Okay, thanks :-)

Michael,

Thank you for the feedback. I guess it is a little odd having them talk to an empty room. Hopefully I'll have a better idea next time - which I hope is a little while. I had no idea how much work I was getting into on that project.

Surf to my site (URL down below) and check out the Links page.

"University Heights" feature film trailer
 

Hello, I'm new to the board, but wanted to post a trailer for a feature that I shot earlier this year and released in June.

It's called "University Heights," and I shot it with a budget of $400 over 16 days, and had a cast of 55 and crew of about 10.

The trailer is in Windows Media, and is 3.7 MB

http://www.blueboxlimited.com/multimedia/uhtrailer03.wmv

SYNOPSIS: "University Heights" is a reflection on American life and the struggles that we face everyday.

Four lives on a college campus. Four problems seeking answers. A Philosophy teacher owes thousands of dollars to a drug cartel, but the death of his wife destroys him with guilt. A teenager hopes to fall in love, but finds trouble in his drug use. Confused and alone, an English teacher fights his sexuality. Consumed by racism and disgust, a student discovers whom he hates most - himself.

An examination of life and the choices we make, "University Heights" grasps the everyday struggles of humanity - finding yourself.

For more info, visit www.blueboxlimited.com.

"Her Summer" feature film trailer
 

In addition to my other post ("University Heights" trailer), I wanted to put up another feature film that I produced this year, entitled "Her Summer." We shot it during the summer and premiered it at the IMAX Theatre in Davenport, IA in October. We had a small cast & crew, and the budget was $50. I hope you enjoy!

http://www.blueboxlimited.com/multimedia/hstrailer.wmv (Windows Media, 6.8 MB)

SYNOPSIS: On a routine police investigation, Officer Ethan Crowe discovers two of his brothers brutally murdered. Determined to solve the mystery of their death himself, Ethan stays on the crime scene all night...ending in a horrifying discovery.

The next morning, Ethan is missing.

Based on a true story, "Her Summer" is a compilation of events which took place that night, unraveled by two friends who come across the investigation material.

For more info, visit www.blueboxlimited.com.

The trailer had very much tension, great opening shot and timing.

Keep up the good work.

(What the hell, a budget of 50 dollars :-)?)

Great trailer, AGAIN ;-)

Especially acting performances looked very good.

What did you shot in on?

Good luck, you're doing great!

My Atari style site for my DV & Film work.
 

Hello,

First Post here. I'm putting up a site to show my work in DV, Super8 film and music. If you like the Atari 2600, you will probably enjoy my site.
I was wondering if anyone could check out the site and see if you like the material.
There is a preview in the downloads section. Any feedback on the site would be great as well.

www.armanbohn.com

downloads:
http://www.armanbohn.com/html/downloads.html

Thanks,

-Arman

VERY nice.
I loved the way it looked and I am wondering if it was possible to get a copy to Denmark in some way?
Also what was the budget of the picture?

<<<-- Originally posted by Christian Hede Madsen :
Also what was the budget of the picture? -->>>

Christian, look at his post ;-)
The budget was 400 dollars.

I couldn't tell if you wanted comments on just the content, or the site itself...

Very Atari. Cool. I miss Pole Position! It is clear how to get through the site and is fun to see what little animation will come up, encouraging users to explore more.

One thing you might want to do is have the section button stay highlighted as you navigate through its parts. For instance, when in the Music section, it is clear I am on the Analog page, the button is yellow, but it is not clear I am in Music anymore...

You might want to use the blockier, serifed font you use on the page, or maybe make the text below the buttons part of the images as well and do a block pixelated font yourself...

One question to ask yourself is by going with an unrelated, Atari theme, is your site reflective of your work? They seem to have a very different style. And if you're cool with that, I know I am... but then, Atari invokes a lot of positive memories for me! :-)

<<<-- Originally posted by Mathieu Ghekiere :

What did you shot in on?

Good luck, you're doing great! -->>>

Thanks for the feedback. I shot the film on the Panasonic DVX100A.

The budget was $400, and consisted of mainly parking tickets & food, as the cast & crew all worked for free. I'm just a college student, so I can't afford too much!

I do have DVDs available -- 2-Disc special editions which include a behind the scenes documentary, casting featurettes, a short film, trailers, and more! It costs $12 + $2 shipping.

They are available here: http://www.blueboxlimited.com/store/index.html

Box art: http://www.blueboxlimited.com/uhdvd.jpg

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll might try a different font for the buttons. I need to keep them as one of the few internet friendly fonts. If I use some kind of custom font, I could get unpredictable results on other peoples machines.

Did you check out the movie preview. I know it's kind of random, but it is representative of my early work.

As far as the relevance of the Atari theme, I have used atari computers (2600 & 800XL) to produce sounds on two of my albums and I was very inspired by the minimal, imaginative graphics. I even wrote a joystick controlled sound generator program for the 800xl that is on "Analog"

-a

Looks great.

