Well seems everyone else is doing it so heres a thread for feedback on mine.

The Theme for DVC3 didn't really excite me too much hehe but i managed to pull something together even with the bad weather and complaining actors and using my friends camera (cause mine still away getting fixed)

Oh if your wondering why theres no dialogue its because the guy holding the mic didn't turn it on :( (HELP!! i need a real crew) but anyways it was windy and prolly wouldn;t have been much use if it had been turned on.

Its really short so if its really bad you don't have to stand it for long hehe

Let me know ya thoughts....

Hi Phillip,
Glad you could join the party! :)

I really liked your movie and, no, I didn't wonder why it was silent. The score you used worked quite well--that and your choices of shots told the story perfectly. But that's a funny behind-the-scenes story!

Nice job!!

Hey Phillip! I'm glad you joined the party too.

Wonderful job on your movie Erasure!

I agree with Lorinda that the soundtrack worked very well and liked the silent movie feel with a bit of the waves coming in. Nice mix.

Am curious on the cut where the guy gets sucked in the camera and disappears...the camera stays in the air a few frames before dropping to the ground. Well done! Care to share on the process of this?

Now, my question is did you leave your poor actors in the camera...or did you finally let them out?

Thanks for the comments.

Glad you liked the music its my first attempt at doing my own score :)

To do that shot i was holding the camera from the right of the frame, the actor just had his hand there to look like he was holding the camera, then he steped out of frame then i droped the camera, left the camera running for a background plate then in post just roto'ed my arm out. and used a fade to remove the actor. simple stuff :)

Oh and no i didn't let the actors out, i'm keeping them in there and will bring them out to use in DVC#4 hehe :)

Philip,

Really nice, really simple, really fun movie.

The actors played it well too (althought I feel sorry for their fate ;) ), and overall it was a good composition, without pushing the 4-minutes limit.

Good film, good work.

Hugo

That was awesome. The end was brilliantly done. Great rise in action.

Very nice indeed. I was going to ask about the dialogue and I like you said it probably would be useless in that strong wind. It worked out nice though.

Regarding dropping the camera. A friend of mine had an idea that one friend should drop my newly bought camera and it will be like a short conflict drama. But I had no idea on how to simulate the drop. Did you actually drop you camera?

And a smart move to keep the actors inside the camera until DVC4. But maybe you should snap some food into them :)

i thought this was really cool. my personal favorite, for the clean lines, simplicity, tautness of storytelling. possibly the lack of dialogue was even an unintentional improvement, because the story was clear and the silence drew us more into gesture, expression, movement. sometimes less is more.

Actually, the lack of character sound was a good thing. I like it the way it turned out. I don't know what their dialog would have been but I don't think it could have been told better with dialog.

My only question is this, does the still camera have a blue screen when it is between images? Some do as I recall. Another option, would have been to shoot a bright blue screen and chroma key it.

Although your keyframing actually worked pretty well. I don't think any keyframable moves have a soft edge option but that would have helped the oh so tiny lines around the view screen as you pulled out. It looked pretty good overall. Predictable perhaps but executed well.

Sean

I thought it was a cool short. I really liked that it was a silent film and it looked to me like it was done on purpose. Of course, I also thought the camera hanging for a frame or two was a cool effect.

All in all, I really liked it... It makes me feel like I need to go to the beach... hmm...

-Josh

Nice job. I too enjoyed the aspect of telling the story without the dialogue. It could have been worse. That guy could have been caught in the camera with some annoying person!

Fredrik - Yeah the camera was droped for real and was caught just below the frame. with that camera i wouldn;t care if it hit the ground anyway which is why i did have another shot where the camera does get droped to the ground but i decided it wasn't nessary to see that.

Sean - The camera was turned off in that last shot, and yeah you can see i didn't bother to roto the screen properly and you see the black lines but hey i didn't see it nessary spending the time (i'm too lazy and undermotivated hehe), i did feather the edges to begin with but made it look worse so i just went with the hard edge.

