Some of my IMovies
 

I'm new at video. I'm using a one chip Sony DV camera and do my editing on Imovie. I do plan to upgrade my equip soon but thought I would share some of my entry level work. Opinions are welcome.

Here are a few short Quicktime movies...

Cliff Hangers
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater30.html

Wedding Day
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater14.html

Water Games
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater23.html

Feats of Clay
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater19.html

Latin Girls
http://homepage.mac.com/richsheikh/iMovieTheater44.html

That file is 450 MB large. Most people are not going to download
something that huge. How long is the runningtime?

It is a full movie.

It's a hour long. I compressed it as much as I could.

Sorry for the filesize.

That's a BIG D/L
 

You could cut it into chapters. Make it more palatable for those who might take a look at it.

ian

XL2 Footage
 

If anyone cares. This is some random footage my friend Cassidy and I shot.

http://brighterpeople.com/cass/why_nona.mov

Don't dig too deep into the meaning.

Yeah, It's a good idea.

It's my buddies webspace though, and cutting it up and getting it to him to upload on his webspace would be a long process. I will try to fiddle with the filesize a bit more. It's a 720x480 resolution, so I may just take that down a bit and that could help.

The purpose was to keep it a DVD-rip download quality.

We lost some quality though, and still had a large file.

The movie is an hour long though, so Im not sure how much smaller I could get it.

I'll do what I can!

You left it at full resolution? Most people who put up movies on
the web do it at 50% resolution (which would be 320 x 240 at
1.0 pixel aspect ratio, yours is still in NTSC PA, which you don't
want) and sometimes even change the 30 fps to 15 fps. This will
drop your filesize with the same compression by 75%!

Hello Mike. I have no idea how far I got into the movie (since there
was no length indicator etc.), but I could not finish it. For my liking
it moved far too slow, or at least not enough was happening.

I would get rid of the intro, it looks cheesy. You shouldn't need to
tell the audience to get "ready" for something. I would also ditch
the line that went like "from the twisted mind of". That looks un-
professional in my opinion.

One final bit. Do I see the LucasFilm logo in the lower left? If so,
I assume you do not have any association with them. Remove it
immediately. You are not allowed to use another companies logo
without their consent!

Hello Rich,

Is there one movie you are most proud of? That you really want
people to see? Usually if you post links to a bunch of movies they
will not be watched (a lot).

Like myself, I have very little time. I'd like to see movies other
people make, but if you start posting 5 at the same time it takes
a lot of time.

I'll see if I can watch some later.

I was missing some close ups as well, but other than that it looked
nice, good work!

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing your work with the community. Since it is really a short film showcasing your work -- more so than about the camera itself -- I moved your post over to the DV For The Masses board...more folks will find it here than in the XL2 board.

Cheers,

While I didn't understand a thing about the little short...It was very...entertaining.

I really cannot gather the words to explain it. The acting and the mystery with the music just worked well.

As far as I could tell there was no meaning(?) but it was done well.

Im at a loss of words to explain it but I enjoyed it!

By the way, what was the music you used for it?

Rob,

Thanks for the reply. This is our first attempt at a real production, produced, directed, filmed and edited by only two people.

As far as Lucas Films is concerned, no, that is not their logo, the one you are referencing says Luke S. Films. As far as I know, that name is not taken.

Thanks,
Mike

"Luis, when you started out freelancing, how did you get the attention and business of your local agencies? Right now I'm doing mainly business that comes straight from a client or a referral, but I want to get some agency work as well."

Sorry I took so long to get back to you, I was actually out shooting all weekend.
:)

I started out in radio, though I had been working with video/film long before that, I took the radio job because it was produciton oriented.

So, much like you're working through the TV station, i started freelancing through the radio station. Most of my contacts began through there, until I had enough freelance business to be able to sustain myself.

I got lucky in that a few of the key contact I had were local agencies. When I first started, these angencies only had 1 or 2 clients each. Over the past 4 years, they've grown quite a bit.

I continue to court the local agencies with demos, setting up pitch meetings at the beginning of each year in an effort to get their business. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

You're best bet it to try to find the smaller agencies in your market. I don't mean the smallest, not the bottom of the barrel guys who are looking for free production, but the smaller agencies who are still looking for something slightly better than they can get from free from the TV station (no offense by the way, I thought your work was really good, in fact I'm suprised your station would give that for free. The free spots where I am are generally a 1 or 2 shot deal, handheld wiht a graphic at the end).

The small agencies of today will be the medium sized agencies of next year... So, Ive tried to concentrate not on getting one big job from these people, but creating a relationship. Thanks to that, I've gotten continuous work from one agency in particular.... they've told me repeatedly that they won't use anyone else for the TV production.

I was always upfront with the agencies I met with in the begining. Part of the advantage of meeting with small agencies who may not have a lot of resources or clients is that they may tend to be more willing to go with someone who is in the same situation. I approached many agencies when I started and told them flat out that I had only been in business a short time, and was hoping that we could find some way to help both of our businesses by working together. Some people are receptive to that, some are just looking for a quick spot and will always go with the lowest bidder.

