12 Episodes of my Sitcom Online
 

Hey all,

So I've put out 12 weekly episodes of my web sitcom, Buddy Jackson (www.BuddyJackson.com). We are cutting number 13 now, and just shot 14-17 this last weekend. Take a look, and let me know what you think.

This has been a huge learning experience for me. I know that it's getting better as we go, both in terms of writing and production, but there is still a lot to learn. It has been a big exercise in trade-offs for me, because we never have the chance to do everything right.

We have been shooting at a wild pace. This weekend, because of schedule contraints, we had a 9 hour day shooting in an office, and a 7 hour day shooting in a gym, and we covered 29 script pages - better than 14 pages a day (and short days at that). I would love the luxury of shooting at a slower pace, but we can't afford to. Even adding one more shoot day per month would greatly increase the cost, and would further tax my busy volunteer actors. I am at least going to make sure we can schedule 12 hour days next time.

After the first five episodes we shot (1,2,3,5,8), we switched to a two-camera format to get more coverage. All of the rest of the episodes online were shot with Sony X1's. This latest weekend we moved to Canon XH-A1's, and I was very happy about that.

Crew typically is me, a pro DP, a semi-pro B-cam op/gaffer, a script super/video tech, a non-pro sound person, and a PA or two. We run fast the whole time. The actors help out a lot on that, because they generally nail their parts and we have relatively few retakes based on dropped lines. We'll usually shoot a master shot on cam A, and one close-up on cam B. Often we'll shoot a safety on that. Then we'll switch and get two other close-ups and run the whole thing again. Sometimes we will redo this to get try difference performances or shots. The final takes, once the actors are warmed up and the camera ops know the dialog, we'll wander with the cameras.

The writing/directing/producing combo definitely takes a lot of time, but right now there is nothing I would rather be doing. It is a complete blast, and I like the product.

1280/720wmv underwater clip.
 

Here is a 80 meg 1280/720 wmv demo clip for our new Underwater DVD.
We shot it with the FX1 and A1 in Amphibico housings.
Cut it up with EDIUS 4.

http://www.hdvunderwater.com/ningaloo/demo.wmv

Paul,

That was really nice promo. I enjoyed it. Encoding and playback on my PC was very good. By the way what does "Ningaloo" mean? Also, how is Edius working out for you? Are you using the NX card to output to a preview monitor?

Regards,

The Ningaloo Reef meets the beach of the North West Cape of Australia. It is on my list of "must see" before I die.

I posted up the interview with Tommie Smith on YouTube

Tommie Smith - Interview Part A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRYc0MJuYjE

Tommie Smith Interview - Part B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56K7upB01r4

Let me know what cha think?

Ray

Ningaloo is an Aboriginal word meaning “promontory”. The Cape Range is the promontory and Ningaloo Reef runs parallell to the west.

EDIUS is fine, working on two training DVD's now. Keyframing graphics around the place is abit different and AE 7 works fine with Canopus DV or Canopus HQ. The project we are woking on now is a mixture of 4.3 / 16.9 and HDV and all mixing well on the timeline.

No NX card, just a Quadro FX560 card and motherboards onboard 128 meg port to drive two LCD screens and out to a TV. Did have it out to 3 VGA screens there for abit and was getting 1280/1024 on all 3 screens.

We just got the DVD's back from the replicators, we encoded the DVD out as progressive this time from EDIUS and it looks great. It's our 6th project now using a Master DVD-r for glass replication.

Well Steven, lets us know if you ever get over this way.

Disjecta DVD
 

Just a quick word to let you all know that I just released my DVD. It's all DVX 24p SD stuff. I expect the next disk I do will be Canon HD. :)

http://www.pinelakefilms.com/buydvd.html

hey guys, check out my short doc
 

hey, could i get some feedback from you guys on this documentary? i made it for school last semester and i got a really great mark on it, but my teacher is also somewhat ignorant and it would be nice to hear from you guys too.

here's the link: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...oid=1472487016

thanks

My Available Work
 

Hello all. My work can be seen at the following link:

http://www.ifilm.com/myifilm/dclynn

I have yet to do anything worth seeing w/ my Sony VX2100, but all of this work has been done with the following cameras:

Canon XL1
Canon GL1
Sony TRV-320

I'd appreciate comments, etc!