I would buy if I weren't living in Belgium (with taxes and shipping costs too expensive, as I'm on the edge of a project myself, and I'm also a college student so :-))

Great to hear you are doing so well :-)!

Filmmaking Podcast - Skinny Bones on Air
 

Hey all,
I spent this past summer directing my first feature and decided I'd go about sharing my experience via podcasting - if you don't know what it is check out this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

Well, things have picked up heavily from there - we got a mention in the Guardian UK and TIME magazine. However, I was wondering what other indie filmmakers think of the podcast, so I invite you to check it out -- go to

http://sboa.skinnybones.net

or subscribe to

www.skinnybones.net/rss.xml

with whatever podcast aggregator you use. Listen to a couple of episodes, and then please e-mail me at

podcast@skinnybones.net

with any questions or comments.

Thanks!

Jaz,

I have moved your thread to our showcase forum since it is better
at home there.

All the best,

Why the democratization of video is bad.
 

See this is why you shouldn't give certain people, like myself, video cameras. (click here)

The website's not completely up yet, but I thought I'd share a couple of silly videos.

"Young and Vulnerable Years" - Premiere: January 6th
 

Hello everyone!

I am just posting this to make sure everyone knows about the premiere for my independent feature film "Young and Vulnerable Years" this January. You can find all the info about the movie, on the website:

http://www.yvyears.com

The film will be premiering at a movie theatre in lower-east Michigan. Royal Oak to be exact. The show is FREE, donations will be accepted ;)
Anyone in the area is more than welcome to come down! Support local film!! Bring your friends!

the exact info:
Main Art Theatre
118 North Main Street
Royal Oak, MI, 48067

January 6th - 7:45pm

Feedback on my preview....
 

Feel free to leave a review on my sites message board or right here on this thread.

I'm interested in feedback on the movie preview for "Four Films", but I'd welcome any thought on the other material and on the site itself.

Check out the downloads section.....

-a

maybe its just the trailer or something, but it looked like it needed to be deinterlaced?

FTV Promo
 

FTV (Feline Television) the finest in Species Specific Television programing

Open this URL: http://critterimages.com/FTV.htm
and hit the "click here" hyperlink to download the FTV Promo

Enjoy,
Phil Slosberg
http://critterimages.com

Site for the Short Film "Winning Bidder"
 

Hi all, just wanted to post a link to the site I'm working on for a short film I recently completed. Nothing fancy, not too flashy, just the basics.

Having some success so far with the film - it won a local film slam held by an indie theater in downtown Orlando, and as a result it'll be showing this coming Sunday again for the yearly finals. Also just started the fest submissions, so hopefully there's some more good news to come soon, knock on wood.

http://www.theseventhlevel.net/winningbidder

Thanks for checking it out. There are some sample scenes on the downloads page.

Looks very interesting. I would like to see it. Unfortunately I cannot drive to Michigan. Good luck with the premiere!

It's really hard to say anything based on the teaser. Usually teasers and trailers are made to spark some interest but here we just see a bunch of characters walking or doing something + yeah, needs deinterlacing.
With the teaser you should make us want to watch your movie!

Looking at the trailers, the film is okay. Problems are with the black guy (african-american if you will) who is overplaying a lot, and the main actor is too (whe he meets the girl, besides that he's good). The composition is good too, except one scene when the black guy says that the place is not exactly the best one, we see some part of the main character's body and then the whole black guy's body with some space to the right of it. Need to turn the camera juuust a bit to the left so they both fit.That's little details but I guess I noticed them.
Lighting and the color is great - that's what I liked about the film (although sometimes characters are "overlighted", to the point when we can differentiate the 'real' lighting and the one setup. Life the cafee scene, everything is relatively dark but the character's face is bright, Maybe they were sitting close to a window..)
Sound's good too. Again, except in the very beginning of the 1st trailer. Seems that mic was too far away from the characters.
Need to see the whole thing to evaluate it :).
I hope you didn't get the impression that I'm the ultimate filmmaker or something. I'm pretty sure that I'll make similar mistakes sometime, but I notice mistakes equally in my and others' films.

BTW, how are you going to screen it? I mean, where to get the budget to transfer it on film? :) Or was it shot on film right from the start?

Christmas-style mockumentary...thoughts?
 

Hey all,

Made this with a buddy over christmas break last year. It was just intended as a fun project to mess around with, so there's definitely some colorful language..... anyway, critque away..

