I'm glad that someone has allowed the very deep philosophicalable complexities of this trailer sink in.
I leave it for interpretation of the masses...

cmv

New Music Video on my XL1s
 

Just finished a music video, which I shot on my xl1s. Just wondering people thought. It should start playing on MTV base here in the UK fairly soon.

The video was for Lynden David Hall, who won the mobo awards best newcommer a few years back and appeared in the film 'Love Actually'.

I had a day to find a location, aquire equiptment and a day to shoot. Very tight!!

I hope you like it. Any feedback welcome.

www.pixelloft.com/lynden.htm

Although I didn't like the music - it doesn't matter anyway :-p - your lightning was fantastic, really! It maked the whole thing look very professional, and cameramovement was very okay too.

Damn man, in a day...
Keep up the great work!

I liked it, I agree with what's said above. There's a couple continuity errors and I think the nighttime effect could have been a little darker with little more contrast to add some mystery. I also think you should have shown a few different angles for the kick.
I liked the burglar's POV when he's about to hit the floor.
Overall, it's funny and a great first film.

News from kinetic-pixelworks.com
 

http://Kinetic-pixelworks.com

Short digital films for everybody!

Uploaded Recently:

The adventures of Laura: Episode one.

and you can still check out "Mojado" and "Lesson 2"

many other shorts to come. Please leave feedback on this thread.

That was a really professional piece. What was the budget on it? I really enjoyed the office scenes. The lighting was very impressive.

Awesome work.

Makes my XL1s shoots look in vain. ;)

Keep it up!

wow, this is pretty amazing. Looks more film like than the other music video links i saw that were done with the Sony HDV cams. Goes to show it takes much more than just the camera.

Great job dude!

George

Thanks so much you guys. Your comments make all the hard work woth it.

Steve, The budget for the entire piece including equiptment hire, location, food, labor, everything was £2000.00 Finished. That didn't leave a whole lot of money after equiptment. But well worth it!

I tried hard to focus my attention on good framing and most importantly, good lighting so I am really pleased you guys think the lighting worked out ok!

Thanks Again!
Nick

Great job! I actually went back to read your email to make sure I had read XL1 instead of DVX100. It shows that any semi-pro camera when used properly can result in professional-like footage.

I noticed the lighting and framing too, all very well done. Well use of the crane as well - it's obvious you know what you're doing.

And finally the post-production. Not sure what package you used but loved the colour correction you applied to the video.

Makes 28 days look pale in comparison, and that's to say something.

Short Film
 

This is a short film I made of a road trip with me and my buddies to cape hatteras. When I first got my GL2, I was looking all over for what people thought were good attempts at a filmic look in their product and I had some difficulty finding those (at least on the web)...I thought I'd share one of my creations which I think is most filmic for anyone who'd like to look...Most especially the first beach sequence is probably visually my best work to date. Don't expect any kind of storyline.

Enjoy.

http://student.uncw.edu/cms5751/TeamFusion2.WMV

Fellow filmmakers and digital artists...

Check it out at:

http://www.cinequestonline.org/2005/...view.php?m=429

Thank you for your support.

Help make the short a winnah!

Ok that was scary.

I just heard this kinda cool song on the radio, looked it up and downloaded it.

I was listening and turned it off to watch your video. Then I realized I must not have closed it, but I did. You used the exact same song I had just dl'ed and was listening too.

Too many coincidences in the world.


Good video. Kinda reminds me of a video I made of our Panama City Beach trip last summer. But as you can imagine there is alot of 'miscellaneous' footage in it. ;)


The fun of being young.

hahahah

Short movie made by some teenagers
 

Hey this is a movie that me and some friends made last night in an hour or so. I thought it turned out to be OK. Please tell me what you think and how I might improve anything for next time (focusing mainly on the editing of the movie). Thanks!

The movie is here for you to see (it's about 20MB). If when you try to open it, it asks you what application to use, tell it to use Quicktime. If you're on a Mac, you may need to do a control-click on the above link and then choose "Download Linked File As..."