Daniel C Lynn

Excellent! Very professional yet fresh. Nicely paced and shot as well. A solid piece.

How old are you Bryan? If you are this good already you should have no problem making it in this biz if that's what you have set your sights on.

Very well done documentary. Very one sided though.

Skateboarding on the street causes damage to property that these skateboarders don't bother to take into account. Sure they like it ... they don't have to pay to paint the railings or repair the damage. They would rather break the law and damage property than be responsible. They admit this. Sad. And they wonder why people look down on them.

Perhaps an interview with a guy who just invested his life savings on a new business, got it all painted, bought new trash cans, and then had it destroyed by skateboarders? Maybe that would have rounded out the doc.

thanks guys, the positive feedback is great! i'm 21 by the way. i've been fooling around with video for a couple years now and i just got my DEC(quebec version of a college diploma) in Media Arts.

and yes, i intentionally made the documentary one sided...i had originally planned to interview some police and doctors about both the danger and legality/vandalization of skateboarding but while i was editing some early cuts, i realized that it was holding up pretty well on its own and time was a factor too, i had a 12 min cut off point for the project. it's so hard to cut stuff out sometimes, haha

and in response to the damaging of property, it does happen, unfortunatly its pretty unavoidable BUT there are some skateboarders who are considerate and sometimes bring their own can of spray paint with them(it's rare) to repaint the rails etc... i do understand how business owners would be annoyed though. i'm not arguing that at all, heh.

"Winesap, OH" Trailer (Shot on XL1s)
 

Hello fellow DV enthusiasts. I just finished putting together a trailer for a film called "Winesap, OH" from writer/director/actor Al Gerschutz. He's also a hip hop artist known as Redeye and did the vocals for the song, Bigger, that the trailer is set to. At 5 minutes it almost seems more like a music video than a trailer but that is what was requested.

I'm a DP on the set and editor as well as basic special effects coordinator. My fiance has a lead role as Brenda and that is actually how i came to work on the project. I was working next to another DP for some time, so about 30-40% of the footage was not shot by me.

It is a twisted dark comedy with a budget of whatever the cast and crew is able to pitch in when the situation arises. We're still in principal photography.

As for the trailer filling you in on what exactly the movie is about, there isn't enough finished to actually cut a coherent trailer that does the job. It takes place in small town Ohio, the fictitious Winesap, where an unwanted child named Cletus, who was the product of rape, trys to get even with the degrading conditions forced on him by his own family. Brenda, the mother of Cletus and Wayne, doesn't try to hide the fact that Wayne is her favorite and Cletus her most disgusted son. Ernie, the rapist, has resorted to wearing a clown mask to avoid being recognized, and paints to try and compensate for the wrong he's done. A blend of tongue in cheek with slapstick, topped with a highly eccentric cast of characters, makes Winesap, OH a colorful and unique approach to viewing small town happenstances.

The trailer is hosted at myspace, here:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...oid=1962400175

Feel free to post comments, criticism, cynicism, or anything that comes to mind.

New clip is done
 

I've watched a number of the videos posted here and quite frankly it's a bit intimidating to post things I've done. However, I thought to myself, "I'll never get better if I don't get some suggestions" This is actually the third clip in the series, and I hope each has gotten better, so here it is:

http://www.satoauto.com/video/Interrogation_v2.wmv

For those interested, the first video is here: http://www.satoauto.com/video/24_cats_512.wmv

and the second is: http://www.satoauto.com/video/Framed.wmv

Colin, I can see you really like your cats and I think thats great, I have two and they just brighten up my day. Maybe it's cause the scotch is still affecting me from last night but i got a laugh out of it.

