on much in the way of visual effects this time around, mostly practical stuff, camera tricks, that kind of thing, so I can certainly find time to help if it need be.

My own project is moving along, as best as I could expect, and I just spent the past half hour writing a one page synopsis of the film's backstory. Now that I've got the conflict, characters, setting and everything else worked out it's onward and upward (and sideward and frontward and any otherward you can imagine). Updates as events warrant via my new Twitter account. Yeah, I know. I put it off as long as I could, but the DVi account was too much to resist.

Bruce, I'm sorry to hear you lost one actor, but glad your movie's still on. Break a leg rolling with it!

Going?
 

we were to go>>>>>... shooot... 8^)

Thought I had a leg up, what with I already had a script. But I have to make an unexpected trip to Texas this weekend. Then I have a house move, and then my kids, so the next three weekends out of commision. If I can get actors willing to take off during a weekday we may be able to get this done. It was tricky writing a script for the trailer. I had to leave out a lot of things I would want to put in the real trailer, like water rafting, because of the time limitations. Hope I'm able to get this done, but currently looking iffy.

I've shot a couple of incidental scenes, and my pathetic excuse for a story is conceptualized. Now comes the fun part - browbeating some coworkers into moonlighting as talent. Hopefully I can get something edited in between my other duties!

Well after 4 days of trying to come up with an idea, i did. Wrote out the story arc and character descriptions and I'm working on the full story/script. Unfortunately as i write the script, I realize that i probably picked something that will be expensive and a lot of work...even to do the trailer.

Once I get the basics of the story down, planning to pick out what scenes to use in the trailer (though i already have a general idea). Then on to actors, props, locations - in the meantime I've already asked many people to work on the production and had a few "yes" responses.

We had a script ready so we've now shot it for the sub-challenge. Lots of editing to do plus write the trailer. You'd think it would be easy at this point, but we don't want give away all the good stuff! I feel like I'm way ahead of the game at this point. Unfortunately the next 2 weeks are already locked down with work, so that extra time I thought I'd have doesn't look quite as plentiful now.

Not much progress on this side alas. Work and kids take up most of my time. Have to do two other projects in the same time (shot some interviews on a soccerfield yesterday for a corporate project, more interviews (in-office and streetinterviews on a market to come). Different stories and angles play around in my head. Difficult to choose (because there are no limitations which does not 'help'). No actors or other help yet available so if I want to make this work I will have to free up time.

How old are your kids? :) Or you could take Daniel's approach that I liked, "browbeating some coworkers."

I'm still a bit in the "play around in my head" stage, too. Hang in there--something will hit soon!

Well, I wasn't able to get anybody to help this weekend, which means I'm going to have to do almost everything over the coming weekend. However today I did shoot a couple of shots that were possible to do single-handedly. 7 seconds of footage down, a hell of a lot more to go!

I've come up with a story and the scenes for a 10min short are roughly planned.

I plan to make a short film that goes with the trailer and release it on the 31st of October for the optional sub-challenge. I'll shoot the film on the first week of October, then from that and some additionally filmed material shall piece together a trailer for the 11nth of October.

I've started to ask around for props and am scouting locations. Have found the actors I needed.
Have also found a composer for an original soundtrack (for the film at least, not sure if it'll be ready for the trailer).

So everything's happening.

Good for you, Andris! :D I wonder if anyone else is shooting an entire film.

Can't wait to see it; hope it's smooth sailing for you!

And for the rest of us, too. Twenty days to the deadline!

I wish I could shoot the full short, but unfortunately I scripted in things like aliens and helicopters. I don't think I can pull off aliens and helicopters by 31 October.

Shot in 3 countries on 2 continents so far and hope I can get everything done in time. Will see :)

I may have something ready that I can use from a short I started shooting yesterday. It would just be the first minute or so but I think it's intriguing enough to be a teaser/trailer on its own. I just have to shoot one or two more scenes to finish it up.

Mike

Well, I managed to get a proper bit of shooting done today, not as much as I had hoped mind you. It's the first time I've done anything like this, and I quickly discovered that I don't enjoy acting in my own films. The lack of control when handing the camera over to a friend is very disconcerting!

Anyway, I was feeling a little bored this evening, so I put together a few bits of the footage to make a short action clip: YouTube - DVC17 Chase

There's no sound, so don't worry your speakers aren't broken. Oh and the poor image quality totally isn't my fault. It's the camera that sucks... that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

Welcome to the club! I run in to the same thing myself; I usually end up handing the role of camera operator over to my dad in those situations, so I feel comfortable enough (we work together on a regular basis, and have a handle on how to understand one another; not to mention the masking-tape-and-pen-mark system, like we used on my last movie, which certainly helps with those hard to frame shots), but it still feels weird to get so excited about all the camera related stuff on these projects and then have to get someone else to do it. On top of that I'm never fond of my acting, either, but it beats trying to direct somebody else without knowing anything about how to talk to actors (let alone how to make non actors comfortable enough to deliver convincing performances).

I just made some decent progress on my movie, though it's rather pitiable by anyone else's standards. Two weeks in and I only just got a treatment done. A measly four pages, took me two weeks. Lots of obnoxious, difficult decisions that my brain just didn't want to focus on. Finally got past that, though, and put together a little synopsis to help me picture the whole story. It's overkill for a trailer competition, I suppose, but I do intend to make the feature length movie sooner or later, so I figured this is as good a time as any to prepare. The more of this I finish up front the more sense the trailer will make, right? Though with my track record it'll still be indecipherable.

