The Beautiful Lie
 

Hey everyone,

Nearly 16 months after we wrapped principal production, The Beautiful Lie is finished. We shot for three days in December 2004 on a Canon XL2 with the Mini-35 adapter. I then shipped off to Florence for the spring and started editing when I returned in May. The picture was locked in the beginning of December and we've spent that last couple months (on and off mind you) editing and mixing the sound, as well as composing the score.

I know that when I posted the trailer on here there was a lot of interest from you guys regarding the piece. You can view the trailer here: www.meydenbauerentertainment.com/film1.html

I'm awaiting the delivery of the final mix, which should be in my hands by Friday, and I will post the film for you to download this weekend. (It's 23 minutes).

Sorry for the tease, but I thought I'd start getting some interest going.

Looking forward to hearing what you guys think of it.

The trailer looks good.......I'v heard the music you used before and I just can't place it and its driving me nutty, can you put me out my missery!.

Andy.

I think that is the music from the CBS TV show "Cold Case".

I assume you're referring to the second piece. That is by a group called E.S. Posthumous and the song is called Nara. It's the theme to Cold Case. You can buy their CD at CDbaby.com and it's a great CD. Another song of theirs was used for the first Spiderman trailer.

The first piece is from Road to Perdition.

I remember this one. I was hoping that you'd be able to find a somewhat simple way of removing the blemish on the lens from the final product, but I guess that'd be a huge undertaking. I think the footage otherwise looks great and am very excited to see the film.

I do have to ask why you would use music which has been used already for successful projects instead of finding new ones. I love the pieces, don't get me wrong, but why not find something new?

Hey Riley,

Yea, the blemish is annoying and I haven’t yet found a way to completely remove it without going through and painting it out or something. I do plan to do that at some point, but not quite yet.

As for the music, I didn’t know the E.S. Posthumous music was used on other projects until after I used it. I had the CD before I made the film and love the piece and felt it fit well. So…I figured too, it’s just the trailer, and a personal trailer and for showing you guys. The film is really my main concern. But, I don’t know. I used the music and then found out it was popular and by that time I didn’t want to search out for new music because the trailer was done and served its purpose. I had to turn my attention the film, rather than trying to seek out new music,

I’m getting my final mix tomorrow (hopefully, praying…praying…) and if I do I’ll make the film available for download. I’m sending it out to festivals though, so it will be a private link that I suggest you download.

If anyone has an effective way of removing blemishes I’d be glad to hear it. I do plan to take it out during the more obvious points, but the version you’re going to see will not have that done yet, so just ignore it.

Josh,

I really like your stuff... I remember seeing a bit of it before. It's a sweet look. What kind of color correction are you doing?

My only hangup with the trailer is that the framing is all very tight... almost like it was shot for 16x9 and then just matted down to where is it (2.35:1?). Especially the close-ups. Certainly it's a style choice, I just felt a little cramped by it.

Anyway, I am looking foward to seeing the full piece. Congrats on wrapping it.

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the comments. The film was shot in 16x9 but framed for 2.40:1. That was a choice on my part in early pre-production, not an after thought. The frame was composed for a 2.40:1 output. However, working with a frame like that is a challange and has been a learning experience for me. When working with digital you tend to forget the notion of composing for a screen 40 ft long.

So, I probably used more close ups than I should have. However, the story and the style I chose to shoot it in, dictates a more cinematic frame, rather than a more conventional 16x9.

Most of the color correction was done in Avid. All I really did was some light tweaking of brightness and contrast. We tried to get as close to the look as possible in camera.

Josh,

Cool... I've always wanted to shoot something in that ratio, but haven't had the right piece to do it with. Boy, it works great for the sweeping landscapes, but it can also be really nice for conversations and such. No better way to learn it than to do it...

Anyway, I'm looking foward to it.

Just wondering what lenses you used. It looks great!

We shot with a 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 135mm. They were all Zeiss Primes.

I am watching all the trailers now. I am very impressed. So you guys are still in high school or just graduated? I was looking at your awards section. I wish I was doing projects like this in high school. But... college isn't a bad place to start either.