I have no quarrels with anything technical, filming was fine the editing was fine. I think if you go bigger next time and get some actors and a good script you'll do ok.

Andy.

High School Rally
 

Hey guys, I did a short recap of a high school rally we had recently. Tell me what you guys think.

http://chrisjharris.com/Site/Video%2...uad%20Game.mov

Was that Hulk Hogan ref'ing? LOL, I need to upload some pics of the rallies we do - we incorporate sound, lighting, and live video into most of them.

The video looked cool - some cool effects and stuff. With one Camera, it looked fine. Are you trying to do something with this video or just a personal thing? What kind of camera was it shot with?

Thanks for the feedback! I'd love to see some of the rallies you put on. Ours are fairly low-tech affairs.
The video was shown on the morning annoucements on the first day back to school. Matter of fact, the first 10 seconds of the segment was from the morning annoucements the day of the rally, if that makes any sense. I taped the anchors as they were broadcasting live. Anyway, beyond that, it's just something for my reel I guess. I shot it with my Sony HDR-HC1. Great camera for the price and size. It was my first time working with a dolly on a live event, so it was largely experimental, but I was fairly happy with the way the footage turned out.

Jeeeez...

I thought these events only existed in American rites-of-passage movies.

If that was in the UK the crowd would have been smaller than the subs bench and the only added entertainment would be a cigarette at half time. Don't even get me started on British cheerleaders, uhrg!

Seriously though, a few close-ups and losing the speed-ups would bring it on enormously.

Cheers,

Liam.

I went to Westmoor High School. It's around the same area as you guys.

New Link/New Videos
 

I've added a couple of new videos and there is a new link.
No comments so far?

http://www.ifilm.com/profile/dclynn

Ha Ha well, let's hope it's not just the scotch! Thanks for the comments. I have no actors available and thus the cats (and me) but certainly working with pets does provide some additional challange!

My First Video Clip Post !
 

hi guys,

just would like to post my first video, it was filmed with my Sony HC3, and edited on my mac mini with FCE.

here tis

http://hosted.filefront.com/vipster/
H.264, 1280x720

comments welcome

Y.A.F.I.:Underground's latest projects
 

These were entries for the IndieTalk Script to Screen Challenge. The format was fun:

Phase 1 - Script writing competition.
Phase 2 - Filmmaking competition using the 3 winners from Phase 1.

Award Winner - Best interpretation of a Dramedy script. This had some audio issues (lots of buzz from my lights + unbalanced microphone :( ).
Regular Version:
http://www.yafiunderground.com/Video...s-Knightly.mov
Low-Res Version:
http://www.yafiunderground.com/Video...0-Knightly.mov

Other entered Short:
Regular Version:
http://www.yafiunderground.com/Video/SCJD-Knightly.mov
Low-Res Version:
http://www.yafiunderground.com/Video...0-Knightly.mov

Enjoy, feel free to critique/question anything you want :)

A Few Of My Shorts
 

I'm in the process of re-organising my website on a bigger server, where I've actually got space to put my films up.

I'm going to put them up using Flash, and have put a few on a temporary page as a test. Check them out here:

http://www.caliburnproductions.com/CaliTest1.html

Feel free to comment on the movies themselves, but my main concern is that people are able to access them without any problems, and that the quality looks okay, so that's the main feedback I'm after.

Cheers
Pat

worked fine for me..enjoyed the clips too.

a 95 mb file for 3 1/2 minutes?? far too big a file for the internet. Could have been compressed to at least a third of that.

I personally prefer looking at higher res clips, providing it's from a fast server/connection.

Did you watch it? Three and a half minutes of a guy beating the crap out of a punching bag while "Eye of the Tiger" plays over the track. All shot from one camera angle...

Sorry, this could have been a 30 odd MB clip.

