1st short film 'Prick'
 

Hi all,

we just wrapped on our first short and some of the stills from the shoot are here:

http://www.mailath.com/gallery/

We couldn't have done it without the information contained in this great site and the advice from the members - thanks to everyone and it's onward and upward from here.

I'll upload some footage soon.

Shot on the Canon XH-A1 with the Letus Extreme, Canon lenses:

24mm 2.8
35mm 2
50mm 1.4

Indifocus rails & Followfocus
Libec LS38 tripod
Lowel DV creator 44 lighting kit & 2 800w redheads
homemade dolly & jib

Great Job!!!

What camera did you use? and did you use Magic bullet?

Gilbert.

Hello.
Thanks for taking a look at Fair Price. I guess you didn't read the blog I posted about it, so understandable. This was to actually be a 15 minute short, but after I got into the editing room I noticed that a good 85% of my footage was out of focus. So what we had to work with was pretty much that footage. If I'd have had more to work with, I'd have used other stuff.

Thank you for taking a look and giving me the feedback. I really appreciate hearing all viewpoints on my stuff. It definitely helps me grow as a film maker.

Brad - i just purchased a right handle pistol style grip that still photographers use. It was only $12 and someone who does a lot of filming like that suggested it, saying it helps. Cant wait to try it out.

Devesh - Wow!

Very cool. Good actors and editing. I'm not a great fan of hand-held, so maybe a tripod would have helped. The voice on the phone was hard to hear, but I was able to get the message. Good work - keep it up.

Hey thanks for watching it. Nope We just shot on an XL2 with the default presets in 16x9. I did a little color correcting to warm up the outside shots though. Here's some set photos that were taken.

I put out an ad in craigslist looking for old fence boards and lo and behold people actually responded. We actually had more fence boards than set flats to cover. The flooring I bought at Home Depot for 6 bucks a 4x8 sheet and was that faux wood grain wall covering. The chimney was rented from a prop house in Burlingame, CA.

Good job man.
It all worked well together. I'd shorten the black after the gunshot. Other than that, good work.

I too would have shortened the black after the gunshot, probably half it. I loved the depth of field, the colour correction was great looking too. It was shot with style, the handheld was used just right in my opinion, gave it an unnerving feel, not being solid to me totally made the characters look on-edge, emphasised the great acting.

Loved that logo at the start, though the web address perminently on-screen was a put-off at first, but that soon got ignored when I got into the film. If you made it smaller though it wouldn't have hurt.

All in all very cool.

Russ

short themed scene
 

I wanted to practice a little editing since I`ve been obsessing over my short films so much (pre-production and fight choreography) that I haven't edited much lately. So I had a thought one day in my head (I was sick) and decided to go out and film it. The mood/feeling I wanted to convey was confusion/disorientation, kind of how I felt with a fever while filming it heh. What do you think?

Confusion test edit

hey i like the simple layout alottt

just outta curosity what settings did u upload ur vid with?

More VFX
 

alright, working on a short video that has a few scenes is a space shuttle. here is a frame grab from a lighting test we did a day ago. I'm using rear projection and trying to get the composite/integration spot on. only thing i can tell needed is maybe a backlight, and maybe move the projector a bit closer/increase the brightness so that i can get those highlights to pop a wee bit more. what do you think? all feedback welcome. thanks

http://rileyharmon.com/DSC00009.jpg

http://rileyharmon.com/DSC10.jpg

video version

http://rileyharmon.com/space.mov

Hmm some of my thoughts:

1- The parallax doesn't quite look right if you move the camera.

2- The black level in the b/g looks a little high.

3- In the digital stills, the background has a cyan cast to it.

4- In the video, does the actor cast a shadow on the background??

4- The lighting of the actor (very contrasty, low fill) doesn't quite match the background? The background looks like it would work with more shadows.

5- I'm curious... did you also consider greenscreen?

I think it looks very good. I do think however think there should be something in the backgroun floating about. and perhaps the starfield rotating slightly to give the effect that the ship is actually moving through space.

other than that it looks great.
I checked out your website, you have ALOT of great pieces.

I'm very curious about the specs on the portable rig setup you did for electronic graffiti. I've been curious about doing something along those lines up here in Buffalo.

At any rate, great work.

First DVD project. trailers for viewing.
 

About a year ago I started planning my instructional DVD on steelhead jig tying and fishing. I just released the DVD for retail and have a few trailers for viewing.

http://www.firstbitejigs.com/store/artofthejig.html

Mark

Yeah that was a very good film. But i would shorten the black also. I didn't know if the movie was over or not so yeah if you can shorten the black on that. I love some of the low end Camera angles you were shooting very good on that. Maybe turning up the volume on the phone convo would help also. Great film

trailer for latest short and screening info
 

Ok, I'm keeping this off my site 'til I do the festival thing, but I made a trailer just to be able to show something:

http://www.joshbass.com/jj2trailer.wmv

It is a sequel to this one:

http://www.joshbass.com/joey_and_jerome_wm9.wmv

Some friends and I are putting on a showcase of our short and feature length films (the one in the trailer linked to above included) next month, if any of the Houston members of this board (or anyone else of course) wants to come out. Info is below:

Event name: Jack-Al Film Festival III

Date: January 12th 2008

Time: 3pm, doors open at 2:30

Cost: $7 for the evening

Location: Rice Media Center
6100 Main Street, MS-549
Houston, TX 77005
Entrance 8 on the corner of University Blvd & Stockton – Next to Reckling Park

Festival website:

http://www.robertsonstreetproductions.com/page9.html

Christmas day time lapse
 

I got bored on Christmas day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUw8aNefza0

That's very cool. Felt like I was there.

How many frames per minute were you shooting?

Cheers,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions

Thanks Brian, I was shooting 1 frame per second,so 60 per minute.

A tip to anyone shooting for youtube(a common complaint from youtube users is that the colours become 'dulled') - I shot this film on a Canon G9 with the colour mode set to VIVID. This results in more vibrant colours when compressed onto youtube. You could do the same with a video camera and next time I shoot for youtube on my XH-A1 I'll have the colours wacked up!

Challenge - Making the "wrong" music work
 

I decided for this segment of my new doc to break with tradition and challenge myself and my viewers with music that, at first thought, might not seem appropriate.

Most workout videos are accompanied by loud heavy metal or in the case of female videos, loud funky sexy hip hop. Here's my attempt to be a little different and, I hope, still interesting.

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

I like it :)

It is completely different from what you'd 'expect', but it meshes well. You took the time to edit properly to the music, and it pays off.