—Chapman

Here it is.
 

Okay everyone. I didn't get the final mix today (frickin' USPS) but I decided to post the film anyway. The mix in there right now was mixed and mastered, but I had two small things to change. Most having to do with flashbacks. Other than that, everything is the same.

So, without more yapping, here, finally, is The Beautiful Lie:

http://www.meydenbauerentertainment....utiful_Lie.mov

Right click, Save File As, and download it.

Please be patient. The film is 23 minutes long and about 260mb. I figured that a lot of you really wanted to see the visuals, so I set the quality to high, which means it's a big file. It's encoded in MPEG-4. If anyone has a better compressor in mind to get the same quality but a lower file size, let me know.

Otherwise, enjoy.

Hey Joshua,

Have you tried encoding your video using QuickTime's new h.264 codec? The file is still saved in .mov format, the quality is very good; only the compression is better. I believe all of the new NLE's carry the new codec for compression; or you can use Quicktime Pro to reencode an uncompressed video file to h.264.

Hey man,

I'm trying the encoding now. I wish I was able to repost this to let people know it's now available. But whatever. Maybe if I re-upload a file in h.264 format I will.

Did you download it? How long did it take you?

Josh

its still a bit large josh, i think your excluding a lot of your audience.

Make it 60 meg and ill download it.

I'm trying to render out in h.264 but it screws up the color and brightness, ruining the look of it, and it takes nearly 4 hours to encode.

If I compress it down to 60 megs, it won't be worth watching. I think some of the people who wanted to see it wanted to see it for the Mini-35 look. Pushed to 60 megs, it looks like crap.

Again, if anyone knows of a good compressor, or know how to fix the h.264 render out (I"m using Avid to do it, don't have Quicktime Pro) so the color and brightness don't blow, I'll do it.

Even though it's a large file, it's fantastic quality. In the meantime though, I'm working on it.

I dunno how long it took to download -- I just started it and went on to do something else. I've been tinkering with h.264 on my own projects, and I found out that I was able to make the video size larger while keeping the file size smaller.

All technicalities aside, I just saw your short and thought it was wonderfully done. Claire was a very compelling character, and the actress you chose to portray the part was great. I enjoyed the use of brief flashbacks AND the use of color to go back and forth in Clare's memory. It kept me drawn in to the story. I personally also like the extreme close-ups. This is a very intimate piece, and rather than it feeling cramped, I believe the ECU's are definitely necessary. The music was excellent, and it complimented the story very well. This is one of the most cinematic pieces I've seen done with the XL2; and I think that your attention to storyline and production value certainly outweighs all the minor blemishes of the project.

Congrats to your entire cast and crew on a job well done!

I've had a similar problem with rendering h.264 directly from the NLE. The color correction seems to not keep with the render out. Haven't figured out what is wrong just yet; but I did find a way around it. My projects look fine when I rendered them as an uncompressed AVI, color correction and all. So what I did was open that uncompressed video in the Quicktime Pro player and re-exported it using the player's built in h.264 codec. The color settings are maintained (as I assume it is maintained coming from the uncompressed file), the filesize is smaller, and the render time is faster.

Let me know if you figure out another alternative. Since the codec is new, there's still a lot of tinkering involved. Plus, I know you have to purchase QT Pro; but it's a nominal price and it has served me pretty well.

Aside from that, I was able to watch the large video just fine.

Just wanted to repost this as possible incentive for anyone halting over the large file size. Seems like it could be worth seeing. :-)

