I figured it out before it was over =) Great idea... The biggest issue I had was the lady's sweatshirt bothered me. Guess thats from being in Ohio and seeing so many - heh.

I really liked the long dolly shot up to where she posted the flyer on the tree. Did you lay down track to get that?

Thank you both for your comments, I'm glad you like the film - that was my number 1 goal, to make a film people enjoyed. But, I also appreciate the technical comments as it helps me improve.

Jay - The no dialog was a huge help when working with children, but I found it enjoyable nonetheless :) Actually, I found it very easy to work with the children as long as I thought in terms of what I needed them to do and relayed only that information to them. I would say things like, "Stand right here...ok when I say "Go" run as fast as you can that way until I say stop." Or I would roll camera and say, "Who wants a cupcake?" they would all raise their hand and say "Me! Me!" Then I would say, "Which one do you want?" and they would all point at the one they want, with great anticipation in their eyes. It worked well for me.

Thanks for pointing out the jumping widescreen crop, I hadn't noticed that. I'm working on cleaning up things as people point them out so I have a really nice, fully polished film. I'll add that to the list of things to fix. The kids "dissolving" into frame was simply to cover a framing mistake. You can see their heads at the beginning of the shot and I wanted to have them run in after a brief delay. So I had to do some masking and overlay the ground over them, then fade them in as they ran. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, but I think it works ok.

The color correction has been a very subjective thing. Some people, myself included, really love it as it is. Others, like yourself and my father, don't care for it. I wanted a kind of "dreamy" feel to the piece as it is a parable, I hoped the desaturated/muted colors would draw your attention away from the details (also because it was a cheap camera) and focus the attention more on the story. The glow was added to make it more dream-like. To each his own, I guess.. I understand your reasons for not liking it, but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one point.

I did use all natural light and on closeups I used a diffusion screen which I built myself. I agree I needed to use reflectors to bounce light back into the scene, especially when using the diffuser. Unfortunately, I didn't fully understand what the diffuser would do until I was in the middle of framing the shot in the field with people standing around and the deadline for the film looming. Live and learn I guess. I have picked up some white foamboard to bounce light around next time, I'm also looking into some simple lighting kits to add the extra punch next time.

Jeremy - Sorry about the sweatshirt, that was actually my last pickup shot. I filmed it the day I had to submit the film, so I had to hurry so I had time to edit it in and render the final film.

The dolly was an interesting thing. I don't currently have a real dolly (retail or DIY), but my dad has this nice garden cart. It is a green metal mesh platform riding on good size pneumatic wheels with a handle coming out the front. I stood the tripod on the platform, set the cart on the sidewalk, and had my niece (the young girl) walk on the grass, right next to the sidewalk). I made sure I framed from the knees up and then pulled the cart as she walked. It looks like she is walking down the sidewalk next to the park. However, I couldn't pull the cart and hold the tripod/camera, so it was extremely shaky. So much so, that I was going to cut the shot.

But I found VirtualDub and the Deshaker plugin...as you can see it works very well. In fact on the DVD I made for the cast I put a clip in the "bonus features" :) that shows the before and after shot, because it is such a drastic difference. I'll have to dig that clip out and post it later.

Thanks again for the comments and criticism. I appreciate both.

Thanks,
Larry

This is amazing news!!! Congratulations! Is there some link where I could see your trailer?

Hello everyone,

I've launched the website for my film label, 4312 Productions. The website is www.4312productions.com.

I'm looking for all sorts of people to contact me, potential investors, producers, actors, etc.

Check out the website for more information and I look forward to hearing from you,
Anthony Faust

http://www.sonnyboo.com/images1/popcast.jpg (http://www.popcast.com/channels/Horrors_of_War__movie_info)

SONNYBOO @ POPCAST.COM

I've started 4 channels at POPCAST.COM > CLICK HERE (http://www.popcast.com/channels/Horrors_of_War__movie_info)



BEHIND THE SCENES OF HORRORS OF WAR > CLICK HERE (http://www.popcast.com/channels/Horrors_of_War__movie_info)

the Sonnyboo Classics> CLICK HERE (http://www.popcast.com/channels/Sonnyboo_Classics) - 6 older short films

Sketchcetera> CLICK HERE (http://www.popcast.com/channels/Sketchcetera) - several comedy sketches with the Second City cast

The Dramas > CLICK HERE (http://www.popcast.com/channels/The_Sonnyboo_Dramas) - for 3 dramatic shorts


POPCAST.COM (http://www.popcast.com/channels/Horrors_of_War__movie_info) is a torrent based portal for filmmakers, music videos and other such things.