Like I said, it took a while.... and it's really only starting to pay off this year. But I'm glad I never let any of those early relationships wiht agencies die out. Even when they hadn't given me work in a while, I would call them just to see how business was going, and to remind them that if they needed anything I was there.

My advice would be to start out by talking to the sales people there at the TV station. The sales people at the radio station were invaluable in getting me contact information for the agencies I talked to. Your sales staff should know who your best bet is... and who to talk to. They should also already have relationships with local agencies, and could help put a good word in for you.

I hope this rambling post helped in some way.
I'm exhausted from shooting, and haven't slept much....

I thought this music video was extremely well done.

Well choreographed and I enjoyed the story as well.

What did you shoot it with?

Nice
 

How did you get Rob Corddry to be in the video?

That was sweet.

Did you shoot with the XL2 for this as well?

David

Hello Mike,

I watched it through to the end. I like the idea of the story. There was a cute twist at the end.

I agree with Rob, though, it went on a bit too long and could have been shortened a bit.

The music was good but could have been a bit more intense. I have to say I loved the initial ring of the phone on the dashboard. It really made me jump, but then you reduced the volume and the effect dulled out. I would have kept the same high volume until he picked it up.

All in all though I think it was an excellent first film.

Best Regards,

Geoff

I tried watching this and just couldnt due to losing interest. I had no option for pause as well; might want to fix that. The AUDIO is the highlight of this piece but the story and camera were below average; nothing screamed for my attention anyway. The compression is pretty bad as well so who knows if I am getting the best view of this. I just got "Dude standing around on phone walking back and forth while guy on other end keeps calling him and using foul langauge"...Sccaaarrryyyyyy. It lost me; sorry.

Also, 'LukeSfilms' might be free but the LUCASFILMS Likeness is not; I'd seriously considering 86'ing that; sides, you're more original than that aren't you?

1st Promo for Youth Center
 

This is a promo I made for a youth center. It marks the first freelance project under my belt.

www.finaldesignstudios.com/jppromo.wmv

Take a look and see what you think. Save it to your hard drive please as bandwidth isn't free. :)

Hey Tyler,

My 2 cents is that you were highly effective in delivering your message -- definitely a success. Without doing any analysis, just watching/listening through the piece, the sound seemed pretty well done -- not an easy thing, as I'm finding out in my amateurish projects. One thing that did catch my eye, though, was inconsistent lighting between the various interviewees:

- first interviewee (female) seemed to have different color cast at different cuts in the interview
- the young fella with the pencil thin moustache and later the young woman in front of the pea-green background both seemed under-lit compared to their backgrounds
- guy with the black muscle shirt and necklace had a distracting "hot spot" to his right in the background
- the dad (?) with glasses had a wicked "hot spot" on his left temple.

But again, on balance, effective and nicely done. As long as it is run through a "broadcast colors" filter, or something similar, to mitigate the hot spots on the interviews, I'm sure it would do well on TV.

Cheers,

Good comments already that I'd agree with, but there aren't many music videos out there that I'd bother to say "that was good."

But I say, "That was good."

If you can do that in one day and not be happy with it, I'm jealous!

Band Teaser Video - Opinions?
 

I've posted on here for a while, but never shared any of my
videos with you guys because I've never put any of them online.

Then I just remembered today that a promo video I worked
on is on the band's website.

So, if anyone is interested, I'd like to hear what you think.
The idea was to do a very short teaser video for the band's
upcoming album, so it's not a full music video - more of a
trailer (under 2 minutes).

You can check it out here

Go to their video section.
The name of the video is "Making LP5"
(I think that's what they called it).


Hope you enjoy it.



Edited to add:
The website is all Flash, so I'm not sure what the direct link to the video is.

Rob's been a buddy of ours for a long time. It was awesome of him to do it!

Yeah, we shot it on the XL2....we're still figuring it out....still total novices.

Glad you liked it!

-Curtis

Perhaps you could re-edit this into your top post... unless you don't want this information out there.... But here is a direct link to the video.

http://www.lukesfilms.com/Vids/Bad%20connection06.wmv
Right Click - Save Target As.
It uses the same amount of bandwidth, but if you want me to remove the link I will.

I'm about to watch it now...

I actually thought some of the shots were pretty good. Some were bad, yes... the problem I thought with the piece, was the way the video was edited. Too many disolves, and strange cuts. I think a re-cut, removing all stylized cuts, and removing redundant shots of him walking would improve the piece substantially. As it is now, I would give the editing a 2 or 3 out of 10.

But one big problem is... alot of this story is coming from a phone conversation or "story" making it telling, and not really showing. It's like a long voice over that is used to tell a story, rather than the images.

Thanks,

Yeah, since this was my first time doing interviews I didn't think about the inconsistent lighting being a problem. I tried out a few things and some worked, most didn't. Luckily no one but me knows what those things were. :)

Live and learn, and I learned a whole lot on this project. But I'm really glad the message was communicated.

