Babelgum
 

Just got this from Withoutabox

Dear Paul,
In the Spotlight this week is THE BABELGUM ONLINE FILM FESTIVAL, the world's first global film festival and international showcase, providing indie filmmakers serious exposure to a potential audience of millions.

Critically acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee serves as the Festival's Honorary Judge, and will personally select the winning films. Lee has championed Babelgum for giving filmmakers the freedom to screen their work globally, with few limits - a valuable outlet that was not available in his day. "I was from the prehistoric age," Lee says himself, "You have no excuse now. If you have a film and you're talented and someone is not seeing it, it's your fault."

Seven winning filmmakers will be personally honored by Lee at the awards ceremony and gala luncheon taking place at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2008. Each winner also receives a cash prize of 20,000 Euros (approximately $29,000 USD). What's more, all submitted films will be shown on the dedicated online Babelgum channel, effectively providing filmmakers free, global visibility as well as profit from advertising and pay-per-view revenues.

View the listing, read on to learn more - then go to the Babelgum website and upload your film today!


Verrrrrry interesting!
(obscure laugh-in reference)

No, the message isn't so much funny, yea i know there is killing and the kid playing with the guns, i guess it isnt so much a comedy.
Somewhat comedic how it turns out though in a way.

More of a drama now that i look at it.

thanks for the comments though guys.

"Loveless"-New Short Film
 

This is the first film I will have released in 2 years online for download since all I have made were features. I need to start making more shorts!


Plot:
(I'm going to keep the sypnosis short)
Alan Fung and Sammi Tsang, 2 lovers who have shared a strong romance for 3 months, have learned that one another is, in fact, married to others. The couple discusses what the next step in their relationship should be and they come to the conclusion that they must break the news to their respected spouses.

I would classify the film as a dark romance but that's just my view on it. The film is another one of my Asian cinema influenced films. It started with inspiration from Wong Kar Wai's "In the Mood for Love" and it slowly because something pretty original and hopefully enlightening.

Running Time: 24 minutes.

Language: In Cantonese with English subtitles.


Download:
http://eddielebron.com/loveless.html



Alternative Link Available upon request.



Stills:

http://www.platinumcinema.com/platinum/LLStill1.jpg

http://www.platinumcinema.com/platinum/LLstill2.jpg

http://www.platinumcinema.com/platinum/LLstill3.jpg

http://www.platinumcinema.com/platinum/LLstill4.jpg



Reviews for the film thus far have been great so hopefully people here will enjoy it!

ATV ride, the sun and my friend. dvx100a & the sgro..
 

Hi there:)

My friend and I went on a ride on his ATV. We actually planned on a location "hunt" for our lightsaberfilm, but the weather was really nice so we figured.. why not shoot some nice and cosy footage with the incredible SGpro..


So this is, as I said, just some "feel good" footage that I wanted to share

I hope you take some of your time to download it.
And really I hope you like it!


(Recommended to watch in VLC player)
http://www.xuate.com/finaltur2.mov


Of course I managed to flip the gain swith to M unconsciously (is that spelling correct?)... So half of the footage was affected by that.

well i wasnt expecting that at all, stunning, just stunning. Excellent composition and film like appearance, if those shots were on a steadycam i would have thought i was watching a silent trailer, i love it.

Eric, keep it up and yes I would like to see more.

Beautiful and kind of romantic! It must have been a wonderful day!?

Could you tell me, what kind of post effects, like color blending, you applied to the film?

Regards, Oliver

Thank you very much for the kind remarks:)

Well first of all I used a camera that shoots in 25p.. And on top of that I used a 35mm adapter:)

I also adjusted the colors and pushed the contrast to the max on some shots with Magic Bullet Looks.

Super 8 with a Canon
 

http://www.vimeo.com/643104

This is from a project I am doing for a theatre play, where there are family super 8 films projected during the play.
Work in progress.
Tell me what you think.

Speaking as someone who shoots Super 8, the format is wrong (Super 8 is 4:3 not 16:9) The color is washed out and the latitude is too shallow(even for reversal stock) - and youve blown highlights. The 'fuzz/flare/bloom highlights is a little overdone too. Scratches and flickers are present in 'old films' not in 'newly shot' films- so they may or may not be relevant to your needs.