Hello guys:

I just recently finished my 3 minute reel on Pinnacle Studio Plus ver 9.4 - Will be switching to Vegas 6 in a few weeks. I would like your constructive criticism on my footage, shot in XL2 24p & 30p.

You can download the file here it's 12.2mb wmv, I rendered it at 538kbps

http://iwevo.station196.com/reel.lowres.wmv

ps. Pinnacle Locks up all the time during rendering - poor program, I guess you cannot expect much out of a $100 program.

Runing a Pentium 4 3.2ghz, 2gb 533mhz ram, PCI express Nvidia Gforce 6800 256mb ram, 960gb SATA Drive 7200rpm 8mb buffer, 800mhz fsb,

Thanks in advance !!

Ty

Hey Guys,

A friend and I are creating a webseries for an MTVu grant contest.

Here's the pilot. It's called 'The Dorm' and it's a take off on 'The Office' about a group of students and their self-centered RA.

Enjoy.

http://www.meydenbauerentertainment.com/TheDorm.mov

Josh

What exactly is this reel for?

Hello Josh:

I would like to use it to get commercial jobs shooting buildings, should I do something different?


Ty

My website has a short film of some surfing/kayaking action shot on the Isle of man(UK)
The full length film is out middle of next year and is called "5mm" and is a mix of surfing/music/culture shot on super8 and miniDV. All the water action was captured on a Canon XM2(GL2) and a Sony PD-170 in underwater housings(Ikelite)

www.phatmanfilms.com

Feel free to comment!

Nobody? Nobody likes it? Nobody hates it?

Chair is Rock is a synth band i have with my roommate Karl.
I directed/edited this music video for our song called CRT Soundsystem. (A tribute to LCD Soundsystem.)

But anyways, critique me, I really want people to let me know what they think of it, I always want to better myself to surpass the other students in my school.

It was shot with a VX2000, edited in Premiere Pro 1.5, and ran through Magic Bullet's look suite. We wanted an "avant garde" european feel to it. Although it came out like pure insanity.

Enjoy. You can see me on the right being entranced in playing the music like a goon.

http://karlojanpa.manglerproductions.net/upload/CRT_chair.mov

1) your lighting was terrible. the shadows the dudes cast on the kitchen wall were extremely noticeable and annoying.
2) your editing pace was way to slow for the beat of the song
3) it was kinda funny, but you could have gone much further with some of the ideas, like more of the dancing light guy.
4) if you are going for strange, you need to be way more out there. quite frankly the video was really boring.

i don't mean to sound harsh at all so don't take it like that. you wanted critiquing so i'm telling you what i would want to hear.

Oops, I probably should have noted that we are in no way serious about the whole thing. I appreciate the criticism, but I'm just saying it's not a full pro quality video. We did it in our kitchen in one day!

The tight shots are actually quite good but the main locations with the harsh lighting looks bad and is shot bad. Your wides, just arent wide enough and the stark light with shadows everywhere just doesnt work. That is the biggest mistake for beginners, not going wide enough. Medium shots are boring... mix tight and wide...

I agree with more of the Xmas light dude... I would have shot him with a low shutter or put a strobe effect if you were going for that Euro feel.



ash =o)

I think it is a little too dry. The performance of the lead is great at times and just OK at other times. Could just be the web compression but the sound was a little weird, also try adding some ambient noise or foley work and perhaps cut it a little more aggressive. I would warm up the colors in the opening scene as well.


ash =o)

Thanks Georg!