Nice little video.

Should have tripod'ed the first few shots.

What was it shot with?

The well-lit inside shots looked very clear.


Been a while since I've heard Clint Eastwood....Bring Back The Gorrilaz!

Scene for theatre
 

My drama teacher, my friend, and myself are theatre people and we worked on this scene for our advanced drama class. By the end of rehearsals we decided that we wanted to preserve it on tape. The scene calls for 3 construction workers to be on a building gurter (sp?)

So I thought a greenscreen would be perfect since we were going to be filming it.

We greenscreened some flats and put some 2x4's on sawhorses and went with it. The audio is kind of iffy because I didn't put up any batting to remove echo. Oh well. It was shot with a Pv-Dv953, converted to 24p with DVfilm, and then composited in After Effects using keylight.

Let me know what you think.

It is windows media and about 20 megs.

Thanks!

http://www.rch-e.com/rche/films/meremortals.wmv

It was shot with a GL2.

Your right about the first couple shots with the tripod...we just didn't want to have to deal with it, but next time we will use one! Thanks for the reply!

Bury The Gift (short film)
 

This is a horror short film a friend and I made last summer. We are planning to create 2 or 3 more shorts along with an outer story (like Creepshow) and end up creating a feature length. Hopefully we'll get better with each short. Since we are releasing the entire thing, we placed a watermark. Sorry for the inconvenience. We welcome feedback and constructive criticism. Feel free to ask questions.

There are some violent scenes so you may want to tuck your kids in before watching.

http://www.hirr.org/trucci/BuryTheGiftScreener.avi (101 megs, Xvid)

I downloaded your video and there was no picture at all, just audio. I recieved an error when loading the codec. Is this my problem or the files? I waited over 30 minutes and it will not load in the browser so I would prefer to just download it. Thanks

The crappy resolution due to the compression doesn't really make it enjoyable.

I'm sure some of that footage was quite nice to look at, but as it is it's kinda pointless.

Thanks Dave, I used After Effects for the color grading by the way.

I had to use a lot of depthmaps and blurs to fake depth of field in some of the shots, this was to tie it in with the shots I aquired using a 35mm converter.

Cheers, Nick

It worked fine on mine. You may have to find some website where to download the XVID drivers from, Mitchell.

Here's what I thought of the short.

GOOD:

1 - Well shot. Framing, colour and continuity are all pretty good.
2 - Sound. Many short films suffer from imperceptible speech, but yours is crisp and clear. Did you dub it in post or used a good shotgun mic? Also nice sound effects.

BAD:

1 - It extends for too long. I thought the plot could have been easily crammed into 8 or 9 minutes. The slow pace doesn't really help the stoy, imo.
2 - You should have used a tripod more often for steady shots. Some of them are a bit shaky.
3 - Some scenes (like the one zooming onto the bedroom window) are over-exposed. Not sure if you did it on purpose, but it doesn't look right.

Hey Gerald,

Very good. I don't know how many movies you have made, but it looks you already know some things well:

- Good editing
- Good framing
- good sound, although sometimes it felt somewhat unnatural.
- Good acting performances (are that your buddies? If so, you guys already have many technical experience at a young age!)
- Funny how you always framed the mother without her head.
- Good lightning
- Good misé en scene.
- Good special effects
- You gave some time to build these characters, especially by the good acting performances too.
- Simple script, but with good cinematography.

Minor things:
- the cutting from the dinner place of the boys, to the zoom in on the window of the white house, at around five minutes... is to abdrupt, I would let the sound of the dinner place linger a little longer.
- Sometimes the movie was a little long, although it never came boring though.
-Didn't like the rock music at the climax
- The monkey didn't really look that scary, but it never really bothered.


