Documentary release on DVD
 

Hi folks,

We produced a short documentary about Monument Valley last year; and now we finally are distributing it, and selling the DVD through the Film Baby website. Here's a link to the Film Baby site, with a trailer:

http://www.filmbaby.com/films/3003

To watch a higher res version, go to our website:

http://madjavaproductions.com/915.html (Scroll down and click on the photo; you'll need Windows Media Player to view the trailer)

We shot on a Canon XL2, using an Audio Technica wireless lav, and an Audio Technica shotgun mic.

Cheers,

Best Fifty Quid Monster Movie Ever?
 

Hi

I posted this in the wrong place and Dylan Couper kindly suggested I post it here. So... here goes...

Hello there

First time user. I've recently stopped shooting my shorts on 16mm film and have moved over to digital (mini DV). I couldn't believe the power of digital editing/shooting. I use Premiere Elements on my home PC. I got so excited when I realised that Premiere Elements could do blue screen that I embarked on my first special effects film. I thought: what's the simplest monster I can create and manipulate with blue screen? The short is called Doodlebug and you can see it here:

http://www.virginmediashorts.com/film/1543551325

The process took ten months; I'm very proud what we managed to achieve, at home(!) on such a low budget (fifty pounds).

My quick question is: I'd like to take my special effects film making at home to the next level. Premiere Elements isn't really a compositing/animation programme; it's an editing package with a little blue screen application embedded in there.

So, which reasonably priced PC based software would you recommend, please, specifically for creating special effect shorts (animation and blue screen)?

Thanks for this


Leepy

Well of course Adobe After Effects and Pinacle's Commotion are two premier packages. That being said, you should check out the software here:

www.fxhome.com

It geared specifically to what I think you're trying to do.


Cool Monster flic, by the way!

The Making of a Clip - Part 1
 

I thought you all might be interested in a project I'm doing over at musculardevelopment.com. I've been made a Forum Leader there in charge of helping the musclehead lifters and bodybuilders learn to make and post better videos. This is an example of the usual quality one can expect from them. (You don't have to watch the whole thing, I'm sure you will quickly understand what I'm up against.)

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

Boring, right?

In order to demonstrate some of the basic methods of shooting and editing that we use to enhance a clip I decided to tape a fairly simple single lift and then take my "students" through the editing steps that we here all take for granted. I want to turn it into something special and show them how it's done.


Here is my first post with the explanation of my project.

http://www.vimeo.com/1120784

I'll post the various revisions of the clip here on DVinfo as I go along. As always any feedback or input is appreciated.

Thanks!
Mike

New Music Video!!!! Xl2!!! Black And White!!
 

Nice work... I can see a lot went into that.
My only criticisms would be the green spill (but who really cares?) and the length. I started losing interest 75% of the way in (but who cares?).

Other than that, damn fine work!!

Very Nice Work!
 

I love shooting black and white music videos. Your performance scenes are shot really well and your b-roll footage accents the overall look very well. Awsome work!

Jamal "Jag" Johnson
http://www.MusicVideoTrainingCenter.com

Excellent for a first music video!
 

Whats going on!

Great job, if this is really your first music video than your ahead of your competion by a landslide. Your shots were top notch, your performance scenes looked high budget, and your b-roll was very tight. Your colors were very pleasing to the eye.

I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Jamal "Jag" Johnson
Http://www.MusicVideoTrainingCenter.com

Music Video Sony Ex1 Letus Extreme
 

Music video for rap duo "Not Them". Shot entirely on my brand new Leitz 16mm F2.8 at 18fps and then sped up to 24fps to achieve a strobe effect.
No budget, no permissions: pure guerilla approach.

http://exposureroom.com/members/Marc...4d2c88c7c091d/

Updated.
Color corrected with Magic Bullet and fixed the ghosting issue.

Requests for your promo video
 

Anybody here made a promotional video for their videography business? I'm not talking about a demo reel, but rather a fully narrated/scripted promo.

I've got a demo reel, and I've found it works well for those business that have already decided to make a video. What I'd like to see is a video that sells not only your services, but the general idea of business video. Something you'd show to someone who is thinking "what can video do for me?"

