Well, it's been 8 months since I did this. I made it in August for a contest that had nothing to do (necessarily, at least) with filmmaking, and I didn't win anything (arrived late to the contest). Anyways, that and the fact that I was inspired by an English spoken masterpiece (Max Payne, hence the name as a reference to the sequel's sub title) made me write it in English too.
There was no budget whatsoever, but there is a lot of work on pre, post, and the production itself. Will is all you have sometimes (specially down here).

It was the first (live action) short I ever did. I started cinema school (which, although some of you won't believe this, is public and free... and a very good one) last year, and this piece was done before we did our first practical work for the school.

In the middle of the shooting of this short we did other shorts (all of them in the comedy genre) because there were dead lapses because of endless problems I had to shoot this (I'll tell you later if you want). This is the only of all the shorts I've done that has a script (really). All the rest of them (which you'll hopefully be able to watch soon) are improvised, but you won't believe the results considering that (and they do make sense anyway... much more than we'd ever expect). Now all of those are spoken in Spanish (except for one) so until I finish the subtitles I can't post them.

So, with no further ado, here's the short.

http://www.savefile.com/projects.php?pid=595258

Click on the corresponding orange link (you know the name), and then on the next page click on the "Download the file now" link near the bottom of the page. It's a RAR file because it has two subtitles (in English and Spanish) and a ReadMe, so don't worry about it.

This is the project where I'll keep all the shorts, you can keep coming to see if there's anything new there. I'll make a new thread for each short anyways.

Hope you like it, and sorry for the length of the post, I tend to do that.

Please feel free to comment on the good and bad aspects you consider.

Being a member of dvinfo for some time, I thought I'd post the link to the site of my new very musical doc which just showed at the Mar del Plata International FilmFest and did really well with the public:

www.poetadelguaran.com.ar

and while we're at it, to a page which has many of my old shorts (and needs some reorder soon):

http://www.grancosa.com/todovideo.htm

Hi everyone.

Mirroring this thread from the DVXUser in hopes to get more comments.

I was about to put "student film" in the title but I thought I'd scare too many people away.

CAGED:
WMV (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/PREFINAL_1_March29.wmv) (34mb).
QuickTime (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/Caged.650kbps.SV3.mov) (35mb)


Anyway, this is a short film I helped my friend with who is finishing her last year at the school I graduated from last year. Basically, the whole post-production was left to me, including composing the soundtracks in Cubase.

I decided I will colour correct each shot seperately in Shake. A bit of a tedious task, as it turned out, but quite doable. Deinterlacing in AE at night, correcting at day.

Forgive her camera work, they apparently weren't given a tripod (darn.. I'm gonna loose half the crowd on this one). Still, I did the best I could preplanning with them, tweaking the script, and fixing each shot. Most of them were relatively straight forward, except for a few shots which I'll explain later.

Overall, may not be the best film I've worked on, but it was definetely the most post-production intense one. Took around a week to finish everything. Soundtracks were the easiest for some reason. I had all of them done and a few unused ones left for the trailers by the end of one day.

Appreciate all critique, opinions and free tomatoes thrown my way.

A bit of a breakdown for those who may be interested. Hopefully the stills will inspire someone to download the whole film.

First off, as I mentioned, for some shots I had to draw masks and partially defocus the shots. The idea was not only to get rid of the video look, but also to show the isolation of the main character from the outside world she's trapped in. An example of such a defocused shot is the exterior car (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/stills/Car.1.png) shot, as well as the interior shot, in the form of a comparison (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/stills/Image_Comparison_1.png) with the original deinterlaced footage. Another interior shot (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/stills/Defocus1.png) shows the parrot in the window, which was a complete accident, and turned out to the advantage of the film as it provided a form of foreshadowing.

For the colours, I've decided that I will greatly desaturate each shot of the everyday life of the heroine, and bring in the colours with intensive saturation when the flashbacks to the childhood happen, as well as the jungle flora and fauna start appearing. Here is one example of a flashback (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/stills/Flashback3.png), and another one of the snakes (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/stills/Painting1.png). For the snake shot a bit of painting had to be done to only bring out the saturation of the orange snake and leave the hands and the table alone.

Speaking of painting and replacing, in one shot a woman walked by on the left of the shot. After some tracking and layering, it was fixed (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/stills/DamnWoman1.png). Another touch-up shot was the closeup of the face. To get rid of the blemishes on the forehead, I did some cloning (http://www.gleb.zerobrains.com/dmitry/movies/Caged/stills/AcneCure1.png) with QuickPaint which turned out great.