I'm not sure if this direct link to MTVU will still work, but you can try it:
http://www.mtvu.com/uber/player.jhtml?vid=64096

Otherwise, I have another version of the trailer linked from my site (the only difference is the titles are a little rough)

Window Media: http://www.blueboxlimited.com/multim...htrailer03.wmv

Quicktime: http://www.blueboxlimited.com/multimedia/uhtrailer.html

The video segments are now online! Unfortunately the surprise video isn't that long, but they included some stuff from the "University Heights" DVD, such as the outtakes and our Project Greenlight videos.

Here's the direct link: http://www.mtvu.com/uber/index.jhtml?id=1517745

Hey,

This is my first serious project with the DVX. It's a 40-45 minute comedy (starting small, huh!) with 15 actors and a budget of $100 mainly going for food to feed them. Right now we are two weeks into production with a couple more to follow after Christmas. Here is a little trailer I slapped together. If you have a minute, tell me what you think please!

Large (http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/Trailer%20Large.wmv) (10 meg)

Small (http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/Trailer%20Small.wmv) (3 meg)

Also, I know that the story isn't reveled too well. There are a few lines that would open up the story but they haven't been filmed yet. I will update it to be more complete later. And yes, I know about the boom mic.

Looks good. It makes me want to see more.

Hey Jason, are you guys serious with Chair is Rock? my roomate is a synth pop fiend and he would probably love your music. do you have links to any MP3's?

Jay

Anyone who likes to see the full movie online, please send me an e-mail at info@orphicfilm.nl and I'll send you the 'hidden' webpage URL. Reasons: limited webhosting bandwidth and exclusivity for festival entries.

To view go to www.64seconds.com click on 'the show' and then 'search for entries' and type in "stick" The entire animation was done stop shoot with figures made of yarn and construction paper. Vote for it if you wish in the top right corner and let me know what you think.

where did u get music?

my friend created the music for the movie actually. you can check out his website at www.kariusvega.com

wow.....i liked.

We're somewhat serious about the group, we just play parties and things like that.

www.myspace.com/chairisrock if you want to hear other songs.

about the video, yeah I know the lighting sucked. I'm so broke, that we did this in my kitchen with two crummy worklights! I know its not pro caliber stuff, but its cool.

here's some of my goofy stuff.

http://www.lindsaylohanistan.com/

Enjoy!

Hello everyone; I wanted to share a video with you that I recently completed. The site and video downloads are located here:

As You Were
http://ayw.hindsightproject.com/

Enjoy :)

been working on this for the past few days LMK what you guys think:

http://rapidshare.de/files/9485007/survivor-1.wmv.html

sorry for rapid share but dind't have anywhere else to put it

Behold!
...

http://www.happyfunbrigade.com/html/Espace%20From%20Yoda.htm

We made this to send out to our clients this year.

http://www.617pg.com/holidays/holiday_full.mov

Quite funny. Great shots, and very funny. Short and sweer. Take that Santa! Way too much diffusion for my taste though.

Hi All,

Just finished made my first video podcast out of a show we produce, and I'd like some feedback.

Inside Guide is a travel show hosted by Vivien Tan (http://www.vivientan.com/)

This episode takes you to the tropical island paradise of Koh Samui, Thailand.

We shot this show on two Sony Z1's so see what incredible quality you get when you convert from 1920x1080 all the way down to 320x180! ;)

All you need is iTunes (no video iPod needed) for windows or mac, click below to subscribe:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=108336595&s=143441

Shot in Japan for a small tour performed by Canadian Toronto rock band The First Time www.thefirsttimeonline.com I 've put together the following music video using the footage and studio recording of the song.

It's more of a performance kind of music video, let me know what you guys think.

Thanks.

www.starcentral.ca/firsttime

Yeah, it's pegged with white diffusion. Went that way because we wanted that super sappy Hallmark kind of feel to it. Like it's a traditional Christmas commercial, really over the top on sweetness.

Then BAM!

I just learned that I won the contest!!! :) Thanks for all your comments and critiques, they really mean a lot.

You can view the announcement here: http://www.visiongatefilm.com

Peace,
Larry

Congrats Larry!

This is just a quick (1:30) fun little visual effects short that a bunch of us in PixelCorps made in response to a "FXWar" on another board a few months ago.

