Thanks
 

I appreciate the feedback, guys.

I plan to keep shooting. I come from a concert/event background, so directing is all new to me. Looking back, I wish I would have pushed the talent more, but we were both tired or rushed whenever we got together. We both have full-time careers, wives, (and two kids, in my case), so scheduling was a pain. Dealing with the day-to-day of "real life" definitely zapped some of our initial enthusiasm and energy, which unfortunately made its way on screen. We had delays in securing a rooftop location and a convertible, too, so the shooting took place over six weeks when it could have been done in three days.

Still, I learned a lot from this experience and look forward to doing it again. Most importantly, I learned the importance of having a PA, even if it's somebody updating the slate or cueing up the song. Most of the time, it was just the talent and I on location, which required a lot of extra sweat.

T.J.

Looks like a nice drama. The trailer looked "indie professional." Best of luck!

Dave,

Looks great. Really dig the transitions you've used with your exisiting footage to give folks an idea of what you can do. And you've definitely put some great footage in here as well. The only thing I thought that kind of slowed it down a bit was giving the "InDecision" logo it's own screen. The first couple of viewings I wasn't sure if it was a plug for the band or a demo of what you can do from a titling perspective, but I think I would put it over the footage of the band.

I liked the "and strange" part personally . . . but I do think you could cut it in half . . . looked like a loop anyway.

Nicely done.

Thanks Jason, and everyone else, for the input.

Jason, I think I agree about the Indecision logo and it does feel like a promo for the band, but I have a lot of footage of them compared to everything else I've shot.

The end is a loop and I'll cut it down some. I gotta keep it in there though because I AM strange, and want to publicize it.

If a client wants straight stuff, they can go to my employer, Carter Media. If they want strange, they can come to me. Actually, I'd just send them to Carter Media and do the work through them.

I also must say that one of the owners of one of the more affluent and influential agancies we do work for, saw this and loved it. I was trying to get an idea of what kind of feel he was looking for and when he saw it he said "That's what I want!"

It really is nice to get a different take on stuff like this from folks who don't know me and are more objective. Thanks again everyone.

EternalRECURRENCE- Short film
 

Short film I did a couple of years ago on an XL1

About to shoot my first feature (next week!) on an XL2 so any thoughts would be great....

www.louisfilm.com/eternalfilm.html

... and please get past the credits, there rubbishness irritates me. It's something that will definitely be worked on for the next one.

I recommend reading this thread, you may learn a thing or two of what to look out for and what to avoid when you start your feature.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=73454

Be sure you have a good sound team cause it's what takes up the most time on set by far and getting good sound is a hard thing to do even with great gear. And I cannot stress enough how important it is to take a slate after every take...if you do things like mix boom with lapel mic write on the slate who is wearing the lapel mic and who is on boom, It will save you a lot of heartache and work in post.

Anyway good luck and most importantly enjoy it.

Andy.

Bad marketing
 

Allright, it was shot on a Sony DCR-TRV250, Digital 8 format.

I edited it on Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 and color corrected it with it too. It has some cool music, and it's three "crush-on-her" stories and a love story. It's basically the story of a guy's pain in love. It's quite sad actually.

Maybe I should have promoted the short that way, "[I], a Sad Love Story".

One thing to note is that there is no dialogue whatsoever. It's a cry out of loss. Images and music.

And I'd really like to hear what you have to say about it, 'cause this short is very important to me and I need to know whether I succeeded on conveying that feeling of loss or not, if I got to create that (in lack of a better word) atmosphere.

Please, I need some criticism, I trust you.

short film (noir)
 

A friend and I made a short (ode to) film noir and it's selected for the Dutch Online Film Festival

http://www.filmfestival.nl/index.php?id=295

It's in English. Would love to hear some comments, and if you have some spare time left you might want to register and vote for my film :-)

Well shot...one little bobble on the camera move in the last shot. Coloring was really neat, what did you do to it to keep the color but make it black and whiteish...The end of the cigarette is still glowing red and there are still some flesh tones. Nice audio...good movie guy voice. Funny little concept. Nice set design.

in short...well done.