For the titles I wrote a small function in Shake to create small offsets in the X and Y axis in order to emulate the optical titles. A similar function was used for the brightness control to complete the effect.

As to sound, general techniques like gating, automating the volume, de-essing, and equalizing were used. Seemed to have worked.

The trailer is beautiful, but I love the short pieces, the juxtaposition of images that appear to have no relationship to one another, but linked by the music and by the reappearance of the backlit dancing guy. Nice work.

Ey, ¿qué hacés? Qué bueno ver a otro argentino por acá. Hacía rato que daba vueltas por estos lares y es la primera vez que encuentro uno. Copado. Che, te hablo en inglés para que el resto no quede afuera.

So, I really enjoyed these videos. There are some really nice images there. There was good music and some cool takes. Some funny "spy" footage. "Carisma" was kinda funny and creepy at the same time... And, well, Carlitos Balá... I was 2-3-4 years old when I watched it, and I was a fan (I used to know all his songs and sing them all day). I guess I still feel for the guy, even if some things I heard about him weren't the best. It was cool, "Zumbito". Fresh in ways, and I loved the ending. It brought some good memories.
Oh, and I haven't seen the trailer for the documentary, I've been having some trouble downloading the trailer, I don't know why. As soon as I can I tell you what I think.
By the way, did you watch my short film (I'll make it easy for you: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=64253). I'd love to hear what you have to say (shred it to pieces if you like, as long as it's constructive criticism).
Buen trabajo, loco. ¡Posteá más si tenés!

Hey! I was hoping a warmer welcome to my first short-film post.

C'mon, I know not many of you downloaded it, but there are gunshots, an explosion and people die! Isn't that enough?

Seriously, I would love some comments. Out of pity? Works for me...

Also, there you can find a 1 minute comedy short film (although I recommend watching "A Film Noir Short Story" first so as to not lose respect for the characters...)

Alright I'm downloading it now. What was it shot on?

Thanks for the reply!

Well, I was afraid you'd ask, but I was expecting too. Now, Chris (Hurd), I hope this is OK... It was shot on a JVC on the VHS-C format (if you watched it you'll have realized it by now)... But it had an LCD!

Truth is, although I tried (and I'll get to it later if you want) in between all the problems I had to face to get this done, the camera I was gonna get (3CCD miniDV, I can't remember the model now) was, what a coincidence,
used when I was shooting. So I had to get another camera, and the JVC was as much as I could get.

Yet, I captured the footage, naturally, and edited on Premiere Pro 1.5. The effects were done on Photoshop 7. I think it went pretty well considering things, but unfortunately I didn't do any CC, which would have improved it a lot more, because I just didn't know how to control everything that much (except for some matching in the last scene; you can see how the sun is entering through the window in the first take, and the last one is just dark, grey and grainy... which after I thought would've been cool for the whole short).

I have improved a lot so far, made about 15 shorts already(this is the only one that has a script...) and I have learnt a lot from this site (and recently another one... ^_^).

I know this piece has a lot of mistakes, and I can fix a lot of them, but that's that. It's done, and shows me how much I've improved since I made it.

Anyway, I hope you like it, considering everything. Thanks for watching, at least...

Emre, she didn't make Tarnation, that was made by Johnathon Caouette - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390538/ - which got famous for being the $215 movie that made it to Sundance (i.e. shot with a borrowed camera, edited on a friend's iMac etc) and got distribution subsequently. It is apparently a very good film, got good reviews, awards and was championed by the likes of Gus Van Sant. (Music clearance and blow up costs subsequently brought the cost of the film to about $200,000 I hear, though much the same is true of "El Mariachi")

This BowieChick things is just one of those viral internet things that beomes a fad every so often. Ignore it. I mean, does anyone here remember Mahir (http://www.ikissyou.org/)? ...Anyone?

