The Unknown Girl of the Public Bench, 8' - french - DivX - Mov - Wmv
 

Hello there,

I want to present you our first short movie without any dialogue. It
lenghts 8 minutes and was shot during 3 days in december 2004. We finish
the post-production in the end of april 2005.

This is a french short movie, but without dialogue, so we think that is
easy to understand without any subs.

This short was shot with a DVcamcorder Sony DSR-570.

One still picture :
http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/04s.jpg

Plot :

The lovers' dates of a couple in a park will become the only source of
joy of an employee asphyxiated by his environment.
A happiness lived by procuration through the window of his office until
the day the unknown girl is alone on the public bench...

Watch the movie :

DivX HQ (112 Mo)
http://idbp.arakneed.com/dl/idbp_full.avi

Quicktime HQ (80 Mo)
http://idbp.arakneed.com/dl/idbp_full.mov

Windows Media HQ (75 Mo)
http://idbp.arakneed.com/dl/idbp_full.wmv

We hope that you will enjoy our short movie. Each question will be traited
(if I can understand your english !).

Hi Guys
This link has been posted on a few DV forums... Take a look.. I enjoyed it very much... as did most of the guys on the UK and French forums... its a refreshing change from the average short movie we get to watch on the net...

Regards

Garethw

Wow. The opening alone is worth the wait. This is a must-see!!!

Thank you so much for sharing your movie here, Jean-Nicolas! It's beautiful.

1- That was beautiful.

2- Curious: What did you do to get the look of your film?

Answers
 

Thanks everyone for your comments !
Wow, Gareth Watkins is my first fan ! :)

First of all, the camcorder : a Sony DSR-570 WSP with real 16/9 - 2/3 inch captors ! Cool DoF !

Second, the light on the set : Benjamin, (co-director, cinematographer, compositor...) made a global light and try to shot with "grey contrasts" as best as he could.

Then, he equalized each shot in Combustion to have a real continuity during the movie.

And after all that, he gave an identity to the movie, using Lustre for the Color Process. Bleach numerical technic and a little halo on the white. Each sequence has its color identity, and it's more and more colorless in the end, very desaturated !

Some pics before / after color process :

http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/01b.jpg
http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/01.jpg

http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/02b.jpg
http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/02.jpg

http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/03b.jpg
http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/03.jpg

http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/04b.jpg
http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/04.jpg

http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/05b.jpg
http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/05.jpg

http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/06b.jpg
http://arakneed.com/photos/idbp/06.jpg

Salut Jean-Nicolas

"Que si, si j'existe
J'existe
C'est d'être fan
C'est d'être fan"

Sorry for the French guys ...

Not sure I'm in the fan status, but I felt that some of the French replies on the Repaire forum were somewhat unjustified... I liked you film... what else can I say? If you have anymore like this I figure I'll become one.... among many...

Well done..

amicalement
Gareth

Yes, the first 2 minutes alone makes it worth watching but I stuck around for the whole thing... and loved it!

I want to quit my job in TV do this full time!!

Out of curiousity, what did you edit on?

Jean-Nicolas,
Those stills were very helpful and illuminating. The images certainly look very flat before the color grading.

I'm curious... how did you get time on a Lustre? Lustre is a very expensive system!! (around a hundred times more than combustion?)

All I have to say is wow. I absolutely loved the film, the opening is definatley worth the wait. I absolutely love this peice.

This is what cinema is all about... Telling a story with pictures!

Well done! Thank you for sharing this with us.

Jay

Wow! Great movie! I loved the look and the style.

One quick question, for the shots where you zoom from the desk to the window, did you have to light the interior a bit to keep correct exposure?

I think the main character looks a lot like Liam Neeson. :)

Amazing.

Had a modern "fairytale" feel.

Great work...Great work.

Our Cinematogrpher, Benjamin Martinez, shot in "gray tones" in order to have the best way for correcting contrast and colors in post-production !

We had very good and helpful friends :)

Nope : no time, no money, so no ND filters on the windows !... :(

Color Process
 

Hi again,

If your are interested in Post-Production, here is a demo reel of the color process (Original Shot, then Combustion process and then Lustre process) and other stuff like using SteadyMove to improve the motion travelling in the short-movie.

No comments, only music, less than 4 min length, it's big (60 Mo) and in DivX but it's the way to see the differences in full resolution !

It's 1.07 pixel aspect ratio, as we shot, but you can use BSPlayer if you want to see it in 16/9.

All questions are welcome !

http://idbp.arakneed.com/dl/idbp_demo_etalonnage.avi

Jean-Nicolas, how about putting it in a format everyone can watch, like .wmv or .mov? Thanks!

Jay

Hi Jay ! For the moment, I can't put it in other format but hang up, I'll do it when I can... :-/

Wow, an amazing piece of work! The music, the intro, the composition of it all... everything is great!