A short documentary on the Dornier 328 Jet
 

Hi,

http://www.reelinspirations.com/dornier.htm (running time, 8 minutes)

This is something I produced back in 2004. I shot it on a Sony VX1000, edited in Premiere Pro 1.5, After Effects and one 3D effect in Lightwave 3D.

This was made for DVD and I was viewing all output on my TV, so there are some green/screen shots that don't go all the way to the edge.

It requires Flash 8, and you might want to pause it, wait a while, then press play. Depending on bandwidth, it can stop and go a bit.

Enjoy,

Jim

Thanks, we used a very improvised dolly which I had to operate while operating the camera, so not every movement went as smooth as we wanted.

The attached photo's show what we did with the colors.

Looks like you removed all the color from the mids, then desaturated slightly...very cool look.

Thoughts? Based on this film...

As Andy says, main problem, sound - the song at the start was to loud and ran counter to the scene - I actually thought it must be playing of another window on the browser until I paused the film. It drowned the dialogue and didn't fit with the scene at all.

Music choices felt completely arbitary. It does pay dividends to get at least a HALF decent original score. In your own mind the songs fit the scenes perfectly (in one's own head, they always do) but to me they disrupted the film. I couldn't feelthe reasons behind the choice of songs, other than if lyrics ("Unhappy Birthday") were meant to refer to the themes (always a bad idea, the DayTime TV approach) or for some rather over-intellectualised reason (the music from Le Mepris, because the film has lots of jump cuts, self reflexive references, etc. Just like a Godard film!)

Coverage: LOTS to say... For your feature, GET MORE. Too many scenes were shot from one angle, which may have been an artistic decision, but left you with loooong dialogue scenes that weren't particularly well delivered by the actors, especially the "best friend", that really could have been trimmed and tightened up if you've been able to cut to other angles or reactions. Also it's best not to shoot over-the-shoulder shots, as in the two scenes with the girl, in wide angle. It means your main character is a small figure loomed over by a massive back of the head in the foreground. Also in those over the shoulder shots, your to-the-camera character needs to occupy the side 2/3rds of the frame, not dead centre, as that large foreground character, large as she is, seems to be shunted uncomfortably out of frame. Generally you need to look into shot composition, especially the rule of 3rds, because a lot of the framing and staging in this film felt just slightly off.

The pace was all over the place, from long, meandering scenes to sudden jump cuts and self reflexive freeze frames, documentary style asides to the camera/grabbing the camera, and back again. There was plenty of stuff that seemed thrown in just to pad out the running time, like the climbing over the bar furniture and the scene with the sunglasses which was just f***ing creepy! I get the feeling the dialogue was largely improvised, it had a slightly directionless feel. Again, more coverage and cutting it down to about 5 minutes would have helped this.

In the end I found the central character rather... unsympathetic. I couldn't work out if this was deliberate or not. In the end the thought I had was "hmmm, do you wonder why she dumped him?" I wasn't really sure his "philosophy" was that coherent, after all, if the character is in his early twenties, then his parents probably got married in the 1980s, not the 1950s! So I don't think he's that different from his parents' generation.

Try a bit of restraint, there was a sense of "everything and the kitchen sink" in this film, long takes to fast cutting, freeze frames, long "steadicam" style handheld shots, voice overs, five pop sings in a 11 minute. There was no consistency in style, and the shifts seemed random rather that calculated. This is what made it feel like the movie was unscripted and largely improvised on the spot.

Have a look at Marco Van Belle's short - it's a lot more "high concept" that your film, which is more character based, but is a good example of script, visuals, sound and editing really coming together.

Hope you don't think I've been too harsh, but if you're making a feature this is all stuff you really need to be aware of. To be brutally frank, based on this short alone, I wouldn't think you're ready to do a feature yet.

18 minute short: "That's Funny, Isn't It?"
 

After much work, I am proud to share my first short with you. Tell me what you think of it, and whether you had any technical difficulties. If you do not have time to sit through the whole thing, there is a trailer. (The audio track is encoded with Dolby Prologic II so you can listen to it in surround, with the right setup)

That's Funny, Isn't It?

in camera edit/mix art video
 

an in camera edit/audio mix art video for class. used only the camera, no external mics, etc. only used computer for end title and compression for web
www.rileyharmon.com/8_20_06/
click projects then electron dance

weee

Just some clips
 

To say hello!