The Depth of Field especially in the first sequence with the two women on the park bench is incredibly shallow for a Super 8 Camera - remember the size of the film frame is about the same size as a 1/3 inch chip - so there is correspondingly deep depth of field. Don't get me wrong, the shot LOOKS great! But its not 'super 8'.

As something to be projected as if it were Super 8, I think the average theatre goer will accept it. Not many specialists sitting in the audience.

Yes, I know super 8 is 4:3, but I decided to shoot 16:9 as it is the camera's native format, and then convert to 4:3. It's just not done yet.
Could you elaborate a bit on "the latitude is too shallow" ?

HVX Movie
 

see we shot this short as practice when we received our equipment

Picture: recorded on the HVX 200 at 720p/24fps with the default f6

sound: the 416 boom going into the Sound Devices 302 and into the SD 702 at 24bit/48khz


Idea: script is done in 5 minutes, just for practice and fun.

reward: experience and lotsa fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIpePnWgxPo

Visitors - Short Film
 

This is the film of a close friend of mine. The film is called Visitors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3x3GrNgyyg

Hope you guys enjoy it!

Angie

I enjoyed that.
What was it shot with?

thanks for the compliment!

He shot it with an XL2

Because... trailer
 

Hi Guys,
Here is the trailer for my new sport film.

http://because.flyozone.com/en/trail...c45e120bced61a

Coments are apreciated..

H

Absolutely amazing! Especially as I am also a paraglider pilot and Ozone is one of my favorite brands! Especially since my favorite paragliding movie is "Never Ending Thermal" and the Ozone gliders in there look really great and also seem to be very well to handle. :-)

I would appreciate if you could tell me something about your camera and especially how you created the time lapse and panning around 0:25...

Oliver

The interior shots needed to be white balanced.

Panning Timelapse
 

It was filmed with a Zu1 on HDV and i panned on After effects.
Its amazing what you can achieve with extra resolution!

Cheers

Herminio

Hi Herminio!

Thank you very much for this information - your movie is really great. Keep on with the good work.

Cheers, Oliver

This looks like it was a lot of fun to make.
"You ruin my family."

Good one.

this project was a practice to test the sound equipment, the 302 mixer and 702 recorder. there's problems as far as continuity (glasses) and color (no wb), even lighting outside 5pm vs 7pm. it was a sound test

It's worth noting that if there are any issues opening the videos, click on the link on the site at least twice otherwise they won't open. I hope to hear what people think!

Eddie

The Ocean Rowers - #1 Tiny Little
 

I was a bit worried about uploading this to You Tube because their resolution is so shite. But I put this up as an experiment, and was surprised that the quality has gone up so much.

My mate Andy says it's because I used H.264. All I know is, the sequence is marginally good enough to publish at You Tube's resolution.

Join me as we watch Tiny Little spend four months in a rowing boat crossing the Atlantic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=absM70tXBDU

This is a mixture of MiniDV and 720p25 EX1 rinsed together in Motion and Final Cut Pro, and served on a bed of H.264

Short Super 8 mm Film
 

This is a film that I did for a class at Academy of Art University. Photo-storyboarding/s8mm to be exact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGCCm9o_GAk

It's only a few minutes long, and is about coincidence and smoking and crime. Please take a look and give your honest feedback! I'm really lacking in feedback - write me a book! I'd really really appreciate it.

I'm anticipating submitting it to the Epidemic Film Festival in San Francisco which has an 8 mm category. For a frame of reference, here is the 2007 winner.

Thanks!

Sam

Nice and interesting movie. I also liked your often funny additional text comments.

You might want to have a look at http://www.vimeo.com - the video quality there is nothing to compare with youtube. They even support HD video.

Cheers, Oliver

Quite entertaining, Henry! As Oliver mentioned, your comments added the right touch of humor that made this such a fun piece. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Light in Action - "Creation" trailer
 

We have a new website up with our new "Creation" production trailer (still English only):

http://www.lightinaction.org

We output the trailers as 1920x1080p Cineformed masters and down-scaled them as progressive-load Flash movies into several sizes.

The "HD" version really isn't HD quality...(we need to change that button), but at least is large enough to watch on a decent large computer monitor.

BTW, we did NOT use H.264, but re-wrapped the fullscale CF AVI masters as MOV's using CF's HDLink to convert, then downscaled them directly to flv's using Adobe Flash CS3 video encoder. Works great and the resulting flvs are very small, yet look good.

