Lady X heads West!

After completing her mission in Hamburg, Lady X jets overseas to the espionage hotbed, Kelowna, B.C., Canada, to pass on orders to the local operative, Trance Blackman.

Don't hesitate, eh. Go to Lady X (http://www.ladyxfilms.com) and click the "Episode 03" link.

The Lady X Crew

================
Episode 03 Details:

Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada
Directed by: Neil A. Wentworth
Written by: Neil A. Wentworth
Camera Operator: Nori Wentworth
Boom Operator: Alan Falt
Production Assistants: Alan Falt, Scott Hutchison, Bob Verigin
Edited by: Neil A. Wentworth

Cast: Trance Blackman (Trance); Joanna Savard (Lady X), Scott Hutchison (Mercedes Driver, Bus Guard 1), Vance Deimling (Bus Guard 2), Bob Verigin (Guard 1), David Klaver (Guard 2), Mike Bottomley (Baseball Bat Guard, Guard 3), Alan Falt (The Hanged Man).

Music: Darryl Taylor

Neil and Nori,

Your opening sequence was fantastic. The shot of Trance looking out over the city is excellent. I also liked the delivery of the assignment. Nice touch. Your use of the moving green crossbar was a cool approach.

Great job in moving the story along!

I liked the intro, and the techno-locator effect.

Laughed when I saw the guy with the axes.
Glad to see The Hanged Man is getting more work besides your other short series!

The first time I watched it, I didn't get that he was using a VR type device. Then I watched it again. I just didn't feel like there was a payoff there though, like no resolution of anything, no goal achieved.

The photography and direction was very very good though. Very easy on the eyes, great work!

Nori- I liked your contribution. I found it a bit confusing though, with the clarvoyant flashes. I had to laugh at the bat wielding thug that was more concerned about his manicure! What kind of thugs do you have up there? LOL!

I also liked the intro and crosshair effects. Overall, it was well done.

I liked that the gun ejected casings when our Hero gets shot. Is that expensive / difficult to get in Canada?

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Ronnie, here in Canada, we all get guns when we turn 2 years old. It's basic protection from all the polar bears and Buffalo...

-Nori

"here in Canada, we all get guns when we turn 2 years old. It's basic protection from all the polar bears and Buffalo"

And when do you get the bats and hatchets?

LOL, the old throwing pebbles to distract the guards. Hey, it works in Metal Gear Solid.

Bats at 1, hatchets are optional.

Can anyone help me out with quicktime? I can't really watch any .mov files because the audio is like choppy, anyone else have this problem or know anything about it? When I play mpeg's in quicktime it's fine...I got the newest version too... =/

Alex,
Do you get "choppiness" while the episode is streaming? If so, have you tried just downloading the episode and then playing it from your disk?

Yeah, it's not that, it's just some particular encoded quicktime files play like that, however episode 3 of that did not, so I was able to watch it with good audio unlike the last 2.

Anyway, it was great, the shooting and editing were great, but I am still confused about the story. Is she going around and killing a bunch of people?

Let me see if I understood this correctly:

the guy is supposed to deliver 'the object'.

At the end we learn that the object is a VR headgear apparatus that he has been playing with while he has been waiting to deliver it.

So each time he has been 'killed' it was in 'the game'. The three lives thing.

Audio can consume a remarkable portion of a compressed video's file size and of the bandwidth while streaming. To minimize this while still maintaining reasonably good sound we're using the IMA codec for the audio portions of all episides. It's a very simple 4:1 compression which places very little overhead on a viewer's computer. We're using a sampling frequency of 22.05kHz for the audio. We've experimented with several alternatives and this has produced the best results for us.

Re: Lady X, her global "mission" is a mystery and basically little more than a framework instrument for each episode. Our main goal was to let producers show their locations and their ingenuity and skills within a loose set of guidelines.

I didn't find it too bad at all - the multiple scenarios was interesting, something I use in another film of mine. The locator effect looked a little too amateurish for my liking but the delivery came across as quite fresh. Didn't we see a bit too much of Lady X though, Producers? We get to see her whole face when she's in the back of the car and then again in the last scene where Trance is giving her the VR headset.

I liked the firing guns.

For some reason, I was reminded of Mission Impossible 2, when Ethan Hawk is looking out over the mountains...

pretty cool though this whole Lady X series can't help but remind people of other spy films, that IS the genre we're working within

Yeah, I immediately thought of MI2 when I saw the first sequence overlooking the valley. Nice piece, I was a little dissapointed that the case the VR headset came in didn't have a foam inside cut specifically for the headset. It sounds picky, but when you have blanks and such good equipment and production value, you might as well spring a few extra bucks and get some foam for the case :) Otherwise that thing would roll around when X teleports etc. Fun piece though.

Bryan,

Lady X had the case with her, the VR headset was brought by trance. She would not have time to cut out foam when she picked it up from her operative!

And in answer to Tony's question of seeing too much of X's face, in the back of the car she is silhouetted, and in the last sequence you don't see her whole face, perhaps you should watch episode 2 and comment on that one as well.

Nori is right.

In his episode you can see only a silouette from her face.
The last shot from her is too short, so that you can´t see
any details.

Well, in my episode you see her from a distance
with sunglasses.
You are not able to recognize her.
(Which is really sad, because Pamela is such a beautiful woman.)

Steffen

Yeah but anyone downloading that episode, Steffen, can just hit Pause on the Quicktime controller. Yeah, you can't do that during a film festival but you can certainly do it in a very common medium of viewing it.

Neil and Nori,

As far as constructive criticism is concerned...the one thing I would've like to have seen would have been shooting the opening shots of the bridge and the shot of Trance standing on the ledge at a different time of day (magic hour) or in different weather conditions (low dark clouds). Kelowna looks absolutely gorgeous...but the "white out" caused by the bright sun detracted from it. How lucky you are to live in such a beautiful place!

That aside, there are certain things that I hope you can give more details on...

1. How did you adjust the color of your episode? I love the overall look. Were filter used...or is that all post?
2. It looks like you used a faster shutter speed in the fight scenes. What speed did you use?
3. Which Skycrane model did you use?
4. How did you do the final zoom out shot? Is that a digital zoom setting? Did you enhance the zoom effect in post?

I agree with the time of day that we shot could of been better if it was done at sunset, however, we all have day and night jobs, and we were working within those limited hours that we had. Also, the bridge and where we shot the lake, was about a 25min drive apart.

<<1. How did you adjust the color of your episode? I love the overall look. Were filter used...or is that all post?>>
All in post.

<<2. It looks like you used a faster shutter speed in the fight scenes. What speed did you use?>>
I used the fastest shutter speed possible that would still allow
correct exposure. Also, I learned to not use this while it is
raining, the drops gave the shots a speckled look. Fortunately
this did not show up on the internet footage.

<<3. Which Skycrane model did you use?>>
I used the Premier Skyvrane.

<<4. How did you do the final zoom out shot? Is that a digital zoom setting? Did you enhance the zoom effect in post?>>
The zoom was accomplished by me simply zooming out
manually with my 14X lens.

-Nori

Thanks, Nori. I'm going to bug you a little more, though. Can you elaborate more on question 1? What did you do in post to change the color, contrast, etc.?