I'm looking at making something like that for our business and would like to see what others have done.

I loved the vibe of the whole thing. It had a quirkyness that was compelling to watch.
Will someone please call an official end to all things 'gangsta' when it comes to rap/hip hop/R&B?

Paintball wars...
 

http://lousyhero.com/videos/epicprev2.wmv

or in 1080p HD

http://lousyhero.com/videos/epicprev2hd.wmv

Just something I put together in a couple hours, I've been working on a bigger video (no real purpose/direction, just showing off cool shots and capturing some events) but I'm pretty lazy.

After my camera gets back from Sony, I'll be selling it and getting into paintball photography for a while.

Either way, just seeing what DVi thought :)

Very nice job of putting this together. I like the color too. Amazing what you can do with that little camera!

Man, I miss playing... never played Speedball though, more of an Urban Ops player. Thanks for the memories and great Slo-Mo!

Very nice time lapse of the sky in the begining....although there are two spots on the filter :)

Nice slow motion...What camera are you using?

Yea the filter was dirty, it was a quick time-lapse, I threw the camera up at the end of the day, it got real cloudy and started dumping rain, I grabbed the camera right after that :)

HDR-FX7...

Gangsta? What's that? :)

Updated Cinematography reel
 

I just updated my cinematography demo reel.
any thoughts and feedback would be truly apreciated.
www.vimeo.com/1148787


Thanks

Herminio Cordido
dop@thebestproductions.ca

Beautiful trailer!!

2008 shooting reel
 

I just did my first demo reel and am fairly happy with it. This is footage I've shot over the past year. I'm happy to say I had three freelance offers in the first 24 hours of posting it to facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=16670414631
(let me know if the link doesn't work. I'll post it to Vimeo when I have time)

I'll probably do another one in six months so any suggestions on how it could be done better would be appreciated. Thanks!

Very nice indeed! I added you as a FB friend I liked it that much.....;0)

i dont have a facebook acount, but its required for seeing your video. Would be cool, if u had some other link...

Bicycle parts teaser.
 

This is a demo for a parts manufacturer new parts teaser. We used last years parts for the demo so no secrets are revealed!

http://blackbagfilms.com/srm1smallwtrmrk.mov

comments welcome


Michael Azzariti
Director Cameraman
Black Bag Films, Inc.

Nice job. Lot's of good camera moves. Could you explain how you got some of the shots?

Paul,

I've been doing table top shooting for TV commercials for about twenty years now, so I used the tricks I learned along the way. I hope this helps.































All kidding aside, I used a mechanical DC powered turntable (adjustable speed and direction) a large diffused light as key, hard red rim light, less diffused fill on the right with red and blue gel.. A bare fixture gelled blue for the background. Also a few kicker cards as needed to open up some shadows. I shot the turntable at a steady speed, and in one or two shots stopped the table and reversed direction in the shot.

I used an Indian copy of the RedRocks DOF adapter with Nikon 50mm 1.8 and 100mm 2.8. The awful ground glass shows clearly in the background. I shot using my Panasonic HVX200 using the cine gamma at 720 30p.

In post production / edit, using Premier Pro CS3 and cutting to a music track, I used the razor tool to slice each individual scene into three scenes: the in, the hero and the out. I then used the time rate tool to compress the in and the out to a very quick pace. Since the scenes were cut from the same scene, the abrupt speed change appears to be done in-camera. This is most apparent in the scene involving the cut-away sprocket set. A bit of color correction and what you see is the result.

Regards,

Michael Azzariti
Director Cameraman
Black Bag Films, Inc.

Thanks Michael. Again, nice job and a very thorough look behind the scenes.

It's Dark in Here - The Beginnings of a Short Film
 

http://www.vimeo.com/1096877

Put together for Bloom's first film competition and or excuse to go shoot. Put some self imposed restrictions on myself mainly;

One person, one camera, one light, amd one location.

This short was inspired by Ted Nugent's "Journey to the Center of your Mind". Passing and exploring the dark recesses of one's individual psyche.

Comments are welcome

Jim

Thanks, Phil!

Okay, here's the Vimeo link:
http://www.vimeo.com/1156436

The aspect ratio came out wrong but that's what's great about Vimeo's replace feature. I'll have to do that tomorrow.

