Would festivals have a problem with this type of short film?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks. Well as far as camera shake goes during the gimbal moves, this is the first time it was mentioned on here, and no one else noticed it. I asked the viewers that watched it before and they said they only notice the shake when i specifically point it out, and never noticed before, especially since you see hand held in so many movies today in comparison.

So if the average person is not noticing the shake, should I not bother to adjust the shots then?

[Paul R Johnson]

Because professionals strive for excellence in everything we do. The worst kind of professional submits poorer work that they are capable of just because the audience are not versed in professional production. Yesterday I had a panic job to repair a 5 minute piece of classical piano recording where after finishing it two months ago, the pianist found he had played an Ab instead of an A, just once, and none of us noticed it. However, once he found it, it HAD to be fixed. If your movie was aimed at illitate people would you happily use bad grammar? Would it matter if the captions were spelled incorrectly? To them, may not one jot, but it's a matter of pride to fix things that are fixable. I find the notion of knowing there are errors and NOT fixing them unacceptable. In the past, for deadline reasons I have had to accept it, and every single time I see it, I cringe. The camera work I mentioned on Prince Harry - I'm not sure I'd want my name as cameraman, because it's out there for ever.

[Brian Drysdale]

Only accept camera shake if it's appropriate to the action within the scene, because camera shake is then part of telling the story. There are reasons why some productions use hand held shots for certain scenes, while in other scenes a camera dolly or high end stabilizing system is used in the same film. Kubrick makes full use of this.

It becomes more noticeable on a large screen, against a small screen, sometimes to the point of inducing sickness.

As the filmmaker, you should be more aware than the average person.

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks. For the next one I will try to get a better gimbal operator then, if that's best.

As for this one, I don't really feel like spending the money on sending it into a lot of festivals, but the person who hosted it and wrote it is really excited and wants to go in on it half and half with me. I kind of feel like telling him that if he wants to send it in, he can, but I am not interested in spending much of my money on the festivals, cause I feel that money could be used on future projects of mine.

Would that come off as a bad impression of I told him that, or am I denying myself exposure by not sending it into many?

[Paul R Johnson]

Exposure never paid a bill! If he's willing to invest, take his money.

[Brian Drysdale]

Enter it as an early bird entry to some festivals, local ones are good starting points.

[Brian Drysdale]

Paul R Johnson said:
"I'm a heavy Cubase user, and audio wise, I colour code my projects - looking at the screen, clips go from green to red, so I can see which takes are better - I wish we could dob this in Premiere - it would help me to keep quality up."

I gather you can in Premiere: Google for "Flags, Markers & Clip Colors" and you may find some information on this. Someone mentioned this to me.

[Paul R Johnson]

Brian - if you're right I will kick myself silly! I bet you are!

[Brian Drysdale]

I can't guarantee the accuracy, since I'm just passing it along.

[Paul R Johnson]

Dumb, plain Dumb! Highlight the clip, right click, select label, and pick a colour! This would have helped me so many times ............. Stupid I didn't even think to look properly.

[Brian Drysdale]

Lots of things are hidden away in programs, they just need digging out.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

Enter it as an early bird entry to some festivals, local ones are good starting points.

Oh why early bird, is there an advantage to that?

[Brian Drysdale]

An early bird entry is cheaper.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh right, that makes sense, thanks.

Are there any festivals that would be more open to my this kind of short film, since it's more of a video essay? I was told by one person, that Europe is more open to that, since they are more political and I should market it there more, and they are also accepting of movies in English if I do, if that's true?