A couple of things made ready the last 24 hours...

http://www.vulture.no/testvid/

Gunleik

What camera were these shot with?

Shot on Panny HVX-200
Straight out of the box model
(No adapter to get the DOF)

The printshop:
Two lights
One fill
One "Spot" (dunno what fresnell is in english)
Shutter: 120/250
Just tweaked the scene files as I felt like
Mildly CC'ed in FCP to make the shots more coherent.

Shot at 1080 psf25

The timelapse
Same camera, same story (no lights tho')
2 secs interval
Removed unwanted birds and mild CC'ing in Shake

That's it I think

Gunleik

looks great, very clean, sharp images

Emre, some qick thoughts based on a single viewing.

Some OK camerawork, but some of the scenes seemed underexposed, it wasn;'t a consistent look.

The two male actors were good, better than you usually see in this level of production. The weak link was the actress, you need to get more angles of her in any given scene so in the edit you can "cut" a performance together (ie tighten up timing, use a close up for emphasis when her line readings are a little flat)

Sound - I can sound like a stuck record on this but it was really uneven. The opening montage between the two characters was largely obscured by too much background sound from the restaurant. I didn't get what the conversation between the girl and the customers was about. Like I said, that was on one viewing, but it should really need more. There was also some loud room noise in the kitchen scenes. Like really loud AC or plumming I think.

I think it really needs to be shorter. it felt slack as a narrative at 18 minutes and didn't really hold my attention as it should have done. When you think that TV sit comes in teh US are usually 23 minutes long, excluding ads, they can put a lot of story into those 23 minutes. I'm not saying all stories need to move at that sort of clip, but you're not offering a lot of story in 18 minutes. I think you can get away with a slower pace in a features becuase going in people are thinking abut investing more time in a film and going with the films own speed. With shorts, epsecially those on the web, you need to hold peoples attention a bit stronger.

Thanks!

Gunleik

Appreciate anyone taking the time to give feedback, constructive criticism and technical advice is always welcome. This is obviously the reason why people post on here.

Dylan- Agree with loads of your points, particularly in relation to the music, I also know that the middle section was the weakest. But it was a first film, I'm proud of it and I've learnt from it.

... I'd begin a defence of my choices but you don't strike me as somebody who is open to different ideas. You write as if film is a medium which is black and white (unintentional pun) or right and wrong. Your criticism of the framing of the character for example, makes sense in a film textbook kind of way but it was done intentionally to try and reinforce what was happening in the narrative.

Don't particularly enjoy being told that I'm 'not ready' to do anything though, particularly from an anonymous face over the internet- that's not constructive just a bit condescending.

Anyway the film must have made you a least think for a bit (even if it was about how much you didn't like it!) because it must have a taken you quite a while to get all that down.

Not sure if I've ever been called over-intellectualised before though , so I thank you for that.

It didn't really grab me... the first scene went on too long. I think what Dylan is saying is that if you really want to do a good job, get a lot of people involved, and shoot a great feature, you might want to hone your skills some more first. Shooting a feature sounds great and all, but what then? Is it going to be distributed, released, pressed to DVD... or just sit on the shelf? Remember, there are tons of people who are just jumping into film making, and many with little experience. Doesn't mean you can't go forward or your movie won't be a great success, but its good to remember that there is no substitute for hard work. We had a class where my fellow instructor showed a music video he had shot. One student was absolutely dumbfounded to hear that he spent 1 month preping (storyboards, shot lists, lighting plans, ect) before he started shooting. I also spoke with a "director" that had no idea what format she was going to be shooting on, did not know the difference between video and film, had no script, no shot lists, no equipment, but was going to be shooting her film and it was going to be great, and she felt absolutely ready to go. You're a lot further along, but maybe you just need to really nail a short before leaping into a really long format program, that's all.
By the way, did you get permission to use the music in your short? Awesome if you did (would take a lot of ground work to get permission to use Eric Clapton) but if you didn't, be really careful. It'll scare the heck out of ya when you get a cease and desist letter from a lawyer, along with a possible request of compensation.