Luis

I really liked this; I used to play guitar in a band (for about 5 minutes of my life) and always appreciate the footage during rehearsal and recording. This looked great with wonderful coloring and the blow-outs on the windows work very well. The editing is tight and your choice of framing is spot on.

One part I didnt like? The black and white. Usualyl not a fan of Black and White as it is; but this element removed me from the piece.

Great work. You should share more often!

Looked well done. What was this video made for?


I recognized one of those songs, skillet perhaps?

Really cool little video.

I especially liked the first 5 seconds. Had a very 'teaser-ish' feel to it.

Good Job!

Thanks for the feedback.
i'm glad to hear you enjoyed the opening, as that was fully my creation. It orginally had a bit longer of an opening, but we were asked to cut it down a bit. The rest of the piece was cut together with a friend of mine (the one who did most of the shooting by the way John, so I can't take credit for his shots).

The black and white footage came from little security cameras we used. I have to say that agree with John that it wasn't the strongest choice.

The piece plays much better if you could see it off DVD instead of the web (but isn't that always the case?). It's a mixture of 35mm, DV/24P & 60i, and low res security footage. Sort of loses the effect watching a quicktime.

I shot all the DVX footage, and my friend shot all the 35 footage.

Thanks for checking it out.
I appreciate it.

The best compliment I've gotten on this was from a fan message board for the band... someone said that if the new album was anything like the video then it "was sure to rock!"
:)

It's always good when you see that something you made actually served it's purpose.

Thanks for everyone's comments, we will learn a lot from these! The short was shot on a cheap handheld Mini DV cam. We have since got our baby, the XL2! We are currently in pre-production of a feature, called 70's Cop - go for the gold. It will be an interesting experience for MJdoubleD!

The video is for an organization called Joels Place. You can check their website.

www.joelsplace.org

Thanks for the comments.

I think it's a good, solid music video. For a second effort, I think it's extremely well done.

Content:
I liked a lot of the shots and the story-line. I wouldn't like to see less band, but that's a personal preference.

The stock footage shots didn't fit in I feel.

Lighting:
I liked the silhoutte shot of the singer, the dark shots, the stop motion shot. I dig stylized lighting so I liked a lot of the dark shots.

The group band shots didn't really do much for me. I don't think I like the hotspot reflections you can see. Maybe try lighting the band like there's moonlight coming through the window, and/or backlighting them or doing high-contrast lighting where they're lit from one side with strong hard light or light them like they're standing directly under spotlights, or use barndoors and use light slashes to light them.

I didn't find the video too dark

2- I'd like to see your third video!

Click Open, then when the pop up appears cright click Launch and save as.

"The Assignment" Teaser
 

Check out www.drvproductions.com/theassignmentmovie.html Like to hear some opinions.

Thanks

Very nice................held my interest..........

good use of the "what you don't see is creepier than what you do see" concept.

great soundtrack...........

the only thing I would change is the establishing shot of the location needs to look a bit more spooky................seemed a bit out of context with the nice interiors.........



kaos

Thank You,
The establishing shot actually has been changed we used a more extreme angle and shot it at night, that teaser that is up now is going to be replaced hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks.. Thanks for the feedback any is always better than none.

Moved to the correct forum.


Very nice! Styleish, a little creepy! Good ear candy too!

GREAT WORK!

Looks great,
if I was to comment on something I think the 2nd interior shot focusing on the broken glass is a bit too long, and (watching it on Quicktime) looks a bit TV, while the rest gives me a film feeling.

Also, I LOVED the shot of the flashlights in the smokey corridor.

I think the trailer would be even better if you cut it down a bit futher, trim the cuts a bit more, make it 1/4 shorter.

I agree very much with the above comment from Scott Grocott on the good use of "what you don't see is creepier than what you do see" concept.

The trailer makes me want to see the film... now all you have to do is fullfill that...

I also join the cheering crowd for nice use of music/sound!

Good luck!

UFO Movie (3:36) - Cut 3
 

Here I am again. I have spent quite some time recutting this movie, and people have told me it's about 1000 times better than the original I posted here. So I thought I'd post this cut here and see if I get any better feedback than I did last time.

http://www.transcendentfilms.com/fil...UT_3_large.mov

Production Notes:
Shot on XL1s.
Shot in natural light plus one 300 watt worklamp.
All of the Non-UFO shots were shot over one night, in about 6 hours.
Actors: 1 (Andrea)
Crew for non miniature shots: 1 (my self)
Crew for miniature shots: 3 (dolly, fog, myself-camera)

Edit... no one has watched it? Or no one knew what to say?

Fire Academy Doc. - NEW
 

Hey Everyone.

Since I had some time at home to recover from the Pneumonia, I figured I would get caught up on my newest Fire Academy Video.

It was all shot with an XL1s, standard lens and ambient light. It's a work in progress so don't be thrown by the abrupt ending.

The video is 3 min. long and is 20 mB. I know its a big download but I would appreciate feedback.

www.pixel-mesh.com/media/video/academyIntro.mp4

- Aaron