Thanks to digital video for gapless subclips.

Straight 8 is a GREAT way to teach filmmaking discipline. I own a half dozen Super 8 cams, and I like to give that challenge to student filmmakers. "Here's your ONE cartridge, here's the theme, sit down, write out something around the theme, shoot it and drop it in the lab at the end of the day. We'll screen it in a week when it gets back".

Nothing like the limitation of in-camera editing to emphasize pre-produciton.

Great story on the festival. I think you captured the essence beautifully. Informative on more than one level. A terrific piece that not only explains, but demonstrates the subject.

Thanks Sean, the whole point of straight 8 style was it was one take and one take only. No recording over, ever! I rolled for exactly 2 minutes 27 seconds! I didnt look back at any takes and the first time we saw it go out was when it was transmitted live on the programme. The head of five news made a commitment to broadcast it no matter how it turned out. It was an experiment, a fun one, but very hard.

There is a making of which should explain the issues we came up against. Everything had to be storyboarded and written the day before. We even did a taped rehearsal with stand in interviewees. On the actual shoot we rehearsed each scene half a dozen times before we went for an actual take. Once that take was recorded we moved on regardless of how clean it was. There were a number of mistakes with timings and audio levels in the piece as everything was mixed live by me on the camera, camera mic turned on and off, lip mic, radio mic or whatever faded in. The rhythm was the hardest thing, it was out on a number of takes. But to get audio to come in on exactly the right "beat" was so so hard.

XDCAM made it completely gapless. When I turned on and rolled I knew it would be like Super 8 and start exactly where it left off. Tape would have been a different matter. I would have had to press return video on the lens to back up and make sure it was timecode joined. Not ideal at all! Also the XDCAM system meant when I rolled it was a split second before it started recording. When I turned off it turned off instantly.

Trailer for "RETURN TO LAKE HAVASU"
 

http://www.returntolakehavasu.com/index.html

This is a trailer for a documentary about story behind the making of the 1971 heist movie called "Day of the Wolves". I've just started post on the project and wanted some kind of trailer up on the project site. Currently a little long at 4 mins, and very rough in places, but feedback welcome.

My first practice video
 

Here's a video I made with two friends who agreed to help me out learning filmmaking. Practice really helps. This is my first video based on a quick idea I had. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oqD-DKu-co
Art version - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNfdDGB3nIs

Shot with Canon XHA1

The main problem I had was exposure. It was hard to get equal exposure for various scenes and the worst came out the scenes where I was strictly following exposure meter and zebra stripes.
So I guess I have to trust my eyes more than the exposure detector.

Bodybuilder cramps up during competition!
 

This is a brand new excerpt from the bodybuilding documentary Raising the Bar 2.

Behind the scenes at the 2006 Masters Nationals in Pittsburgh, Dave Pulcinella encounters a recurring problem. Having brought his bodyfat and water to extremely low levels for the contest, his muscles begin to rebel and tighten up at the worst possible moment. Will Dave be able to continue or will he have to bow out of the competition as he was forced to do at his previous contest?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cluyc24vqc

www.mikepulcinella.com


Would you like to get 3 years of monster muscle gains in just 3 short months? Guaranteed?
http://gatomjp.smorr.hop.clickbank.net

You were able to make something foreign to me have a human side. I am not interested in nor do I understand body building. By showing the kinds of problems that happen behind the scenes you made the subject more identifiable. Even though it is hard to watch the pain he is going through, it gives the subject more dimension to see his struggle. Good work.

Unlike Marcus, I can relate to body building (not the steroide side though), and the films you have made are truely epic. I really liked them and, since today, I'm a subscriber att YouTube. Great work, especially in mixing v.o. with the shots.

Thank you very much Marcus and Peter!

I have been told that these films appeal to the average viewer as well as to fans of bodybuilding and of that I am very proud. I never intended to make a "bodybuilding" video but just wanted to tell a good story.

Mesmerizing.... almost a touch of haunting.

Was a bit challenging to discern the words the Drummer was expressing yet the imagery along with the dreamy beat gave me a sense of someone who's perception of the physical world was going out of focus as they were transitioning to the spiritual world.

I liked it.

Brevis 35mm: Anorexia Part 2
 

Part 2 of a series of short films for UK's Channel 5 about Ali, 18 year old sufferer of Anorexia Nervosa.

Shot using the JVC HD201e and the Brevis 35mm adaptor. Diffuser CF3L

Sigma 20mm F2, Nikon 35mm F1.4 and 50mm lenses F1.4.
Zeiss 50mm F1.4 and T2, 85mm F1.4
Nikon 105 F2

Graded with vignettes in FCP6

http://web.mac.com/philip.bloom/Phil...xia_films.html

That's what I was going for. Thanks!

Underwater H.264
 

For those lucky enough to EDIT with a PC and use EDIUS.
Here is a underwater Quicktime Clip I rendered straight out of the HDV timeline in one very easy and straight forward process.

Specs 40 meg, H.264, 1.5mbps.

http://www.hdvunderwater.com/videos/under.mov

Whats it look like on ya MACS?

Amazing Subject
 

Amazing subject, well put together, compelling story.

Lanique Commerical for Colenades
 

Hello everyone!

A buddy of mine and I put together out first commercial. All comments and suggestions are welcome. It was for a small company that makes columns and arches for lanai cages.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_J6XMI7Qh30

say what??
 

Am I missing something here. From the previous comment I was expecting something more along the lines of a music video. All I saw was a joke about a dvd addict who collects more than he can watch. A busted link??

Yeah saw the same thing, and was really stupid. What music video?