Great vid as always. :)

I would like to try this game too - sadly none of my buddies or colleagues is interested in playing it. :(

Cheers,

Oliver

Absolutely superb! Really well thought out and masterfully shot. Wizard!

That mono footage is extremely clean and crisp,impressive.

Killer compression
 

Really cool Mike! The thing that struck me the most was how good it looked for web compression. Super clean!

Jeff, Very nice. I'm curious, If you shot it with the XL-2, why did you guys shoot 4/3 instead of 16/9?

I just finished a pilot, that I too shot with the XL-2 but shot it 16/9.
You can check it out on my website. www.sharkvp.com.

Another question. Are you guys selling the DVD yourselves? Are you pitching it to any networks?

I've always wanted to go to monument valley, I bet you had a great time shooting there.

Pilot trailer
 

My company just finished a tv pilot. The show is called 15 Minutes. It's about everyday people who have amazing stories, who otherwise would not have an outlet to tell their story. That's where the show comes in, and how we came up with the title for the series.
Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame.

We shot the entire episode with a Canon XL-2, 16/9. Some of it was shot 24p.
We used a 5 piece lighting kit, various lights and azden wireless mics.

We are currently shopping it to networks. The goal is to get it picked up as a series.

The trailer is on the main page of our website. www.sharkvp.com

Sorry tried to upload the clip here but it wouldn't load.

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the compliment!

Hi Mark,

It's prolly the trailer (had a helluva time exporting to the web!), but we did shoot in 16x9. The Film Baby site http://www.filmbaby.com/films/3003 that shows our trailer was encoded in 4x3! On our website http://madjavaproductions.com/915.html which shows a better quality res, shows it in 4x3 also; just hadn't had time to update it.

We didn't want to do e-commerce through our website (actually didn't know how to :), so we thought we'd distribute through Film Baby instead. And no we're not pitching to any networks. We were commissioned to produce the documentary to be shown at Goulding's Lodge's small theater in Monument Valley, so the intention was always for that. We were even reluctant to enter it in film festivals :)

If you do get a chance, Monument Valley is a worthwhile trip. There are other trips nearby that is worth going to. Check out Jim Miller's bike trip with his XHA1 through the southwest, and this one is near Monument Valley-- http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=122798

We actually produced a promo tourism dvd for San Juan County, Utah, which a chunk of Monument Valley is a part of. Hope to post videos of those soon!

Best,

Hi Mark,

Very well done, and very professional looking trailer. Really like the graphics, and title page. From the little I saw of the interviews, I thought they looked good, and felt interesting (would like to see more of the guy's involvement with the martial arts, as I used to practice oh-so-long-ago :)

I'm always impressed of people's websites that can play flash movies. Might ask for some pointers on how you do that...

Best,

I thought it was pretty freakin cool stuff. Great work and the music was really working as well.

really really liked the shot at 3.15

I thought it was a bit too long, i think you should make an shorter version also, so if some busy producers are watching it, they'll get the idea quicker(you should also put that 3.15 shot somewere in beginning, it will make a person watch till end)

Stevenson, BC, Canada near and at sunset (Vimeo HD)
 

http://www.vimeo.com/1174238

I uploaded this in XviD 1080p60 @ 19Mbps so registered users on Vimeo can download the original to play on high end machines or the PlayStation 3 at the latest firmware.

Airshow on webcam(Macbook pro)
 

Hello
After my beloved Sony A1U failed me(after ingesting Maxell cassette bought at gas station)
I had to continue filming, I had time to film the British Red arrows on a another(sony tape) but I missed the Thunderbirds, and the Blue Angels cancelled due to bad weather.

So I used my Macbook pro and imovie6
I filmed by guessing and use the crowd fences as a tripod.But you cannot control the angle when your back to the computer.And the battery not fully charged made me miss the performance of the Thunderbirds.
Now I need a stabilizer for laptop, and a new camera while the A1U is at the garage.
edited in Final cut pro
audio: imovie + a second(security) track on audacity.just had to use audio of I movie for the edit bout double it and a bit echo on track B, an Eq on track A

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Er5ZocCx28I&fmt=18