Few Questions:
- what did you shoot it with?
- did you use lightning kits or used natural lightning?
- did you guys made the dvd covers of the horrorfilms yourselves?
- how did you do the shots when you track the two guys talking? did you buid a dolly?
- did you have a budget?
- did you compose some of your own music? Because the music when the guy goes down in the middle of the night, with the red image and stuff, it really sounded like the instruments coming from a Casio Keyboard (I have one, but I'm interested in how far is it good enough to make a score with, just curious)

Sorry to ask, but how old are you?
Your movie looks like it's made by young people who were very enthousiastic about making their movie, and I mean this in a good way! You need that passion and fun!

Keep up the good work!

Sorry if I overwhelmed you with questions.

If the video doesn't work, try the latest ffdshow decoder here.

Thanks for the feedback and constructive criticism. We will definitely benefit from it on our future projects. This is our first narrative project we ever did, so we have a bit to learn, but we were already experienced with videography (through documentaries and weddings) so at least we knew our movie would look and sound somewhat decent.

Here are some answers to the questions,

We shot with the DVX100 (not the A) in full frame and cropped on post. The ability to reframe some of the shots was a huge advantage. We used some work lights and lamps from home depot and diffused with parchment paper. Our entire light kit probably cost us 50 bucks, a little more if you include the color gels. The dvd artwork was done by this guy named Lukas Richtera that my friend found on the internet. He does lots of gothic artwork and we promised him a copy of the final product for contributing. The stable shots were done with a homebuilt stabilizer (Cody Deegan design). Our monitor was broken at the time so we just blindly framed our actors. Good thing the DVX has such a wide stock lens.
The actual budget we spent on this movie was somewhere around 150 to 200 dollars. Most of it went into special effects and DV tapes. Haha, and Mathieu you were right, the lead sound was played by my friend on a cheap Casio keyboard. I played the rhythm with my classical guitar. We did add some reverb and compression to it though. All of the music was original (except for La Muerte Del Angel I performed on the TV behind the mom, but that song is no longer copyrighted) as we didn't want to deal with using other people's music. It sounds cheaper, but it's ours. I am 21 and Richard just turned 22. The actors were actual high school actors we contacted on the internet.

All sound was done with the AT897. On some scenes the actors were recorded on location (scene with them doing physics homework), and others we had to dub due to lawnmowers and such getting into our sound. Sound effects were made by chopping an assortment of vegetables which the local grocer was kind enough to donate.

This and the dvxuser forum has been my best asset. There are some really knowledgable people in these forums, and I even bought the DVX from someone over at the dvxuser forums.

Right now we are seeing how people react to our movie. It's been a mixed bag so far.

Kettenvideo - Chain Video
 

Join the first endless interactive chain video in the net - initiated in Germany!
It's no competition and has no commercial interest - it's an experimental game.
We're looking forward to a wide participation all over the world...!
www.kettenvideo.de

The curators

Volker Krieger (Dortmund)
www.vk-videokunst.com

Sascha Dornhöfer (Berlin)
www.neuemassenproduktion.de

Nice film.

The dialog at times seemed a little quiet compared to the music. Especially the last line. I had to play it back with the volume up to hear it.

Regards,

Geoff

abstract short film (serious or funny?)
 

Ever go to a film festival & then watched a blurry, grainey, incomprehensible, random assemblage of images called "abstract"?

I made one from the underexposed, unusuable footage from my narrative movei "Bitter Old Man". I'm hoping to submit this to film festivals & see if people buy into the B.S. that it's an "art film".

let me know what you think.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE Bitter Old Man

8 meg file


THE BITTER OLD MAN comes complete with art film cliches:
a. crappy jazz soundtrack
b. black & white, grainy film footage
c. guy washing face in mirror
d. subliminal messages
e. characters that represent abstract emotions
f. meaningless phrases throughout

This movie even stars SONNYBOO itself, committing suicide.

Enjoy!

-Peter John Ross
Sonnyboo - The Filmmaker's Friend

Bluebox's "Her Summer" on DVD for $10!
 

Bluebox Limited's latest feature "Her Summer" is now on DVD for only $10! The film was shot on a Panasonic DVX100A for a total budget of $50.