Very good short! Worth the 270 MB I had to put my connection through... ^_^

I just have two things I'd like to point out. First, there seemed to be some noise in the night scenes (just a couple of times, mostly it was alright). I noticed it a lot when she comes back to the apartment and there's a white light hitting her from the right. Now that I think about it, what I saw in the streets at night was some gain used, together with the XL2's noise reduction thingy. Am I right? The colors seemed to look a bit weird (I'm sorry, I don't speak English natively nor am I experienced enough to say more than "weird" about those street colors). Anyway, it wasn't bad at all, it was just me that I think I recognized some colors I had seen on some low light footage from the XL2 (also, it just might be compression).
Anyway, the other thing I noticed (and how not to notice this one!^_^) was the dirty? lens. I think you can kind of hide that a little (or maybe completely) by using After Effects. There are some useful tools for that. But just what caused it? Was it just a dirty lens? It happened to me a few times, there's not much you can do about it, but didn't you ever see that in the dailies or something, or didn't you even clean the lens ('cause the blemish was always in the same place). It's a shame, but it can be fixed.
Now mind you, if these are the only two things I have to criticize (I, nonetheless! ^_^) that means your short, like I said, was great. Good acting, good lighting, very good music, cool DOF, nice script, I loved the editing. That's some quality work right there. Oh, and another personal appreciation: the colors did seem a little flat in the scenes inside the apartment (except the love scene...), but I think that has more to do with the color correction, which is a personal choice. So that's just me again. Keep up the good work!

We shot the the outdoor stuff in New York city where I didn't have the luxury of 20ks lighting up the street for me, so, I probably had to pump the gain a little bit. The reason the lights might look a little "weird", which I'm guessing you're talking about the scene where they're walking? After they make love? Is because we shot that under flourescent lighting, and deliberately sought a whitish look to stay in line with the scheme of the film.

The dirty lens. It wasn't the lens actually, but probably something on the ground glass on the mini-35. It's a big pain that wasn't seen until post-production. There's a lesson here. We didn't clear the monitor of all the menu options and numbers when we were setting up. As it so happened, the "24p" on the XL2's display covered up that exact spot, and we never saw it. And we shot this in 3 days so we had no time for dailies.

I'm working on finding a way to hide it, but it hasn't happened yet.

The flatness of the colors and scenes in the apartment were purposeful. We wanted Claire's present day life to seem dull and ordinary, and sterile, compared to the night before when (in claire's mind at least) there was passion and fire and emotion. So, we shot with more depth of field, warmer colors, handheld. The love scene was meant to refer to this, which is why it's warmer, etc.

Glad you liked the film. I had a lot of people who worked hard on it, so they'll be pleased to hear your comments.

Hey great job! LOVED THE MUSIC AND THE STORY! AND THE ACTING!

Hey Bruce,

Um, not sure what to make of this, but I was sent a notice in the email that had you quoting something else. It said: "Hey great job? You ever hear of talent or story!? You should check them out!! :)"

But, that's not what was posted on the board and it didn't look like you edited it.

Did you write that? Seems weird that I would get this in the mail. Is the post on the board being sarcastic? Cause, from this note it would seem to be.

If you didn't like it, you didn't like it. No need to be malicious.

the short is very good .. excellent production values all around in all dept's.
i also viewed your other trailers - all good and all with very good production value.

i then viewed the fake commercials ??? and i have to ask ? did somebody leave your team ? different DP? art director ? ..
if it is only the "idea" of the commercial you are trying to sale/push then it works BUT if you are trying to sell your company for production then IMO the production value is NOT there compared to your trailers.

spec commercials are suppose to show your BEST. and IMO the spec's are NOT up to par with the trailers. for example the macaroni spot would have MUCH higher value if you would have used selective DOF ( like you did in beautiful lie) .. most of the fake spots have a 2006 date and the trailers are 2001-2005 which is why i ask did somebody leave your team or didn't work on the spots???

looking forward to "Family Will" ...

keep up the excellent work ...

Hmmm... yeah, I got the same email... it must have been an edit after the original post.

[and I just added this in an edit... I don't think it shows]

I was wondering about that. Glad someone else could confirm it. Geez. Who is this guy? This is the only time I've read something like that on these boards. Very insulting...

Hey Barry, did you get a chance to watch the short?

Josh,

I just got it down, but I won't have time to watch it in full until tonight. I saw the beginning though... very nice look and mood. I'm looking forward to it.