The challenge was to create a short visual effects sequence that involved a "Day After Tommorow" style storm or flash freeze event. We started with a concept of using Rio since it has world-wide recognition as a tropical resort.

There was an 8 week time limit on the challenge.
We spent the first week drafting the initial shot list, and about a week later we had our animatic (http://www.pxc.muc3-austria.com/public/tbf_pr_animatic_pgw_v001.mov) created.
A couple weeks later we completed the live action shoot on greenscreen using a CineAlta F950.
The remaining 4-5 weeks were spent on visual effects post production including digital matte, particle effects, compositing and CGI and even an original music score.

Here's what we ended up with:
960x540 QuickTime, MPEG4, 67 Megs (http://www.jushhome.com/pxc/TEAMRIO_FXWARS_960x540.mov)
960x540 QuickTime, Sorenson 3, 32 Megs (http://www.jushhome.com/pxc/TEAMRIO_FXWARS_960x540_sor3.mov)
480x270 QuickTime, Sorenson 3, 13 Megs (http://www.jushhome.com/pxc/TEAMRIO_FXWARS_480x270_sor3.mov)

Anyway, hope you enjoy
Comments, questions and critiques are always welcome.
Thanks for looking.
Have fun.

How big was the team and what tools did you use in your pipeline? Looks like there was a lot of people on it... how did that work?

Good question, thanks for asking.

We started out with 6-8 of us messing around with the shot list.
By the end of the project about 27 volunteers were playing, from 9 US States and 5 countries.

As far as tools....

FCP was used to capture direct to an XRAID from the F950 as well as edit the final show. We captured HD at 1920x1080 and created raw assets for HD (digital mattes and textures were generally 4k resolution, the last matte paiting is 10,000 pixels wide) but time constraints resulted in a decision to render at half res 960x540.

Compositing was mostly done in Shake and AE, but we did have one guy that was using Combustion for his comps. Digital matte work was basically all in Photoshop.

CGI was a very mixed bag.
Modellers were using FormZ, C4D, Lightwave, XSI and there may have been a 3dMax user or two as well.
RealViz Matchmover Pro was used to match the greenscreen camera motion to the CG sets (the two people are the only "real" thing in the show, and even they had digital doubles for a couple shots)
Most of the animation and rendering was done in C4D.

Other tools that saw use for various utility tasks included:
Realviz Stitcher (panorama construction)
Realviz ImageModeler (created a 3D template of the statue from photos)
WonderTouch ParticleIllusion (misc. snow & fog)
RealFlow (some water effects)
Poser (digital doubles and some animatic shots)

Think that covers the majority of what got used.
Hope this answers the question.
Thanks again for asking.
Have fun.

Congrats on the well deserved award!
Really enjoyable short and great treatment of a classic tale.
Looking forward to your NEXT project. :)

alright lets suck up some more of my bandwidth. This is a compilation various shows /random footage music video for a band here in town called Minutes too Far www.minutestoofar.com . This is the second video I've done for them and we're about to start on the third.

let me know what you guys think
here's the stream

http://itimebomb.com/MOVIES/wydk_stream.htm

and here's the direct link

http://itimebomb.com/MOVIES/wydk_stream.mov

hello, i'm new around here. Ive found this website very helpfull and useful. this is the first video i have posted and i'd like to hear what you think. it is an animation i did using AE. I made it for a competition . the theme for it was "magic wands" ( a theme i personally hated). It was the atomfilms.com competition and this was the short i submitted.

this is the link:


http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/THE%20PEN%20FINAL%20VERSIONLg_Prog.mov

i didn't get a chance to finish the movie yet but you had a very interesting concept. i dug the animation look.

thanks chris.

This is shot with a DVX100a. Quick two hour shoot and edit. Original score by my bro. Tell me what you fellas think.

user.starpower.net/kikosneako

Some footage shot last week -

Track by Nick Drake
H264
8mb
320x180

http://s50.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1...839E1AE9340AOT

Quinn

didnt work.....something about the link being messed up...

i entered as well, see my magic wand post