Wow Jim, pretty cool! So you shot all that footage? Must have been neat to go up in the plane in the cockpit! It seems a little odd to call it a "documentary" because it feels more like a corporate video about how great the plane was (the only people interviewed were the pilots from what I could tell, and there seemed to be no background on the plane itself), but I liked the look of it very much. Nice work!

Louis,
Wanted to tell you that I really liked it for is direction and the choices you made. Technically there are plenty of flags for many people who love slick and packaged film. Myself, I love content over presentation. Not for all.

It was refreshing to see a film where its director listened to his instinct and ideas and made the film that he wanted. People might say that the film was crude, slow, with poor production, but I thought it had a sophistication that I don’t always see in fringe subject matter and story telling. It seems to me that your interests are in story content not glossy finish and asking for criticism in forums can be counter productive; if you can’t separate others people’s ideas on film making from your own.

I think that you have something.

Keep on listening to yourself and best of luck with your feature.

Our Weekly Vodcast
 

We launched the intro to our upcoming Vodcast a couple of weeks ago:
http://www.kineda.com/?p=968

Shot with a Sony VX2000, but probably going to go with a Canon HV10 for portability. Would love to hear any feedback or comments you may have!

Terry

Hey Cal,

Actually, I flew that airplane for the airline. I wanted to show what it was like to fly the plane and interview the pilots who flew it.

Yeah, it wasn't a 'true documentary' in the truest since of the term, as I didn't interview more people, but it wasn't a promo/image piece either. I just interviewed the pilots to get their thoughts, and put together some footage I shot while flying and jumpseating.

Glad you enjoyed it.

Jim

Very nice, but could you explain why the aircraft is being retired?

Sorry, no quicktime
 

90% users are PC based... why only quicktime? I know I know... quality is better, controls are better... but for hard headed guys like me (and most people who hate downloaded extra stuff) it is my opinion you are isolating a major audience. Personally I do not like quicktime for the reason it tries to take over my system/codecs and crap... so, cant watch it.

Army enlistment. 2min short clip XL2
 

XL2
Heres a really short clip of a bunch of teenagers enlisting in the army. In Singapore it is a must for all males enlist into the army and serve for 2 years.
Tell me wad ya think ;)

http://media.putfile.com/5SIRMONO-Compressed

OR for a faster load....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwF1Wjyd_vE

The music and slowmo makes it almost sad. Some of the rack focuses at the beginning almost seemed to be fishing for focus rather than intended...unmotivated. The whole piece, however, was well put together and I liked the music. Nothing felt out of place. I could feel the apprehension of those teens.

Thanks cole, I must agree I left too much "unfocused-blur" shots in..

Hi Louis,

It's good to be confident in your ideas, but I'd rather hear your defences. Trust me I'm not out to demolish you, (and I'm not THAT anonymous - google me).

I'm sorry if you were offended by my comments. If this was your FIRST film then it is impressive, it's more accomplished than my first film. However if it's the only film you've made before embarking on a feature, then I stand by my comment. I'd aklso say you're going to need to grow a slightly thicker hide. After all, once you get your feature listed and listed on IMDB, where comments are REALLY anonymous. I wasn't trying to be patronising, just give a straight honest opinion - which is what you asked for, right?

But I'm plenty open to different ideas and would be very interested in the rationale behind the choices you made. Trust me, I'm not going to came back and nit pick them, I've given my views on the film and would happily have you change them.

Emre, just thoguht I should follow up since I seem to have offended people eslewhere - as first film it IS a very good piece of work, especially the performances of your two male lead characters. Good acting is something that does make films like this stand out.

