Hey everyone, I'm new to the hd world. I've been editing with FCP for awhile and finally decided to shoot my own stuff. Anyways, just wanted to say hi and now I'm off snooping around the HV30 section. See ya!

Hi Victor,

I'm up in Novato. Welcome and happy shooting. What types of video do you like shooting and editing?

Garrett

I mainly want to focus on shooting short documentaries but right now I'm working with some local business to shoot some video for promotional use. Nothing too professional but its a start!

Welcome to the forum. The HV30 is a great camera, so long as you can work around its shortcomings (poor audio and terrible low-light). Thankfully, we live in a very sunny area (well, maybe less for you with the SF Fog). Happy shooting. See you on the HV20/30 forum.

Sounds Great Victor. I use Vegas for editing but shooting with my HV20 had been fun. I use it a lot for when I'm out and about. It's the perfect size to fit into my camera backpack along with my digital still. I mainly take the A1 out when I have time to plan shots.

I do this as a "hobby" and pick up paying gigs as a way to pay for it. I've been contemplating shooting a documentory but haven't gotten up the nerve or time yet. If you ever need an extra cam or operator give me a email. I do some freelance camera work. Nothing too fancy but I'm alway trying to improve my technique.

See you around the forums.

Garrett

Hey there Bay Area folks... A fun group to get involved with if you're into filmmaking is Scary Cow Productions. It's a Bay Area-based film co-op where members form into small teams and produce films that compete in quarterly competitions. We're currently into Round 6 which will screen publicly on 9/28. So far we have over 175 active members and growing with every round...

A number of winning films have gone on to be submitted and accepted into various film festivals and one documentary was picked up for commercial distribution.

Check it out here: www.scarycow.com

Cheers,

Hi Leo,

What type of experience do most of the members have? I definatly come from a hobbiest end and have never shot a film before. It is something I very much would like to learn about and experience, so if a total novice is ok I'd be interested to check it out.

Garrett

Hi Leo,

What type of experience do most of the members have? I definatly come from a hobbiest end and have never shot a film before. It is something I very much would like to learn about and experience, so if a total novice is ok I'd be interested to check it out.

Garrett

Hi Garrett,

There is a really good mix of people in the group with various interests; directing, writing, acting, cinematography, sound, editing, special fx, etc. Although the bulk of all the members are serious hobbyists with an interest in filmmaking, there are about 10-15% with no experience at all and another 10-15% who work in the business as professionals (including a well-known cinematographer with many IMDB credits).

If you're interested, you should attend one of the informational sessions held at the start of each round (next one is in October some time). It's definitely a fun way to constantly be working on projects year-round...

Thanks Leo,

I checked out the web site. Sounds very cool. In the sign up link it asks if I was referred by a member. Are you a member?

Garrett

Thanks Leo,

I checked out the web site. Sounds very cool. In the sign up link it asks if I was referred by a member. Are you a member?

Garrett

Yes, I am a member. I'm currently working on a film called "Rule 1" which will be screened on 9/28. Just finished auditions and casting; principal shooting begins this weekend. The folks I'm working with won a budget in the last round with a film called "Grief" and was also accepted into a film festival in Florida.

Cheers...

That sounds great. What type of time commitments would I be looking at? I unfortunately have to work for a living..:(. I also own a Martial Arts Studio so of course I have all this free time...LOL.

I'm going to fill out the info form on the web site and if you have no objections I'll put you as who referred me.

Good luck on your current project.

Garrett

That sounds great. What type of time commitments would I be looking at? I unfortunately have to work for a living..:(. I also own a Martial Arts Studio so of course I have all this free time...LOL.

I'm going to fill out the info form on the web site and if you have no objections I'll put you as who referred me.

Good luck on your current project.

Garrett

I'd say the majority of us have "day" jobs to support our habit. Most of the teams shoot on weekends and/or nights if the scenes call for it. The time commitment is largely a function of the role you want and are chosen for. Let's say the film you were involved with had some action scenes. Given your background, you may want the role of a stunt coordinator in which case you would only be needed for the applicable scenes... On the other hand, a cameraperson would be a large commitment since at a minimum, you would have to be present for all of the shoots and most likely more than that. In any case, the teams are very flexible and work around everyone's schedules...

Yes, use me as a referral; I'd appreciate that. Like this board, the more members, the merrier!

Hi Guys,

I surfed the Scary Cow web page and it sounds nice. Since I want to sign up, can I use you as a reference also?

Thanks

Axel, San Jose

Hi Guys,

I surfed the Scary Cow web page and it sounds nice. Since I want to sign up, can I use you as a reference also?

Thanks

Axel, San Jose

Sure, absolutely. Looking forward to seeing you guys join and participate...

I'm actually very excited. After filling out the info form it said the next meeting would be around Sept. I can't wait. I never really thought about using my MA background but it does make sense. For demos I am the one who usually comes up with most of program. I do enjoy staging self defense demos and such.