Now I just need to decide what to shoot for the trailer, get it done, and go from there.

So I think I have realized something when it comes to these challenges. I always try to push myself to the limits. Reaching for the clouds, knowing full well that I will not obtain these clouds but learn tremendous in the process. This time we have only just started to shoot, and we have a shot planned next weekend with 50+ extras... This might be the most difficult shot I have ever had to put together and as much as I want to win (and win the prizes) I am happy just learning new things.

So I roped in a couple of people to help over the weekend, and now I'm almost finished. Pretty much all that's left to do is dubbing the dialogue, and recording some music for it. I wish I hadn't used copyrighted songs as placeholders now, I won't be able to replace them with anything as good!

The final result has turned out fairly differently to what I originally intended: didn't have the time to record several planned scenes, so I had to rework the premise somewhat during editing. I'm still reasonably happy with it though.

Wow! You guys are doing great! And putting me to shame...

We finally shot 15 minutes of footage last night; of that I will use about 10 seconds. At this rate I should be finished around December.

I figured it out
 

Have an idea, shoot the script, forget the script, use out takes, change themes and edit like crazy... Yep works for me.... again... Almost done...

I'm filming right now. dvinfo.net is one of my props.

HA HA. And here I thought I was the only one who did that...

Yeah, um... hmmm...

Taking a break while things render and realized that the second I announced to my clients I was moving, the flood gates opened up. Everything is storyboarded, GREAT concept (in my HUMBLE opinion!), locations scouted, ready to go and... got no time!

Bowing out only SOMEWHAT gracefully as I was THRILLED with my concept but won't be able to see it through...

Boo!

Good luck to all of you non-quitters!

This morning got back from a 900km road trip and then straight to our first day of real filming.
It's my karma or something, but it's always my luck to film in the most dreadful of conditions, in this case - heavy showers and in pitch dark with only a tiny flashlight (didn't manage to get a real light).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2584/...02e0fd88bf.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2423/...d848639e3a.jpg

I just found out I'll be on missions straight through the 11th... :(


...so I've got three hours to finish my trailer!

Oh no, Daniel!! I have *got* to see the aliens and helicopters so I hope the next three hours are VERY productive. :)

Well, there you go - unfortunately less aliens and helicopters; you'll have to imagine both. Still, I don't think I would have improved it much with the extra five or six days.

Did you forget to send a link to thedvchallenge@gmail.com? I didn't find it there. * EDIT: GOT IT! *

Not to worry about the absence of aliens and helicopters. This old X-phile has a pretty good imagination. :) See you when you get back and we'll all have some fun with the feedback. Godspeed.

I've been moving into uni the past few days, crazily hectic. I don't think I'm going to have the time to do the audio properly, so the final product is very likely going to sound pretty dire. Ah well, I'm still determined to have something ready by the deadline! :)

I got stood up tonight! All ready to shoot, waiting for a call back...nothing. Still sitting here with only 10 seconds of cut footage and one of the most demanding concepts I've had for a DVC. Darn musicians...I shoulda recruited one of my dogs instead.

Where's Shorty...

Continued shooting last night. Didn't manage to get one acquaintance with an acting experience for the lead female role, so in such a short term I could only get one friend that has the looks for the role, but has no acting xp.
Will have to re shoot night scenes with better lightning, but for the trailer the current ones will do. Next shooting on 4day.

Just barely still in the game. Nothing shot yet but finally got 2 actors and we start tomorrow (Thursday).

Late in the game but still gonna roll.

New Canon 7D is in and I'm gonna try to use it for this project.

Done
 

Now I have to come up with the movie for the premier.... some how....

Almost done. Shooting went far better than I expected, Rick Lara, who has acted for me in a couple of other challenges (remember him as DeVille in "The Devil's Due"?) rounded up a cousin to portray a Indian warrior for a sequence I figured I'd have to edit tight to cover awkward acting.

What a surprise! This guy has some drama school, martial arts, and loves acting. He is even putting together his own native American outfit.

The biggest problem I have in the edit process is software. I've been getting by for years with Pinnacle Studio, and for the last couple of years have worked some with Cyberlink PowerDirector both of which retail at the $100 mark. Neither work very well with the Canon 7D files, Pinnacle Studio won't even recognize the 1920x1080 video, PowerDirector 8 Ultra does but will not play them smooth on the timeline. It will render the clips to an AVC H.264 file which then reimports and plays OK on the timeline as long as I'm super patient and give the computer plenty of time to "digest" each move.

I'm editing on quad core machines (one Q6600 and one Core i7) so processing power is not an issue.

Anyway I'll upload later tonight or sometime Saturday.

This one has been loads of fun but....Whew.

How many times have I said that DVCs are great fun? Well, I was WRONG! ;)

Actually, I’m just going a bit crazy because I can’t shoot until 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. Then I am supposed to edit and upload by the next night, when my computer has been locking up and otherwise giving me trouble? Never mind that I'm struggling to create some effects that aren't working out--just getting a successful render is in jeopardy.

I really hope to be singing a happier tune at this time on Sunday...

Congratulations to you guys who are finished or almost done! And I hope lots more of you who signed up are nearly there, as well. :)