Comments?

Since this is "CF Showcase" can I "showcase" something?
 

We have a new website up with our new "Creation" production trailer (English only for few more days):

http://www.lightinaction.org

We output the trailers as 1920x1080p Cineformed masters and down-scaled them as progressive-load Flash movies into several sizes.

The "HD" version really isn't HD quality...(we need to change that button!), but at least is large enough to watch on a decent large computer monitor.

BTW, we did NOT use H.264, but re-wrapped the fullscale CF AVI masters as MOV's using CF's HDLink to convert, then downscaled them directly to flv's using Adobe Flash CS3 video encoder. Works great and the resulting flvs are very small, yet look good.

Here's the final file sizes for the three flash versions: 13MB, 21MB, and 43MB

Comments? Anyone think we could do better by using H.264, or MOV's?

Underwater Youtube Site
 

I decided to make a youtube like site but have cranked the quality up abit more so they look abit better but still should play realtime for most viewers.

It's only for underwater clips so if you have some, sign up and load up.

www.hdvundersea.com

Cheers
Paul Wags

I think it's EXCELLENT work.
 

How many different people were involved in the Creation trailer?
Did you/your shop shoot all the footage yourself, or did you use anything stock?
As a 1-man shop, I doubt I'll EVER be able to anything as good as that.

Thanks Denis, if I were a one-man shop, I'd be thrilled with what you said! But I can't take credit where no credit is due. I'm the producer/director and we have a 6 person team, (including the main talent).

We all actually wear many hats, as I am the main editor/sound man too. The main cameraman is also our AE FX guru, color finalizer, and crane operator. The "b"-cameraman is our Dreamweaver guru, and second editor. Both guys fly the Sony V1 on our little Merlin (at rare occasions when we actually use it) and both double as dolly/track crew/cameramen.

Our main talent (Cynthia) is also main scriptwriter, but the whole team evaluate scripts. Our main researcher (Stefanie) is also the one ferreting out our stills (most were stock material) and helps with location choices. We also have two others that check our Portuguese scripts (Cynthia is bilingual, as are all on the team)

We do not normally use "stock video" as it is expensive and usually not what we're looking for, however we like and use some of the more recent music (Stacktraxx) from Digital Juice and a few of their transitions/revealers/Jumpbacks (mostly just for this trailer). They can pay me later for this free plug... :)

If we were doing ad's or something similiar as shorts, we'd use a LOT of DJ's material. But for long productions, it is not as useful...except the music.

Two areas we are hurting, is with outdoor lighting and better cams. The little V1 has HUGE bang for the buck, but we need better lenses/control and would like to go to a RAW workflow using CF. That would give us much more control for the outdoor environments we normally use with these productions.

So, unless you have a few years to spend on your productions, you'd be hard pressed to match a team approach. That's why JollyWood stuff looks so good...

Remake of Vanessa Carlton video
 

This is the Remake of Vanessa Carlton video. I did this video in 2006 for a university project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3jdVLmenXY

Stephen, very nicely done! Thanks for sharing your work with all of us. We're proud to have played our small role in your efforts....

That is an incredibly good Flash video encode (the 720p version). How did you do it?

Thanks to both David and Laurence for your good words! David, we look good because YOU guys gave us some of the tools for that to happen!

Laurence, the Flash encode does looks good, but does fail a bit in the transitions. Where there is not a lot of movement or abrupt scene changes and the video is stable, it really is very nice for the size.

Encode was simple: from our full size master (to 1920 progressive), we just re-wrapped them to same-sized large MOVs, then directly downscaled them in Flash encoder CS3 to 1280x720 at "high" (700Kbps-using On2 VP6 and Flash 8) quality. I may have bumped the audio quality up a bit, can't remember. Easy workflow, fast and good results. If you have CF material and CS3, you have all the tools you need for nice web output.

On a personal note, I just finished reading "The Language of God" by Frances S. Collins.

http://books.google.com/books?id=JcMCmBnpHGsC

It is a Christian book but one with quite a different point of view. I recommend it highly.

Looks really good! My only question is: why does Adam have a tanline?

Ha ha ha! You should have seen him with zits on his back! In fact, if you look really close you'll see a zit up near his neck we forgot to get rid of, and in the pool ...

Late Payment
 

I threw this together to test some digital blood and stuff

http://view.break.com/447217

Let me know what you think!