Well, this is my last try, and I won't bother anymore, at least until I have some other short to post (that time shot on digital, so you don't prejudge it for it being shot on analog format).
I'm sorry, I don't want to sound mad or anything. It's just that I've found this site to be very informative. Hell, you guys have taught me a lot (even if you don't know). I respect you, and I was hoping I would get some feedback on something that I hold very dear for it being my first short, and that was a lot of work. I know it has flaws, have you seen some I haven't, though?
I too know I've improved a lot since that short, and a lot of it has to do to this site (and this is no adulation) but don't take that as a "Ok, that short is b*****it". I wasn't sure about posting it here, since it's "DV" Info, but I know there are a lot of filmmakers around here, and that's not only about the tools, it's about the content. Maybe you always had your PDX10, your XL or your DVX. I just didn't have those privileges. But if you want a taste before getting those 42MB, then check the following link:

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/5158/afnss4screengrabs7dp.jpg

Don't know if these four grabs will do, but with this post maybe someone will at least post to scold me.

Of course I remember Mahir--he made Borat possible!

This is actually the second official short film I've done since I got my camera (since ever). Here's a link to the page....

http://www.postwhatyouwant.com/article.php?aid=32

It's basically made by some friends and I. Took me about a week to draft a script, a few more weeks to revise and about 5 days of shooting or so. And lots of editing, but not a terrible amount.

Comments, please, both good and bad appreciated. Enjoy! :)

Thanks!

If anybody here knows about other visualizations of chat rooms resp. chats, please let me know!

victory 5 Network and bionicbuddha.com presents :
New episodes of -

Distortions - Rock Star Riders - what rock star want when they are being demanding.

Rewired - Pop Art Toaster, best thing since sliced bread?

Have a look. We are trying to put out 2 a week - so feedback is welcome.

Thanks

I guess I could call this one a creepy love story between 2 people in an unusual situation. It's something I shot at the end of January, when an actress friend from Germany was in Montreal for a few weeks. It all really started with an image I couldn't get out of my head (it's the shot over which the title appears).

We had planned for a much simpler idea, but the night before the shoot I decided to elaborate on it. I must admit that the plot isn't exactly crystal clear. Think of it as more of a mood piece rather than a conventional story.

It was presented in March at the monthly Kino screening in Montreal. The movie was well received, though it left many scratching their heads. The interesting thing is that there were many conflicting interpretions to the story and character motivations.

http://www.archive.org/details/Tenderness

Shot with a GL2. Much of the light in the movie is coming through windows, supplemented by a 3 x 250W light kit. Actual output of the light kit was much reduced because of the use of CTB gels and umbrella/reflectors. The look I was trying to get was a slightly dark interior where all the light seems to emanate from covered windows and reflections on the walls.

I edited in Premiere Pro and did some After Effects work to soften the talent's skin. The music was composed by the same guy who plays in the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss6u0QyhDaQ

Our character is a successful businessman who lives in a lavish house, drives an expensive car, watches TV on a huge screen and has everything going for him, yet is depressed and lonely enough to cut himself and read medical journals on depression.

Shot on a Panasonic DV-15, converted to SDV and edited on Premiere 1.5.

Here is a link to my first video entered into a student film festival in Central, Oregon. Its a quick recap/highlight of a high school football season. About 4 1/2 mins long.

http://media.putfile.com/Film-Fest-Football-96

I thought this was fantastic for a first festival film.

I really liked how it was edited.

What program did you use for the compositing?

Best of luck with the film festival :)

What program did you use for the compositing?

Thnks a lot.

For editing I used Premeire Pro and then used After Effects for titles and some video effects.

Hey guys, don't know if you remember my film "Smile." But it will be screened at NAB 2006. It is a finalist in the Student Filmmakers Bogen Imaging Competition. Check it out. http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/bogenimaging/submission.shtml

Congratulations! Can visitors to NAB see it? If so when and where?

I just finished my first music video. I'd love to hear what you think.

http://www.easy-sharing.com/365398/MusicVideo.mov.html

contest doesnt say, I would imagine somewhere around Bogen's stuff.

After about 3 months of reading various sites on the Internet, lurking around this forum (a lot) and playing with my Z1 and accessories I produced with some friends and colleagues, a 5 minute short film to submit to the Howard Stern Film Fest* and to in a way, graduate from "Internet film school".

Now that I have completed this project I would really like the community of DVi to give me their opinions and criticisms of the piece and hopefully answer some questions I had about some weird abnormalities in the picture. Here's my first question, what file format (or conversions/codecs) is the ideal format for me to be showing this to ya'll?

*I would have done DVC but Howard had bigger prizes, a couple extra days and someone had a script.