BOX ART: http://www.blueboxlimited.com/hsdvd.jpg

VIEW CLIP: http://www.blueboxlimited.com/multimedia/hsclip.html (Quicktime, 18.2MB)

TRAILER: http://www.blueboxlimited.com/multimedia/hstrailer.html (Quicktime, 18.6MB)
http://www.blueboxlimited.com/multimedia/hstrailer.wmv (Windows Media, 6.8MB)

Based on true events, Officer Ethan Crowe finds his brothers brutally murdered and becomes entangled in a supernatural mystery. The next day, he is missing. Two years later, two friends come across the police evidence from that night, and began to put the pieces together. "Her Summer" is a suspense-thriller which is more than its parts -- it is a human story of friendship and the memories that we form.

The DVD includes the film, commentary, interviews, a short film, and more, and is available for only $10, plus shipping. To order, visit the Bluebox Store at http://www.blueboxlimited.com/store.

Thanks for your support!

i agree with the sound you should invest in some mics.

Their Previous movie was very good. University Heights. I will be ordering this one too.

If your interested in seeing the end result of what a DVX100 can do & since the selection of DVX100 produced DVDs is limited to: Dixie Chicks Concert, K Street, Art History, Market 175, University Heights & some documentary about planes This is really a niche market :)

Plus they are from Iowa!

I actually have several microphones, including a Sennheiser ME66 shotgun with boom pole, but for this little movie did not use it, as it was not scripted. We were just fooling around and often times I find that when making a movie casually, the technical stuff can get in the way. We just wanted to film a little short and throw it together in an hour or so. Thanks for your suggestions, and perhaps in the future we will script something and use all my equipment!

So Corey, what settings are you using on the GL2 to get the filmic look you wanted? (if you don't mind sharing)


Paul

I liked the story and the special effects.

The echo was probably only noticable to my untrained ear because you pointed it out. I don't think it dramatically detracted from the film.

The only thing I didn't like was the two camera angles which you switched between. I became a bit dizzy after a while. It would have been nice to have a few more angles.

Regards,

Geoff

Let's see...I do remember taking that video into After Effects and applying the S-curve, however, the video had a pretty good film effect right out of the camera. For the opening shot I had a pretty high shutterspeed so I could get the colors of the clouds and the silouhettes of the people, and that was pretty much it. For the Beach sequence I did the same thing, only I zoomed in so I could blur out the beach in the background and focus in on the silouhettes. Other than this, I didn't do anything but the standard white balance and shutterspeed adjustments - always making sure to have the most open aperature I could, and zoomed in as much as I could to get a good DOF. Then the after effects dealie really took care of the rest.

Whoa that's so weird. I was in this play about 4 years ago. I was part of a comedy theater festival and this was one of the plays I was in. I was the character you have staged on the left. I thought this sounded familiar when I read your description.

Small world.....

Cheesy comedy about the telephone
 

To free up some band width on my website last night I uploaded my first film "The Review" to the ZED website and was suprised at the fast response of people. I had hesitated to do so before as it is a bit cheesy and full of obvious technical mistakes.

But if you are interested in taking a look the address is:

http://zed.cbc.ca/go.ZeD?POS=2&CONTE...t&user=angel13

Although it is old I'd love to hear any comments you have.

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,

Geoff

A little bit late with the reply, but I thought it was interesting. Some
nice shots in there and the old damaged look was very nice!

Didn't follow the story too much though <g>

I thought it was well done for a first piece, however it went on
too long for my liking and I didn't watch most of the last 25% of
the movie. The "joke" wasn't too funny after a while etc...

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : the old damaged look was very nice!

Didn't follow the story too much though <g> -->>>


That was not a "film look", this was shot with TRI-X and PLUS-X black & white super 8 film and telecine'd by THE TRANSFER STATION in CA.

There is no story. It's just a random assemblage of bad footage set to music to convince people that maybe I did have some kid of story in mind, when in fact it's just all the underexposed, out of focus shots from another movie I did.

It's art for art's sake.