Hi Don,

Thanks for watching the short. I'm glad you enjoyed it. As for the commercials, no one left or anything like that. They were just all shot with no budget...and I mean literally, no budget. We had some good ideas and wanted to get them out there and we've actually had a very good response to them, with some people saying they're better than the commercials that are really for the company. I agree that the spots could be served by having some higher production values, but we had no money to do that. They were all shot on the XL2 with the 14x manual lens.

So, we've actually had quite a different response from the majority of people, but we do realize that they could have more done with them. We just didn't have the money and really wanted to get the ideas on video.

Production criticism aside, what did you think of the commercials themselves?

Some beautiful shots. Very warm. Audio seemed a little noisy at times though.
As to the blemish.. I thought it's on my monitor and not on the footage, so at one point I started scratching the surface of the LCD, hehe

other then production value = in production designer/art dept/ some lighting ..
as i said if it's the IDEA of the spots they work and if i need a IDEA team i'd give your team a call ... if i had not seen your trailers & short film i would not consider your team for production ... . IMO your trailers/short stand out because of creativeness and productions values and i would say they are very low budget but viewing them one is taken into the images ... bottom line is you are showing on the screen far more $$ VALUE then the actual cost.

IMO- if you do send out the spec spots INCLUDE a few trailers on the reel ...

comments
 

Hi Josh, I watched your film and then went and watched most of your other stuff on your site and have some comments. First, let me say that I'm very impressed, but that only feels good, criticism is what helps:

--I agree with Don about the huge difference in production value between the commercials and your trailers, especially this short film. Is the only difference the mini35? Did you use the same lens and camera? Maybe it's b/c the sets are bland, but the commercial images just looks sharp and video-ish.

--Is some of your earlier work shot on a GL2? If so, could you list which ones? I'd like to upgrade to the XL2 soon and would like to see some examples of the difference.

--I was already sold on the mini35, but this short seals the deal: great work with it! It makes a huge difference in making it look closer to film (or non-amateurish).

--I love the use of color and lack of color throughout. The background walls always seem to reflect the mood. And the score really fit. Although, at times it seemed constant, or at least I noticed it too much, so maybe a few more silences or just environment sounds would help. IMHO the soundtrack should be like editing in that it should hardly be noticed, at least that's my preference anyway. (what program do you use?)

--My two biggest criticisms:
1. Are you hand holding the camera a lot? For example, in the kitchen scene over the frying eggs...there's a lot of subtle camera movement (it's in other parts as well). Is this intentional? Again, it made me notice. I think absolute stillness should prevail, unless you are clearly moving the camera for a reason.
2. About the story: IMHO (and I am torn about this), but I think you spend a little too much screen time expressing Claire's (protag?) inner turmoil. On the one hand, I'm like, okay, got the idea, she's bothered, too slow.... But on the other hand, if I shut that part of me up, it does create pacing and mood. But back to the first hand, I like more story to the story, meaning, not a lot happens, really. Great mood piece, but IMHO there's a fine line between mood and a progressing story. For example, the beginning, up to when captain-work-a-holic-don't-give-your-woman-a-little-loving shows up, is one image after the next of she's troubled about something. Even cutting one or two shots helps propel up forward to the next story beat. Back to hand two: yes, yes, hand one, that's true, but I'm establishing mood, pacing, character, please let me indulge...
Okay, enough, I guess my point is it's a fine line we all walk when telling a story with images and sound. How much mood and pace before we bog the story down? IMHO, I guess I think slightly too much here.
--I'll end with a positive, though...great job! You and your team do good work! Thanks for lying to me beautifully.

--I’m not saying there isn’t a difference. There clearly is. First of all, I’m still a student, and I’m not a film student, I’m a regular liberal arts college student at Fordham University in New York. The commercials were some ideas that we came up with, as I wanted to start getting some experience shooting commercials. I also did not have the budget that I had on the short films. To rent the adapter, it costs about anywhere from $600-$1800 (depending on how the insurance is handled) and since I don’t got to film school, I don’t automatically get school’s insurance. What I really wanted to do with these was to put down some 30 second spots to gain a bit of experience doing so, as I have never done it before. The commercials you up on screen are the first spots I’ve ever shot. We did them with zero dollars in the budget, using an apartment that was available to us. These were really practice, but we got such a great response from people that we decided to throw them up on our site. We did not have the adapter, shot the apartment commercials in the middle of New York’s huge snowstorm in February, and did the best we could. Had we had the ability to shoot on 35mm or even a Mini-35, we probably would have, and are going to be doing this in the future. For now, we wanted to get something down and for the most part, people really enjoy them.