Josh - Yeah i left it hanging there for a bit cause it seemed to fast to have it fall straight away, hmmm maybe it shows the camera has some life and power too hehe

Hanging mid air like that, even though only for a half second, reminds me of Wylie C. Cyotee. Roadrunner cartoons. They always hang long enough to give you that look.

I wonder if it would roto better if it were progressive? No raster lines in the edit process. Hmmm...

Sean

Sean - Yeah interlaced sucks! but thats what i was stuck with, having to use my friends camera while mine still away getting fixed :(

Phillip,
I am really impressed with all the entries thus far, but I have to say that this one stands out for me. I watched it over and over again. I would never have guessed that the dialoge thing was an accident. The music was so perfect and the fact that you still had surf sounds gently layered beneath it suggested to me a very balanced and artistic presentation of the audio. loved it. I guess you were hoping for a crystal clear day, but the overcast sky lent itself well to the idea that something unhappy was about to happen. The facial expressions on your actors were perfect in every frame.

What really got me was when she disappeared. The two birds that few across the backdrop when she vanished didn't skip a beat through the fazing - I thought it was expertly smooth and I watched it many times. I won't beat a dead horse by rehashing was has already been noted about the key-framing on the viewfinder - that's minor to me in this context and doesn't pull from the overall presentation of your drama.

I loved your work. Great job.
-Jon

I like the story of how the sound guy forgot to turn the mic on! Regardless I like how it turned out with the music. I really like the music that plays when the title "Erasure" shows up, very serious type music.

Predictable perhaps but executed well.

I don't see how it could be considered predictable at all, you really don't know what's going to happen until the girl gets zapped into the camera. It was executed well indeed!

Good job Phillip!

Jonathan - I was lucky to have those birds there, they were'nt planned, but helped make the shot look better.

I was just watching it again and on that last shot man it looks bad now, its like totally wobbling around haha i must have been half asleep when i did it cause i don't rememeber it looking that bad :)

Well, perhaps predictable to me as it was the same premise I was running on. Someone was going into the camera one way or another. At least mabe that's what I was expecting. Too many Outer Limits and Twilight Zone's not to get zapped into the camera. God the Outer Limits scared me when I was young.

Outer Limits was beleivable. They had that great narrator. Not that Rod was bad at it. Just that he had a twist and the Outer Limits was just plain out there scary.

Good show and still, well executed to me.

Sean

Sorry, off topic: How old is Outer Limits? I always thought it was new since I used to watch it like 6 years ago and I think they were new episodes. I know Twilight Zone is old. Yeah they were both kind of creepy, I liked them.

Oh young one... Outer Limits were originally in B&W and came upon us I would say late 60s or so. Try to find the original ones. The newer ones are good but the older ones were a bit more sharp and concise I think. The one called "Great Sand Kings" in the new series was pretty good.

Sean McHenry (Yes, I'm that old)

Sorry, off topic: How old is Outer Limits? I always thought it was new since I used to watch it like 6 years ago and I think they were new episodes.

As Sean said, the one you watched was a remake of the original. I worked on it for a bit (the new one, not the old one), it was shot here in Vancouver. I never really watched it though.

i did have another shot where the camera does get droped to the ground but i decided it wasn't nessary to see that.

Phillip:

I've just had the opportunity to begin watching the shorts from the past three days. I watched one or two, but not yours.

I appreciated the simplicity of your short it had the right pace for the story it told. Although I have not seen any yet, I know that some other contestants' entries have the soul-stealing theme. What I liked about your version of that theme is that the picture taker was so distraught that his friend/girlfriend/wife was sucked into the camera that he turned the camera on himself and joined her. A poignant moment for me.

You mentioned that you did have a shot where the camera hits the ground but decided not to use it. I was wondering at the end what would have happen if a passer by looked down and found the camera?

As Sean said, the one you watched was a remake of the original. I worked on it for a bit (the new one, not the old one), it was shot here in Vancouver. I never really watched it though.

Cool beans, I like the new one, I think I will try and see some old ones!

Jeff - Well what would happen if a passer by came across the camera..... hmmm i really don't know didn't think that far, but we did think about having a dog come along and run off with camera, but that idea seemed silly and was scraped.