LARGE(81mb)--http://www.dyingbirdproductions.com/...ngle_large.mov

SMALL(41mb)--http://www.dyingbirdproductions.com/...ngle_small.mov

Undead Army - new movies
 

Hiya guys

I got some really nice feedback when I first posted my films here. Just added four more to my site, including my first foray into 3D animation with 3DS Max (Its called Chaeostrophe)

do have a look and tell me what you think

http://www.undeadarmy.org/video.htm

thanks

Hagop

Hey thanks for checking it out. Some of what you say is very true - good eye - but some of it is the fact that the samples are in pretty compressed Flash video. Does some odd things to the audio and contrast unless you really bring up the bitrate, which I didn't really do. The micing definitely was tight in that scene - it's the audio on the Flash that's a little whack. I guess I should make them better, though I'm more focused in getting a menued DVD for it done right now for all the people involved. We had some 3 tapes full of behind the scenes stuff we shot which I have to wade through.

The press kit and screener DVD were my main first goal to finish and those are done and I've started sending 'em out to the fests. As far as screening we have a digital indie theater in town, plus a couple of "film nights" here and there. No reason for a filmout though - it's not good enough for something like that. Fests will get it in BetaSP.

Thanks again!

Yeah, that makes more sense when the quality is descreased.
I think, you shouldn't save on the quality though. You can upload smaller in length but higher in resolution or quality clips.
After all, there shouldn't be that much traffic so that you have to pay extras for bandwidth. Although it depends on the hosting plan you have.

Darn.. Posted in the wrong topic :). (I had this slowmo footage here)

Good sites for feedback?
 

I am wondering if you guys know some good sites that involve uploading short films and getting feedback/critiques from lots of other people. I would really love to be able to upload my first film to Triggerstreet and get some feedback from them, but seeing as how my film was a student project and uses what is most likely copyrighted material (an old Japanese Tohoscope logo and various drums/flutes from The Hidden Fortress), I am afraid of uploading it there because Triggerstreet is considered a film festival type deal I believe, so using copyrighted material is definitely a no-no.

I am looking for some non film festival type sites where I don't have to worry about that sort of thing. I am glad I came here to ask this because I had forgotten that I could also get feedback from you guys. So I will in fact post a link here soon to my first short film, but please, any other sites that you guys know of...let me know so I can get as much feedback as possible. I would greatly appreciate it.

I would try going to www.studentfilms.com they appear to host films there. I've watched a couple and the quality is pretty decent but I don't know what it takes to get a film on there.

Hope that helps.

anyone?

I think all you have to do is pay a fee per minute to upload and be enrolled in some sort of 'school'. I've seen loads of films from Studenfilms.com, and it's a pretty good resource - you get to see a lot of good and bad shorts, know what mistakes to avoid, etc.

I think the best thing to do first is to use different/original music, because no matter where you upload it's still infringing copyright. Better to just change it now, then you'll have complete freedom over where you screen it. And you'll feel really good about having a 100% 'home-made' film too...

Dennis

Humor is in the eye of the beholder... :-)

Alex

YellowCard music video contest
 

Hey everyone. I just joined this place, Im 17 and been doing music video for 2 years now some for fun & some for local bands. My video is under the name of Max Sitnikov in this list http://www.ifilm.com/promo/yellowcard/submissions.jsp check out the video and write some feedback if you dont mind, and please vote for it.

sorry i duno where to put this, but PLEASE HELP
 

hi everyone, i am a 16 year old kid who just is into cinematography and stuff.

a month ago i entered a music video contest... and a counselor from USC told me that winning this contest could totally be one of the keys in my portfolio to getting into this top college and majoring in film.

pleeeeeeeease *big puppy eyes* go to
http://www.ifilm.com/promo/yellowcard/submissions.jsp

and go like 2/3rds down and find "Arthur To" and vote for me pleeeeeeease?

and you can watch my video that i made =)

thanks soooo much!!
-arthur

Well maybe it wasn't fair but I voted for you without watching the others. Very nicely done and great band! Best of luck to you!

Congratulations!

ah
 

ahhhhhh thx so much =) =) =)!!

-arthur

I'm trying to figure out a way of being constructive and polite but I am having a difficult time putting my finger on it.

The beginning started out looking like it could have potential but then it slowed WAAAAAY down. Over all it felt too long. I watched it for almost 10 minutes and then HAD to fast forward it to about 15 minutes when I just gave up and quit watching.
The exposure was off (sometimes the background wall would be correctly exposed and "Santa" was underexposed, the dialog was crude, cursing for no apparent reason (no matter what, the suspension of disbelief that Santa would have EVER used that much foul language is highly unlikely). I understand there were budgetary concerns but the interior shots could have been made more interesting.

It could have potential, and I like the concept, but it was executed all wrong. Make it much shorter or more interesting. Santa as a young punk eating at "Mc D's" is a cool idea but this character had less in common with Santa than Sadam Hussain (sorry don't know how to spell it).

I don't want to discourage your efforts by any means. In fact, it's good practice and I imagine it took you a lot of time and energy. Marks for that! It just needs a better story. Edit the script some more and make some story boards and follow the flow. It took too long to say anything.

Maybe more people will chime in but be prepared for some critics. Thanks for posting.