Really quite good. Great concept. There were only two things that I felt maybe could be changed. I like the fast moving camera work at the start (I realize this was most likely done in post) but once the hand draws, I'd really like to see the movement slowed down so I can appreciate the product. The pan it dissolves to is a nice smooth pan, but because its fairly quick, it feels like its part of the fast moving camera sequence at the start.

The guys voice was good, but sounded a little bassy to me. Nice 30 second spot. I bet the client loved it.

Homage to Hammer Horror
 

I made a news piece that went out today talking about the rebirth of Hammer Horror who are making their first film in 27 years.

In the spirit of things I filmed a few very camp scenes in the classic Hammer style using the Brevis and CF3, although they are HEAVILY treated in the edit to make them look like badly treated old film.

The Brevis helped a lot to achieve the look I wanted for this.

I warn you, this is unlike a traditional news piece!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ucVNe7iWLno

Very interesting! It's good to see news pieces done differently.

Wow! For a first commercial, that was VERY good!

I was expecting to see something along the lines of a standard local car lot commercial.

The only think I don't like about black and white video is that it looks like black and white video...it doesn't have that old 1950's B/W film look.

Stop copying me!

Cute... :)

Good stuff you got there!

Nice videos and I even learned something. I never knew that burning wet or green wood would cause a buildup of creosote.

48 Hour Film Project (Ghent)
 

Hi,

Formerly I've seen some of your 48hfp movies here on the boards, and I was pretty impressed with it in general! Now, Since the 48hfp came to Ghent for the first time ever, me and 7 other film students from my class entered the competition, not really knowing what to expect.

I can say it was quite a challenge, but we managed to complete it within the time limit, and we also had heck a lot of fun (and oh so little sleep).

We're also more or less content with the final result, but it would be nice to have some comments from you guys out here.. Maybe also some stories from your 48hfp experience(s)..!? Anyway, here's the link to the movie we made:

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=LEcdTY9DEQU

..And, just so you know, our obligations were:

Genre: holiday
Charachter: painter
Prop: flashlight
Dialogue: 'Ai pappie'

Tell me what you think..

Thanks!

Paradigm - a dramatic, brief film
 

Here's Paradigm, a 2 minute film that a couple of my friends did. I didn't do any work on this project other than some clean-up editing, but I thought it was great and wanted to get some feedback. It's about a young man who's coming to terms with a death in the family.

http://www.chrisjharris.com/Site/paradigm.html

Award Winning Feature Film/post Services
 

Check out the trailer for my award winning feature film, FOREVER.

http://forever.triple-e-productions.net


Also, check out my company reels:

http://www.triple-e-productions.net/services.html

Clips look good, but the site seems to be very graphic intensive. Might dissuade those with slower connections from going there.

You use Adobe or VisualLab for your FX?

Long, drawn out single shots...kind of made it boring. Would have been nice to see multiple angles.

I use both. I only have the trial version of VisionLab Studio. You're talking about the FXHOME program,right?

Yeah the site is a bit intensive with the streaming video. I should probably take that down.

Interactive Art: Participate
 

Participate in some art my class is working on.

http://rileyharmon.com/temp/installa...stallation.php

Fair enough.
We were struggling with a lot of parts from the script on the day of shooting, because the final script we wrote still wasn't that coherent. (it was 6 am when we finished it, just to start shooting at 9...).

Plus, in the beginning we were supposed to do a whole other scene where the girl would meet the boy, but that was made impossible, because we suddenly couldn't film at the location we choose and wrote it for, so finally we just ended up doing it the cheap way like it is now...

Thanks for your honnest reply though.

I didn't quite get the message. I felt it like a word that is "just on the tip of my tounge" but it never materialized for me. The long shots didn't bother me, but that style is probably more suitable to a longer form movie. At the end, I was hoping there was going to be another minute or two of movie to better get the idea across but instead it was padded with more credits. My personal opinion is that short movies should have short credits.

One technical note. I think a tripod should have been used on a couple of the distant shots in the beginning since the camera motion was too noticeable. Most of it was shot well and everything seemed professional otherwise.

No. Not until you tell me how you do such clean sky replacement.

that would take too long and im going on vacation ;-)

magician never reveals his secrets, "they'll beg and flatter you for it, but once they know it, you'll be nothing to them. the secret impresses no one. the trick you use it for is everything"

Okay, then I'm trying to decide on what text to enter. Should it be:

"A pox on both your houses!"

OR

"I hope you aren't going to Hawaii on vacation!"

;-0 (that's the emoticon for Great Spirit of Anger)

I thought of what I should put into the text. It's not even offensive and doesn't bring a curse upon anyone.

My TV Pilot which is getting some attention (shot on XH-A1)
 

Hey all,

I did a half hour TV pilot called Codeword Secret that was shown last month at the New York Television Festival. It went very well and generated some industry interest for us (tempered by the fact that an NBC's Chuck is too similar thematically).

It also lead to me being hand-picked by Phil Rosenthal, creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, for a six month mentorship to help me develop a show. They haven't worked out the details, and it will probably amount to a phone call per month, but it still isn't bad.

Anyway, the pilot is here:
Codeword Secret on MSN's Soapbox

We have actually updated it since this, but the NYTF has a six month exclusive on it, so we can't host the updated version yet.

It was shot with the Canon XH-A1 with Kevin Good, my co-creator, as DP. We did principal photography in two days, and then had two four-hour pick-up shoots. If you have any questions about the setups let me know.

Let me know what you think.

Hey all,

I forgot to mention that the trailer is up here:

http://www.codewordsecret.com/