Yup. It is 11:59 p.m. PDT on Sept. 4, Joseph. Good luck!

Andris, your trials remind me a little too much of me...but I am waaaay older than you are! LOL

Good luck to all of you! Two days left!! :D

Joseph, you can do it! The participation and the thrill is worth it, and I'd really like to see your entry. :)
This time I'm doing it all solo with no actors at all, but I hope that the result will be good enough.

I've got a really close call this time too, because I'm overloaded at my day job, lots of serious stuff to do. I'm determined to manage and finish the entry though. I've loaded the material on my laptop and will do some editing on the commute.

Lorinda, my guilty pleasure is that I enjoy it, haha! I hope to see an entry from you too. I've always enjoyed your very-human pieces.

I'm done - stick a fork in me.

Andris & Joseph you can do it. Looking forward to seeing everyone's film. Best fun I've had in a long time, stressful too. Can't say it was easy, so many tech issues.

Overall, this has been one of the best artistic experiences of my life. We shot on location and had only minor technical issues. I think the biggest thing that I have learned is that although you may be able to do everything yourself, sometimes it's best to delegate! Moving forward, when I do another short film, I will definitely get a bigger team to assist with the operation. We shot with one camera, two lav mics, and one light (for one scene). Finishing up the editing and making sure that everything is in tip-top shape before submitting. For those that have entered before, do you do a plot summary with the submission? Any type of formal write up about the film and the vision?

Toni,

Traditionally, we create a thread in the feedback group on the day your film screens. This is where you get to tell a bit about the experience, challenges, and explain anything you think might not come across in your film. I use the occasion to promulgate various lies and defend myself in advance from any criticism that I might be a my misogynist. You can probably get away with just being truthful.

Hey guys...well I've just a final grade pass and the film is ready for upload. It was a fun process and increased my urge to shoot more fictional shorts. Looking for other avenues already :)

Looking forward to everyone's films.

M

Well no getting off the wall of shame for me. Had a script crew actors and locations before I got a last minute call to go work on "revolution" 300 miles away so I had to abandon the short to find a new place to live temporarily and then work 75 hours in the past week. I'm stoked about the job just wish I could have waited a week to start it!

At some point I'm going to upload all of my unfinished projects.

Sorry to hear, Nick.
I myself am having trouble to find the time to edit everything together, feeling uneasy, but... there is hope and will. I'll probably just skip some talk at tomorrow's conference I have to attend.

Really sorry guys. I'm on the wall here for the first time in 2 years of doing these comps. A feature script I optioned off a while ago has suddenly gained some traction and I've had to spend the time I was going to shoot my doc in doing the inevitable re-writes. Will make sure to get myself off the wall at the first available opportunity, and really look forward to seeing peoples films.

Henry

Finished and uploaded last night. For me this was a work of "love" with my college freshman granddaughter and other grand kids. My granddaughter wrote the script, played one of the characters, narrated, and wrote a song and sang it for the film. It was a lot of fun putting it all together to make her vision of the story try to work, though, as with all of these shorts, we had to chop and cut to make it all fit. With a film this short, character development is just very difficult, and suffers on the editing side.......

Finished and submitted our film, as of 4am this morning! We were a bit strapped for time, so my wife and I shot it on Saturday and edited it on Sunday. It doesn't work 100% as we hoped, unfortunately, but the Challenge was a great opportunity to push ourselves to make something, and I'm really proud of what we managed. I think the look of the film is a big step up from anything we've done before, so I'm happy about that. And since we're at an early stage in our filmmaking, we learn a lot every time we make something, which is why we have to keep pushing ourselves to do so, and why competitions like the DV Challenge are great as a means of motivation.

No great shooting stories or tribulations to relate otherwise. Except perhaps, as Toni said, next time I'd very much like a few more hands, since the last three films we shot have just had my wife and me for crew. I'm also, of course, worried about how the film will be received, but I guess we'll find out soon enough! Looking forward to sharing it with you all and seeing what everyone else came up with.

By the way, has anyone received a confirmation when they e-mailed their submission info? I'm a little paranoid about submitting, and I worry about my e-mail getting lost in a spam folder, the film somehow not fitting the criteria, or otherwise missing out in some way.

Funny you would ask, Michael, just as I came here to cheer about already receiving six submissions--a full day before the due date!! This is getting very exciting and I hope to see at least that many more tomorrow.

To answer your question, your email has not come through. Try resending all the info and make sure it's going to thedvchallenge@gmail.com. Let me know when you have sent again; we'll go to plan B if necessary.

Thanks for letting me know, Lorinda; I'm glad I was paranoid! I've resent the e-mail and verified it's going to the right address. If you still haven't got it, would you check your spam folder? I also sent the info via private message here, as a backup. Hopefully something gets through!

I also sent the info via private message here, as a backup.
That was plan B. :) Second try to the gmail address worked!

Just finished mine and left it uploading overnight (the internet is really slow at the moment).

Almost done editing the video, half way through the audio part. Still have to record a few sound-fx and soundscapes. It'll be a close call.
Luckily for me I've just had fiber-optics installed, so the internet speed is not an issue any more.