--If you look under the film section, what was shot with what, breaks down like this: American Tragedy (GL1), Summer’s End (GL1), Soldier’s Farewell (XL1), 12:01 (XL1s w/ Mini-35) and Beautiful Lie (XL2 24p w/ Mini-35).

--I saw this film as a melding of images and music and thus the score features very prominently in it. The score was created by a composer. I’m not sure what program he used but it was on a mac, and he’s a professional composer. He was an associate producer with Howard Shore on the first Lord of the Rings movie score.

1) Anytime we’re in the present we’re on sticks or a dolly, and anytime we’re in the past we’re handheld. That’s the general scheme of things. However, as Claire’s past begins to invade her present, the styles beginning to mix. I agree the shots in the kitchen should have been a little more still (the camera was on a tripod, but we were moving the camera) but that’s something you see in hindsight. That’s the only scene where I feel there’s too much movement. However, any time we’re handheld or whatever, there’s a reason for it.
2) I agree there isn’t too much story here, but that wasn’t really my goal with the piece, and like you said, I indulged a little. This is not a plot based film, clearly, and I wanted to take the time to really examine the character. Plot is easy, character is hard, and I wanted an opportunity to really focus on character. All of the comments you guys are providing me is helping me see what worked, what didn’t, etc.

Thanks for watching the film and for your comments.

I may have missed it, but which mini-35 adapter did you use, and which lens?

Thanks.

I believe the Mini-35 was the 400 version, or whatever version they made for the XL2. The lenses we used were Zeiss primes, and they consisted of a 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 135mm.

Even though it's a student film fest, The Beautiful Lie won 1st Prize and the Audience Award at the Fordham C.I.T.Y. Student Film Festival.

I won a copy of Final Cut Pro Studio...not bad.

Josh, you've really made the xl2 sing on this short - it's some of the best footage I've seen on mini dv.

Besides good framing, would you attribute this quality to the mini 35? Shallow depth of field is one thing, but this seems to have something else going on. Your outdoor shots (both day and night) are stunning.

Good writing and direction too - I like the performance you got out of the female lead.

Steve,

I'm glad you enjoyed the short and thanks for the feedback. I think that beyond the technology, mini-35, 24p, you can't dismiss talent. We had an amazing cinematographer work on this film and I think a large part of it is due to him. We really punched up colors, whereas a lot of mini-35 stuff seems to be flat in that regard.

In the end, being able to shoot at the same depth as 35mm, gives you the opportunity to utilize another tool, focus. A lot of people want the mini-35 because it's a smaller depth of field, but what we tried to do was really utilize that depth of field for our story's purposes. We really tried to use focus to enhance the story.

But really, all we did was shoot with some of the settings tweaked and we pretty much shot as neutral as possible, and I then I played with contrast and stuff in post.

Does that make any sense? I'm a bit frazzled today.

Nominations for Josh Caldwell and The Beautiful Lie
 

Hey everyone,

I have some exciting news to share. I was told today that I am one of five nominees for mtvU's Best Student Filmmaker Award for the film The Beautiful Lie.

In addition to a shot at a development deal with mtvU, the winner of the award will be handed the first ever mtvU Student Filmmaker Award live onstage at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards!

The voting starts monday at www.mtvu.com. I'll provide a direct link to the voting when I know what it is.

I know a lot of you have seen the film here and would love your support.

Thanks,

Josh

Congrats Josh, that's huge news.

Your point makes sense. On a second view, the attention paid to composition, lighting and generally dealing with those things which dv usually struggles with (eg headlights at night) helps suspend disbelief and the feeling we're watching mini dv. Good sound certainly helps the effect too.

Good luck!