Direct link...

I thought it was an interesting and really good made movie. Good
editing and a good way to tell the story. There are a couple of
things I didn't like too much:

- The use of her name after a lot of setences: "No need to raise your voice... Max". We already know her name.

- Microphone (?) hum. Not annyoing on itself. But definitely when it switches on and off. That took me away from the short a bit

- Opening sentence of the doctor

But other than that I thought it was nicely done with some good
acting. The doctor got a lot better during the movie. Julia was
nice!

I'm not sure how well I like the "twist". I thought the setup was
pretty neat and was interested to see where it went. I was
expecting a bit more in terms of what is going on.

But that shows the setup was pretty well done!

All in all an enjoyable short. Nice!

I just watched it. I liked it.

I'm trying to do my own projects at the moment so my comments may be tinged by that preoccupation. Please remember that when you read something that sounds like I'm selfishly projecting my own ideas rather than offering helpful comments.

Sound problems? Don't worry, nobody cares whether you make a silent film or you blow out their ear drums - the important thing is to blow their minds!

The demon morph was fine but all the time and effort that was put into it would have been better spent trying other things like experimenting with other versions, rmaking edits that radically depart from the original script, not just making minor tweaks for continuity.

Random comments:

Dump the magazine guy in the waiting room...he needs to be more than just some idle fellow casting a raised eyebrow at her, or else cut him out and put a mirror there instead and have some kind of strange time-out-of joint interplay between her and her reflection.

Maybe make it a see-thru mirror and she sees herself talking to the doctor inside.

The eye and door knob go round and round...one begins it all the other ends it, but does camera movement signify a relationship between eye and door knob? Why not make an overhead shot of the office and spin the room with her sitting in the centre so that the doctor orbits her during the session. Same with the waiting room. Maybe have the camera and Max on a merry-go-round platform so that the spinning is shown from the panoramic angle as well as overhead. Round and round she goes, where it stops nobody knows, not even Max. Maybe she escapes the loop by running out into the street and jumps infront of a car.

Maybe she says: "Max out" and then dies.

From ripples in time-space continuum to post-mortem musings about heaven and hell...to shifting identities. When am I? Where am I? Why am I here (ie what did i do to deserve hell/heaven)? Who am I? The form of the film should be shifting constantly, or rather when Max sits the room spins, but when Max leaves the room, it follows her out the door. Was that what you were getting at with the spinning eye and door knob, that both figure and ground share this time/shape-shifting nature?

Doctor (maybe pulled apart a la double vision): Am I in the past or am I in the future?
Max: I don't know, both?
Doctor #1: Is that a memory -
Doctor #2: or is that a prediction?

Maybe have a scene where Max #1 from the waiting room
and Max #2 from the doctor's office reach for the door knob at the same time and...

But you know that this piece you've put on the web isn't the finished product, I hope. Think of it as an etude or a sonata. Scarlatti wrote hundreds of sonatas for the keyboard and most of them were crap - and he knew it, but he had the wisdom to know that if hadn't struggled with them, and tortured his audiences in the process, he wouldn't have learned anything about music composition, and he wouldn't have sown the seeds for the masterpieces that he would later create.

Thank you for your post, I appreciate all comments and Im looking forward to bringing more video productions to the web soon. Thanks again!

just made my first short...
 

in the midst of doing a semi-serious documentary of the circus performers i knocked out a quick short over two days of filming.

its a little weird, it was totally unscripted and i basically gave a lot of famous circus performers who were being interviewed for the real documentary a simple premise and told them to ad-lib the rest. it took a weird direction.

please give me some honest feedback on the general short, the viability of it's interest to the general public at film festivals etc.

www.cluelessandlark.org

matthew

GELS & DIFFUSSION video
 

http://www.scottspears.net/Gels%20&%20diffusion.wmv

from Emmy Winning Director of Photography SCOTT SPEARS and his site www.scottspears.net comes another 2 minute free video to teach the basic fo cinematography.


Produced with http://www.sonnyboo.com

Not bad.

Did you get any shots from the jetty?

Next time that would be cool to get a downward angle on things.

Fire Academy Video
 

Hi Ya'll

Been off shooting so Ive been gone a bit.

Anyone care to comment on some of the footage I took of our local Fire Acadmey?

These scenes were taken from the 10 min. grad. video I can post more if you like.

www.pixel-mesh.com/131st/video.html

- AR

Hey, Roger & Rob. Thanks very much for the comments. I do appreciate it. It's an eclectic piece, and I really can't get the feedback in my neck of the woods to find out what works or doesn't. Every time I watch it, I only see the technical stuff, and I'm not sure if I'm doing as well getting the story across.

I just learned that using a cheap mic on a 1-chip may not be the best solution. That sometimes the onboard is better, since the external mic pics up a lot of hum. I'm looking to try to jury-rig a poor man's dat with a minidisc and investing in a really good mic.

Thanks again.

Episode 2 is up!

Anybody game for the Lottery
 

Hi guys, I'm new to this posting thing. My production company recently produced a 30sec commercial for the Kentucky Lottery. Our instructions per the lotteries request was to center the production around an urban theme.
So please take a look at our production and give me your thoughts.

http://www.dubproductions.com/movies...ialdemo_01.mov

I made your link clickable and added 'V' at the end (was missing).

I thought it was okay but like most commercials didn't want me
to do anything or something. Then again, commercials never
really worked for me. I didn't like the sound of the guy's voice
too much though.

i've got to say i'm kind of disappointed...i haven't gotten a single feedback message to my posting about my first short.

matthew

Hey Craig
Yeah, it was good enough. I buy the urban theme, and it's cut and shot well enough.
However....
It just doesn't sell me on needing to play the lottery.

I'll add a comment for ya... some constructive criticism. Don't take this personally.

First of all, who the heck is "Ernie?" This question is probably at the root of why there seems to be a lack of interest. Watching 12 or 13 people talk about some clown I don't even know wasn't very interesting (sorry). Others may know who he is but I don't.

Secondly, when I started to watch your not-so-short short, my first thought was that it's slow. If you're going to talk about someone that your audience may not know, you might want to pick up the pace a little. Actually, try to pick it up A LOT. The narrative style is fine but you definitely could have used more camera movement to give the audience the feeling of being "there." Especially for a documentary-esque piece like this. But if you're gonna keep the camera on a tripod, consider more angles and cuts to keep the viewer's interest. I counted 23 cuts (not including the slideshow) in this 00:19:29 minute short, give or take a few cuts. I'm a one man show too (my tripod is my best grip), but don't let the audience know that :).

Lastly, if you've got old footage of "Ernie," throw some in there and show us who he is while these people are talking about him. If you DON'T have any, create re-enactments from the stories these guys are telling about him and cut them in with the interviews.

I'm no pro but this is just my take. From one amateur to another... keep at it!

David

PS. My tripod piece can be seen at: http://www.studiotigers.com/damn/

What ideas do you have...or what suggestions could you give that could have made this better. Maybe better script for the jingle? Open to ideas...