No offense to the OP. It's just that the download is quite large and the video is just as I described. Not even an attempt at making a movie or anything...

Mike

Yes, it finally downloaded.

Aaron, I agree with Mike - if you post something this size and folks like myself take the trouble to download it, it needs to be something more than an essentially unedited segment put to music. This borders on flame-bait.

Constructively, you need to shoot from several camera angles and then cut them together, which makes for a more interesting clip. The first few seconds of the clip you've clearly put some effort to edit it (I thought a good first attempt) but after that it becomes unwatchable on the realization that nothing much more is going to happen.

I loved it. Plenty of punch.

Are you going to upload the 'wedding night' video?

thanks for the feedback, unfortunately I didn't film it, it was me punching the bag and my mate filmed it. Personally I don't mind the file size, and it was filmed on a HD camera why compress the crap out of it and destroy what we all paid money for ?

"wedding night" HAHAHA

NO !!!

:)

Just showing off some random work I've done
 

Thought I would post some stuff I did that I have put on stage6 in the past few months. You do need a divx player to watch these, but you can install the one from the stage6 site fairly quick if you don't have one.
Here is a link to my profile that has four videos on it currently:
http://stage6.divx.com/members/114106/videos

Dwight Howard Dunk Contest Mix was an experiment that I wanted to try editing some professional HD footage I got off my DVR

North Philly Trail is some random footage I took with the Sony A1

Toothless George is a music video shot in Philly with an old JVC POS camcorder about 2 years ago

Humming Bird Feeding was shot in Delaware with the Sony A1, but down converted to DV. Still need to go back and convert it to Divx HD now that I think I have figured it out better

All feed back is welcome. Hope to start working on some bigger projects and have more final products instead of just random stuff.

Thanks,
Joel

Psychological Thriller "Sneak" gets a worldwide audience
 

DVX100A, Nikon Primes, M2, FF

"A blind man discovers that he is not alone in this psychological suspense thriller."

Our film, "Sneak" finally gets a worldwide audience on Steven Spielberg's "On The Lot".

"Sneak" was uploaded right before the deadline (and I had to go to the 24-hour airport post office to submit the hardcopy and get it postmarked that day).

Looks like the powers that be recieved the package, because "Sneak" is now available to be viewed and discussed on their site.

Please watch our film and post a comment in our thread:
http://films.thelot.com/films/21588

Promo stills are atached to this post.

Thanks.

The site is down for maintenance?

Your preview shots in this thread look like it takes place during the day, yet the actual film looks like it was at night...it was a REALLY dark picture, I couldn't tell what was going on part of the time, and suddenly random things would happen.

You might've been going for the fact that he's blind, so he can't tell what's going on...but it really left me behind. I enjoyed the idea, the cinematography was decent...but some places, especially the action stuff, it just didn't flow well.

Keep it up, definately not bad.

Seems fine now.

A Whole Mess O' Stuff
 

I recently updated my website to include Flash video. There are also downloadable WMV & MP4 files in various flavors.

Anyway, there's all kinds of independent documentary-ish clips -- some new, some old at:
http://www.prolefeedstudios.com/catalog/catalog.htm

Enjoy!

Feedback welcome.

Swedish tv-series "white virgin" -Trailer-
 

Here's a trailer from a tv-series I acted as dp/grip/electrician on.
http://download.yousendit.com/2C6098C15F1009F3

The trailer is in swedish. The series is about 4 young nazis whos lives changes forever after they accidentally kill a girl at the party. As you can guess and see in the trailer it's all downhill from there.

Facts: The series is made by Mattias Paar and Thorbjörn Eklund.
The series is 3x50min and was made under four weeks on an insanely low budget (1700$) (try to match that mister rodriguez :).
It has its high and lowpoints but has a trumendous production value even if it had been made with a much higher budget. The project is in its last fase with only adr, musik and grading left. Hope you like it :)

Checking it out. Care to share the synopsis with us?