I'd love to get some experience and guidence on how to shoot them so they translate onto film.

Looking forward to meeting all of you.

Garrett

Hi all. Bay area (SF) here as well.

Interesting stuff there, Leo! I'm surprised I haven't heard of this before.

Cheers,
-VR

Graduating from film school in Portland, OR. Moving back to SR.

Wealth of knowledge in all of video production. LOVE Producing and field sound recording.

Brian

I know someone that recently participated in the Scary Cow Co-Op and he said it was a great experience. After seeing this thread I think I may seriously consider it as well.

Any updates on how it went? Axel/Garrett did you end up joining?

I know someone that recently participated in the Scary Cow Co-Op and he said it was a great experience. After seeing this thread I think I may seriously consider it as well.

Any updates on how it went? Axel/Garrett did you end up joining?

I'm with Scary Cow since last year but due to time conflicts I never participated in a movie making event. My biggest problem is that most of the people are coming from SF and since I'm in San Jose I can not make it during the week, the traffic is a killer and my working hours too :-( But one day I will have my chance.
At the moment they had last weekend the ninth pitch meeting so new projects are upcoming in the next weeks. Even when you can not make it to a pitch meeting there is in the members area a possibility to see them as video online.

Axel

Hi Brent,

I am a Cow now. Been since Sep 08. It has been a great experience. My first experience with the group I worked on a great project shooting a recording session at Fantasy studios of the Tuvan throat singing band Huun Huur Tu. That project morphed out of Scary Cow relm because we hired a professional director to aid in the week long shoot. I was a camera operator and am currently working on editing the promo video for the band. They just released the album and in August they will be hopefully ready to release the documentary for the making of the album. That's what I'm editing now. A teaser for the movie.

This last round I worked on two projects as the Director of Photography. One, a scifi short, had a lot of challenges because 95% of it was shot on green screen. Very challenging lighting set ups and a lot of learning about how to shoot for keying.

The second project called RE:Invention was a short documentary, about 10minutes. That one turned out really good and won some funding awards. For this round we are continuing with the story line and making a 30 minute version in hopes of getting it into some other festivals and maybe even trying to get some PBS stations to air it. You can see the short here:

YouTube - RE:Invention (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8922u9f4MU)

Note that YouTube did something horrible to the video so the motion looks really bad.

There are a lot of really great people involved and a lot of knowledge and sharing of ideas. In the short time I've been with them I've seen the quality and production value of the movies go up exponentially with each round.

Axel, one of the members of our RE:Invention team is from Menlo Park so it's not impossible. I live in Novato and work in Oakland so there's a lot of traveling for meetings but the pitch meetings happen only about once every 4 months. As you mentioned all of the pitches can be seen on line if you are a member. There seems to be a shortage of Cinematographers too. Due to time constraints and the amount of effort I'm going to be putting into RE:Invention I think I'll only work on one movie this round. But I've been approached by 4 other teams that asked if I'd DP their projects.

SC is a really good place to learn a lot and be able to pick up skills that you want to learn. I'm now even contemplating writing a screenplay and producing a movie.

Brent, as I said I work in Oakland so if you want to meet for lunch or something to discuss it just shoot me an email.

Garrett

Hi guys,

Nice to see a few of you ended up joining Scary Cow. The great thing about participating in the group is that films are being made and screened in a public theater every three months in a friendly competitive atmosphere.

This last round (Round 8) there were 19 short films screened including a 30-minute one that I DP'd on using an HPX-170/SGBlade combo called 'Goodbye Mr. Jordan' which won awards for Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Cinematography and Outstanding Original Music Score as well as budget awards from IMDB recognized judges. We're now in the process of submitting it to a number of other film festivals...

During Round 6, I DP'd on a 15-minute short called 'Rule 1' shot with an HV20/Letus Extreme which also won the Member's Award, General Audience Award, Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Editing and Best Sound and Two Judge's awards.

Money is awarded to the winning teams as budget for their next films, and ours resulted in about $5,000 in prizes over two rounds. Not a ton of money, but it definitely helps defer some of the cost of producing the films.

Garrett is being a little modest, but the film he worked on won the Member's award and a Judge's award (no easy task the first time out)... Congratulations Garrett!!!

As Garrett said, the quality of films has been steadily rising and it has really pushed me to try and improve my skills in so many different aspects of filmmaking.

If anyone's interested, you can view most of the films from each of the rounds at: Scary Cow Productions (http://www.scarycow.com/videos/index.html)

Cheers!

Hi Leo,

Thanks for the kind words. I didn't get to see Goodbye Mr. Jordan on the big screen but I watched it on the SC sight. Great camera work. Congrats on the awards.

All I can say is, working on these projects is very addictive and the SC group is a great bunch of people. I need to figure out how to make enough money so I don't have to have a "real" job.

Garrett