I've gotten most of my questions answered already, but I have one more - a small one: What is the name of the typeface being used? It's such a beautiful, handwritten font.


/ Jan "Kiwi" Kivisaar
Sweden

Jean-Nicolas,

I'm curious about that title sequence. How'd you guys do it?

Josh

Thank you again, it's such a pleasure to answer you !

It's "Worstveld Sling Extra" font and you can find it here : http://www.dafont.com/en/font.php?fi...veld_sling_ext

Here is the process (with my bad english, sorry...) :

The opening sequence : first of all, I scaned (high-res) a real textured paper that I modified on Photoshop. Then, I scaned (high-res too, more than 20.000 pixels) one of the drawing we see in the short movie.
After that, I did a manual TGA sequence with the drawing : I erased a little bit of the frame and save it as a new picture. So I started by the end.
Then, I "backwarded" the sequence and "slowed" it (that result the impression of drawing on the frame).
In After Effect, I put my final sequence on the high-res textured paper, and did a composition with the names & title, the camera movement, the lightning, etc...
For the clock, I take one real frame of it, then I transformed it in drawing in Photoshop and I did a new TGA sequence, erasing the clock.
Final composition : what you saw !

Pat, I will not put Divx on my system. Period. Too many problems with the codec.

Jay

The divX codec version that doesn't encode won't put spyware onto your system.

You could download Microsoft Antispyware Beta to double check. (Or Spybot, or Adaware)

2- Windows Media encodes just as well if not better than divX from my tests.

Thanks for that video, it was very illuminating.

If I can ask, what's wrong with it? I've been using Divx for years (back to the infamous 3.11alpha) and its worked great for me! Stick with the free version, not the pro trial.

Some other great divx compatible codecs..

http://www.xvid.org/
http://www.3ivx.com/

The reasons are many, the biggest of which is WMV 9 looks as good or better and creates smaller files to boot.

Jay

Macs can't play WMV though, can they? I have a PC, but I think not.

I just installed 3ivx and had no problems whatsoever. It's far from being Real Player.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this short. You made very good use of a more expensive camera and the overall produciton values are great. It looks very close to professional stuff. The shallow depth of field is very well used.

The only thing I thought was lacking was dialogue, but I guess it was the idea in first place to make it a mute.

Anyway, I have to say that this and 'Broken' seem to be the most professional films I've seen here, wether in terms of look and of production quality.

Jean,
That film was awesome.
What are the accessories you used to get that film look.
Filters, wide angle lens, post-production software, etc.
Or did you just shoot on grey color and depended on post production to get that film look?.

Hi Eniola,
For the film look, first of all we used a huge DV Camcorder : the Sony DSR570 WSP (720*576, 2/3 inch captors, standard lenses, etc...).
Then we tried to have a good DoF with lights and using the zoom. Benjamin (the Cinematographer) shot in gray contrasts in order to post-working it with Combustion and Lustre.
In the end, we first "equalize" the short on Combustion and then we did the color process (bleach) on Lustre.
You can see that process on the demo reel here : http://idbp.arakneed.com/dl/idbp_demo_etalonnage.avi

Jean, The .avi is not working. Could you please change it to .wmv or quicktime or something.

I guess I would have understood what you meant by combustion and lustre but since I can not see the demo reel, I am totally lost.

Please help.

Thanks!.

Bravo. Très beau boulot. Freely translated, very nice!
Comme quoi...
Jean-Nicolas, do you have a portfolio of other work?

I don't know how I missed this before, but I just watched it. Wow! Very nice. A story well told, and in beautiful pictures.

Count me as a fan.

Wait for a week, I'll put it in mov and wmv as soon as possible alright ? ;)

Not yet, but I'm working on it. I've got few things on the web (student stuff) but I need to present them in a personnal website.

Thank you again for your comments !

Well, for those who can't play Divx, here is a WMV version of the demo reel of the color process and other stuff...
Quality is medium, sorry...

http://idbp.arakneed.com/dl/idbp_demo_etalonnage.wmv (about 34 Mo)

Fantastic! Really enjoyed the entire clip, especially the colors.

I just watched it again, and I honestly think this is my favorite short film ever. Not one bit of dialogue, but it is more powerful through the images and music then most big budget dramas full of dialogue and many actors.

The music was great, the direction was great, the acting was great.

10/10

Also, is there anyway I could purchase this on DVD?

I agree with Travis, this is a great short. I love the design of the title sequence, especially with the drawing of the clock changing into the real clock. Lots of attention to details here, with the coffee cups and everything the main character does. The music is great. Very poetic.

Yes, and you guys should check out http://idbp.arakneed.com/index.php?page=download (Etalonnage et stabilisation (4'))

You could see the power of Lustre.

Jean, did you install the Lustre software on a PC, MAC or it's own hardware (master, slave, etc)?