Wish I had fiber-optic. Took me the whole of the weekend to upload two versions, using my mobile phone, then I had to do it again as I found out I made a miss-take. where I live broadband on a landline is slower than my mobile. so, for me a 300mb file takes about 6-7 hours and 500mb takes around 12-14 hours to upload.

Out of curiosity I would be interested to know what speeds and upload times people have around the world for this comp.

Mine was 213mb and took about 8 hours overnight.

Wish I had fiber-optic. Took me the whole of the weekend to upload two versions, using my mobile phone, then I had to do it again as I found out I made a miss-take. where I live broadband on a landline is slower than my mobile. so, for me a 300mb file takes about 6-7 hours and 500mb takes around 12-14 hours to upload.

Out of curiosity I would be interested to know what speeds and upload times people have around the world for this comp.

I have fiber optic connection. Uploaded 335 mgb to Youtube in about 5 minutes. Vimeo server was sloeer at about 15 to 20

Man, fiber sounds amazing. Maybe one day we can all enjoy it. I think mine was about 200 MB and took around 2 hours.

Just wanted to say thanks, Andris, Mark, and everyone else for the support. I'm shooting my final scenes this morning and getting ready for a full day in post. Not going down without a fight!

* swings wildly *

After a long weekend of post-production and figuring out a workflow for the new CS6 (Adobe Speedgrade is awesome!), we're finally finished. I sent an email to where you said, Lorinda, but like Michael, I'm paranoid about everything working out. If you get a chance, could you let me know it went through?

Counting yours, John, we have received 12 entries so far!! Love it--keep 'em coming, folks and, Joseph--go, go, GO!!! :)

I'm rendering the first (beta) version now. Thank God for the US time difference in favour of my location. :)

Uploaded and sent.
Took about 3 minutes to upload 134mb video to youtube.

Interesting to see the different broadband speeds people have - for me it adds a different dimension to the challenge and to take into account. Really looking forward to see how many different interpretation of the theme were made.

So how long do you think it would take for my 14.4 baud modem to push my video to youtube?

I sent in everything and am awaiting Lorinda's confirmation. She had given us until 11:59 Pacific time ! Thank you, Lorinda!

This past month has been one of major challenges and excitement. I hope you enjoy my short film as much as I have enjoyed making it. I tried to really push myself creatively with use of the theme, coming up with a cool story, as well as pushing myself technically with directing and editing. There were many times I thought, "how do real movies get made so quickly?" There are SO many moving elements and when you combine one camera, a foreign country, international actors, lav mic sound (1st and 2nd choice are always booms, but alas, I do not own that yet), and minimal lighting, you never know what is going to come out on the other side! What a fun ride this has been!

I can't wait to see everyone's films!

Toni

So how long do you think it would take for my 14.4 baud modem to push my video to youtube?

Are you on about a dial-up modem? I Google stuff and found this site that should be able to give a guide to how long it will take.

Bandwidth conversion calculator | web.forret.com (http://web.forret.com/tools/bandwidth.asp?speed=14400&unit=baud)

I've read in a book about directing theater plays that it is a great success if the end result is at least 60% of what the director had imagined in his or her head. This, I think so, applies equally to film-making.

Unfortunately I feel that I haven't achieved those 60% I wished for. I didn't have a crew or actors, everything was rushed, because of other responsibilities, and I edited in distracting environments. All of which is small potatoes if compared to my negligible skills, hah!

Any way, what I have, until now, really gotten out of this challenge is the experience in building more complex soundscapes. I've come to love and appreciate the complex sound environments that can be created by recording, obtaining and mixing different sound fx and music, and I will never look to future productions as I've had before, with regards to this aspect.

Really looking forward to seeing all of your films!

Well it seems that my video will not embed? So now I have a hyper link when I should have a nice embedded video frame! Crap what did I do wrong?

Anyone help?

Thanks

Have you created a Vimeo account and uploaded a version there? As I understand it only Vimeo will embed into forum posts and Youtube is just a weblink.

No for mine. This is first time I got a frame like Vimeo for the YouTube version. Not sure why. I just posted link.

Did you copy and paste the embed code or what how did you do it?

No. copied the url address of the video, you can find that url address in the code

or
If you have firefox you can right click on my video, select copy video url, paste it into a new tab and that will show how the url address then you will not what your looking for.

Sorry guys, just a little ole night school lawyer here, so I had to look that one up on Wikipedia..... With 40 entries, only two bodies through windows ??? You know there is going to be a lot of breaking, but only two or three through windows ? I bet sugar futures went way up with the announcement of the theme....

Looks like we didn't have any on camera defenestrations. Bummer! There were three implied (via two off camera car accidents). We did have a brick and a beer bottle through windows though. With some nicely done vfx!

I should mention that I have video of one of my bottles shattering into a million pieces... because a car ran over it... right in front of me and my camera...

It all happened so fast that I didn't have time to really react to what had just happened. However, after we cleaned up the scene, I began to realize how scary -- and potentially more dangerous and worse -- that moment could have been.

I literally chalked it up to experience, called it a good day, thanked the universe, and never mentioned it since.

I am still watching everyone's films and I must say I'm finding very hard to pick. Each one has pro's and con's but marking them on production value and theme/story seam to create a level playing field.

Who else is finding it stuff, with the standard of films available?

I'm also trying to hurry and see everyone's entries, but I'm very busy at work, so I may be a little late with the reviews.