That was really good, especially for your first music video. I love the opening shot really good. I like some of the colour correction better than others but non of it was bad. Although the one shot where you had a lot of grain, maybe you were using a letus and turned the power off for that? I don't know but I didn't like that. Other than that it was good, I thought it told the story well and kept my attention.

I really like the orange/glow flashes and stuff. Ive been trying to make some in AE, but mine dont really turn out that good. How did you come about doing them?

for a 5 minute piece, mpeg 1, a nice cross platform format.

wmvHD is a beautiful way to distribute good, HD content via the Web...
The codec looks great when the video has been lit right at princ-photog


QUESTION: Why do you guys think it hasn't really caught on with the mainstream web public?

Is it...

1) File size still too big?

2) Computers too slow to play wmvHD files?--- or Monitor/Resolution to small to really grasp the HD concept?

3) Microsoft hasn't marketed the concept/codec enough that people know what it actually is?

4) Not enough video producers shooting in HD/HDV in order to offer the wmvHD content?

Any other ideas??? What do you think??

It is April, 2006 and I daily search the Web for wmvHD content and I am amazed that there is so little of it. In fact...It's mostly still promos and bullcrap.

1 hour of wmvHD would be about 2gigs file size... I think HDTV connoseurs would have no problem waiting to download 2gigs... I routinely download 1gig to 5gig files... Like Ron Popeal says "Just Set IT and Forget IT!"

It can't be the cost of bandwidth...as it may have been in the past... Bandwidth is cheap... I pay about 10 cents per gig of bandwidth transferred... so... sending an hour of video out would cost me 20 pennies.

Look forward to hearing everyone's opinions...

BRENT

This has come up many times before in different ways. Their may not be one specific answer to your questions but this is what I know.

I don't think filesize is the issue. Pretty easy for a poor computer to store plenty of wmv content. Computer speed is a bit of an issue, joe average still doesn't know what a video card is and why he needs one that isn't intergrated.

MS has marketed WMV for online paid content, just not to well.

The last question is what i would think is a part of the big issue.

-To show HD you need to capture HD, hdv is still in its infancy.
-Connection bandwidth for mass distribution is a lot and no company execpt blizzard wants to jump on the torrent style bandwagon
-DRM, WMV drm requires all sorts of money. Like a server and a someone who knows what they are doing, which is harder than it sounds
-My final one is the HD difference. Most people can't tell the difference between broadcast HD and a DVD and only sees marginal improvement over broadcast digital.

I suggested methods to avoid DRM before by having a dedicated streaming server that you could use like movie tickets, buy it and watch as much as you want for a 2 month window for little more than the price of a movie ticket.

But I also think that people who make movies and people who would put them on the web have a gap in thinking. Movie makers whan HD, 2k, 4k and film and they want the experience to be just that BIG. People who have experience in putting video on the web anywhat costeffectively know streaming and low bandwidth. Most places online barely offer more than 300kbit/s so if someone was to approach these exsisting companies that is what they offer, at most 700kbit with 320x240 or not much better.

The other option is iTunes but they won't jump on the bandwagon of HD anytime soon I don't think and won't even look at indie movies or small time from what i've heard from music biz. You need a company that offers multiple titles to negotiate with them it seems.

Just my take. Someday if I ever make a half decent film I'm gonna setup a log in and streaming setup even if it is a short just for a test.

I would have to go for H264 as it renders higher quality pictures at smaller file sizes.

Did MS get VC1 (wmvHD) included in the spec for HD-DVD? I know Sony rejected it for BlueRay, supporting only Mpeg-2 for the time being. Thats for commercial releases, not data disks.

If they didn't they really screwed up... wmvHD is the only good distribute for the web.

Microsoft also made a HUGE F'in Mistake by not allowing the Xbox 360 to simply play wmvHD files... They could have easily had this as a feature and we would have had a huge distribution channel overnight.

B

I recently directed/edited a music video. This was shot in NYC (central park, south street pier 17, and by battery park). Been getting good reviews thus far but I'd love for everyone here to throw in some honest feedback. thanks guys

for a higher quality version go here
http://web.mac.com/bryantfisher/iWeb/Bryant%20Fisher%20/Films/F019DCE5-D5A8-4029-9D9D-3556D4DDF5B8.html


or for lower quality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9mlQJhQpEA

-Max

Cory, thanks fot the comments. The grain was intentional, some of it is static. I questioned doing it because some people would think it was a mini35 adapter not spinning. You're the first to notice it, so
congratulations! lol I probably should not have done that, but I liked it. Its basically a static overlay, kinda weird but I like it.
Wes, the flashed are actually Artbeats' Film Clutter. You can find them at:
http://www.artbeats.com/prod/product.php?pg=1&id=160

Smile, what a fascinating work !