You did not offend me; on the contrary, I appreciate your substantial input. I was merely waiting for other people to comment before diving in. Anyway, to address some of your concerns:
That's what you get for giving your camera to someone else. I am just thankful I managed to salvage the last scene. I am going to do my own photography the next time.
I get more coverage now, but I think it wears out the actors. There is a trade-off. I assume the blame for the actress' flat performance; I am sure a lot more could have been wrung out of her.
'Tis a fair cop. I think we could have offered a lot more, but it would have involved more work, and we had already stretched ourselves to breaking point. Let us hope my next work (about to begin production) will be more dense. It is unfortunate that most people are probably going to view this on the computer. This is not how it is supposed to be. On reflection, I realize I composed for the "small screen", but I am not working on the assumption that all my films will be viewed this way.
Let's just say we were not shooting in a studio. The restaurant, for example, had a loud HVAC that we were not at liberty to turn off. The kitchen was right next to a construction yard. The beach was close to the airport, plus we had to contend with teenage bystanders who raised their voices just to ruin the production. It is a miracle we got any sound on location at all. I should also note that I applied heavy dynamic range compression for the Web soundtrack as is generally recommended. The DVD sounds more subtle, but I concede I still have a lot to learn about mastering.
We did audition a lot of people... A good cast a day keeps bad acting away.

ACA (Atlantic Coast Airlines) used to fly for Delta and United. After 9/11, United went bankrupt and wanted to re-negotiate all flying.

ACA didn't want to bend to United's control, so they started their own company called Indpendence Air based in Washington Dulles.

Because of that, Delta cancelled the Dornier contract as we would be direct competitors to them. Thus, the Dornier's went away.

I didn't explain that in the DVD because the DVD's audience was the pilots who flew the Dornier. Therefore, everyone knew why they were going away.

Jim

Watch my short Insanity
 

Please take your precious time and watch it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FrN7yVtUxQ

Comments and constructive criticisms are welcome.

Thank you.

The story was really basic and simple, but still pretty good. I liked your opening credit theme, the music worked really well with the piece and your audio sounded good to (you covered your audio really well). For me the intial chase scene was maybe just a touch long, and sometimes the hand held camera seemed a little on the fence between a normal or dutch angle. Overall a nice job though. I would recommend cutting the opening credits down a little bit, its over a minute before the actual film starts, but again, that's just me. Oh, and good effects with the blood!

I can basically parrot Cal's comments. Very basic story. But great sound and visuals overall. Again, the opening credits...If you are going to have them run for 1:20, give me something more interesting to look at than a curtan in the wind.

The acting was great - very well done. The only other thing I would mention is the breathing in the beginning when the girl has her mouth gagged. The breathing sounds like she is panting through her mouth and not her nose - Just a minor point.

Congrats on a movie! Many say they will - Few do. You did. Stand proud!

Emre, I would urge you to keep giving the camera work to someone else, but it's always good to use the best DoP you can find, someone with a good showreel and a bit of a track record. One thing that can be a bit unfair is that I'm watching this on my LCD in a day-lit, which requires a rather contrasty bright image, which the camera person may specifically have been trying to avoid.

As for coverage, you're right that it can wear actors down, especially inexperienced ones, or those whose background is theatre. Sometime you can get away with just shooting little insert type shots, just a couple of lines rather than the whole scene. As you shoot more you'll probably get a feel of when to do it and with which actors. AS I said, your two males had quite a nice flow and could hold their scenes quite well. I especially liked the "someone mailed me a joke" scene. I should also say that the staging was quite interesting in a lot if scenes, you used space in the locations quite well, having actors interact in the foreground and background, in separate planes. I admire you for assuming resposnibility for the actress' performance. It's certainly a sign of directorial maturity. Knowing how to get the best from different actors is one of the things you'll get through experience, unfortunately they're often very different in how you need to get the best performance out of them.

Sound is always a hard one. The problem is it's hard to get around once it's on the track. It's usually a case of compromising - if you have ambient sound, then you'll have to shoot more dialogue in close up and get the mic really close. It might mean abandoning some of the more interesting staging or camera work one has planned, but in my opinion, sound is that important.

I know what you mean about composing for the small screen. It's a bit of a pity but it's a trade off - after all now short filmmakers have such a great opportunity to show their work to a large audience. Certainly wasn't there when I was starting making short films.

I know it probably doubles the workload but In future I'm considering making a festival version of future films and online versions (the online versions would be pacier, edited to assume viewing at low resolutions/bandwidth and colour corrected to allow for less that optimal viewing conditions.)

Anway, well done and I look forward to seeing your next film.