The bundle of painters brushes was a nice establishing touch. Given the enchanting piano score a smooth fade transition from brushes to aerial shot might have fit well. Instead it seemed more like a cut from brushes to aerial.
It still worked for me.

The theme of Art's influence was well illustrated by the score and images.

Really liked it.

Any behind the scenes or Directors notes you can share on the making of this superb Riley Harmon Short would be welcome.

The time lapse work was interesting.

well done....it was definitely one of my favorites of the finalist entries.

I agree with everything Ken said. I really liked it. Seemed very smooth and maintained my interest the entire time.

Awesome!

Director's note:

It's magic baby. I found a stick on the ground, and lit it on fire. It just so happened that the stick was near some factory waste and it burned magic colors. (Most likely from the chemicals) BTW: The children laughing in the background of the bubbles were recorded live. They were high from the chemical fumes burning in the air.

Wes, the flashed are actually Artbeats' Film Clutter. You can find them at:
http://www.artbeats.com/prod/product.php?pg=1&id=160

quick question: do these video overlays automatically overy lay to your video, or do you have to key out the black?

thanks a lot

Below is a 5 min short film shot on the XL H1 at a seminar I taught a couple weeks ago. The students shot nearly everything here over the course of 5 hours. 48 hour film festival? Hah...see what you can do in 5. :-)

Anyways, here it is...

http://homepage.mac.com/ncfilmmaker/iMovieTheater6.html

If you live near Raleigh and want to attend a class, let me know. There will be another one happening in May.

Thanks.

Kevin

Fun piece! Since the artistic talent behind the camera was more on display than the H1, I moved the thread from the XL-H1 forum to "DV For The Masses" where it will get a wider audience.

Whatever you want, Pete, but people have been on the H1 boards waiting for something to see. This is it.

KW

We generally keep links in camera forums when they illustrate useability, or a particular capability or limitation of the camera, and move links that are posted primarily to share artistry to DV For The Masses.

Because this is a complete short film that is streamed at web-friendly resolution, I felt it fit into the latter category rather than the former. If something specific about the XL-H1 is demonstrated, let me know and I can move it back for further discussion. Otherwise, it'll get a more viewers -- including the XL-H1 forum crowd who browse around DVinfo or click "New Posts (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/search.php?do=getnew) when they log in -- here in "Masses."

This kind of move is a routine thing for us and I hope that it helps folks understand how we do the housecleaning to keep DVinfo organized and a good technical resource.

Thanks for the housekeeping, Pete -- much appreciated,

Its a composite setting. In Final Cut Pro I just composite it over the footage and select "add" as the composite mode. Its pretty much the same thing as keying out the black though.

I've made an intro to my reel, I'm not sure if your really suppose to do this, so i was wondering if anyone could direct me? I was planning on having an intro about a minute long and then go into some work samples for about 7-9 minutes. Is this a good outline?

Heres my into:

http://media.putfile.com/First-Reel-Intro-attempt

http://current.tv/studio/media/1873904

http://current.tv/studio/blog/studio.htm

"Part of what makes working for Current so exciting is watching people experiment with short form non-fiction content. Aline Allegra, our director of viewer created content, pointed out this piece, Generation: 60Hz, as a perfect example of Current's mission in action. The producer is from Shawnee, OK, and offers his take on the Internet generation. He experimented with rapid fire images that represent what it feels like to grow up in the information age. We optioned it for air and encourage all of you to push the limits of how you tell your story."

I knew all those years sitting at a computer wasting time would be useful.

riley, this is so accurate, it's frightening. the 18 and 20 year olds in my life are exactly characterized.

you could really be a voice for this generation, which seems to have so much chatter and yet, paradoxically, so little voice.

i'm definitely sending this around to the kids i know.

Someone posted this in another forum. The poster and his buddy made it. I thought it was pretty funny.

Right click, "save as"

http://www.z5films.com/videos/Moaster_Maker.wmv

This is a skit I made in response to the amount of people today who think that being a certain race means acting a certain way. It's a satire of the unwritten rules of racial behavior in America.

www.aggieblvd.net/RacePatrol.wmv