Very impressive. Congratulations.

WOW! You should have won the first prize!

Great work!

Hi Michael,

Yep, BLST was completed after LDOW, it was pretty much run and gun shooting for that one, with available light and no sound. (all sound was done in foley)

A

The home page appears to be down for me. The solitary image doesn't load.

Hi Robert,

Just tested the site, seems to be ok. I'm having some teething problems as I have only recently (2 days) moved to a new web host and I can't really figure out what's going on with all the DNS, Name Servers, Registrars etc etc.

Please do try again (fingers crossed)

A

Here it is, my second short. ~20 minutes, 40 MB, 256 kbps WMV file. Sorry, no Quicktime file yet. Details at:

http://www.piousdogproductions.com/dvd03.html

Full short file:

http://www.piousdogproductions.com/wmv/DV23F_12_10_03_256kbps.wmv

Shot with a Sony TRV-900 and NO BUDGET. Edited with Vegas4+DVD (strategic upgrade from Video Factory).

First short details from 2002:

http://www.piousdogproductions.com/dvd02.html

Cheers,
BAC

Hi everyone,

I made this documentary earlier this year for a local contest.

www.mvhs.net/~ekim/speech.wmv

It's only five minutes, and if you would take the time to watch it and give me some comments I'd really appreciate it! It's about speech and debate. I'm a little intimidated by the caliber of work here, but still, I really want honest comments, no matter how brutal, by people who know what they're talking about.

I've made a few films, and I've never really gotten good, solid constructive feedback, so I'm really happy I found this board. Also, if anyone has another place where it's easy to post films and get feedback, please tell me! Thank you,

-Elsa Kim

That was good. If you want some suggestions then I have a few..

I like documentaries that are detached and impartial. I also like to a lesser extent the Michael Moore style of polemic-driven documentaries. And so generally I think documentaries work better if they choose between those two mediums. There's nothing wrong with a voice-over, but for me it's not as good as those other two methods. There's a disembodied voice, to which no one can relate, telling the audience what the images mean. If you put a face to the voice it works better because it's more visual. You can do this by choosing a specific subject for your documentary - say a new debater for whom everything is new - and following them through the competition. That way each of the events that occur are explained but by someone who is constantly on camera, and with whom the audience might become engaged. You still show the bigger picture of the weekend debates, but in a much more involved way. I don't think the Michael Moore approach would be very good unless you wanted to expose some shocking truth about debating competitions.. But it is another example of how to personalise the narrator.

Other than that there's just little points. I'd avoid cutting up people's interviews obviously if that makes any sense.. There was a few times where you would make a cut mid-sentence to go to a new part of the same interview from the same angle. In a general sense that suggests manipulation of the facts; it shatters the idea that the camera is impartial. Of course a lot of making a documentary is about manipulating a lot of footage to fit a story. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, but it has to be done subtley. For instance if you had had a second camera at a different angle then cutting to different points in the conversation would work in a technical sense and at least be disguised from the viewer.

The last point is purely technical. Your shots will look a lot better if you take the camera as much out of auto mode as you can. If the camera won't let you set an exposure then try to find places where the subject will be nicely lit - silouhetted figures and bleached out faces don't look as good as well-lit people. It's difficult to do perhaps when you're shooting on the fly, but the only solution after that is to get a better camera I guess.

On the whole though it was very good, and it's nice to see Idlewild making in roads on the other side of the Atlantic :o)

Kieran

You have made some very nice work! I've watched all three films. Nice little stories with great cinematography. Your skills as a photographer are also visible in your movies.
Some of the darker scenes in Talking With Fishes have this great greenish almost Matrix color look. Can you tell me what kind of light you used or did you alter the video with color correction tools afterwards?

Keep that great work coming!

Peter Sieben

Adrian,

Nice job! I really love your main page, you pulled off a great retro design. Especially the colours!

Thanks for the feedback. After some more work I got the last half snyched up right on the kick beats - much more punch now. This is actually 1 of 3 riding segments in the project. I'll be posting links to the others in the near future.

Thanks again.

-Kevin

Hi Peter,

I did most of the colour corrections in post. I tried to shoot the footage as cleanly and with as little contrast as possible, also with the sharpness level all the way down, so the rushes look grey and dull but retains as much information as possible. Colour corrections in Fishes were done in FCP 3 and for the other 2 films, they were done in Magic Bullet.

Cheers

A

talking to fish was shot in singapore right? does the main building (where the boy and girl are in the elevator) have 25 stories? cause i used to live there!@!!!

Yep, Talking with Fishes was shot in Singapore, I can't remember if the building has 25 floors though...

Thank you so much Kieran, your response was very helpful, and I basically agree with everything you commented on. I would love to follow someone with a camera, it just wasn't possible that weekend because I was competing too! And I don't know that much about the technical aspects of my camera, or about special effects. That's why I've done nothing but documentaries so far- they have less of a focus on special effects.
Getting free music is something I've been wondering about as well- I guess I could find it if I just looked more, but what are there any sites you recommend for good music that's not copyrighted? I love Idlewild too, but unfortunately I'm not at the point where I can legally use them! Thanks Kieran!
-Elsa Kim

Elsa!

What are you doing here? =) Haha, it's surprising to find you on this board, but I'm glad you came here. DV Info's forum has been the most helpful resource I've ever found online, and if you're looking for helpful comments from people who know what they're talking about, you've come to the right place.

Now for an opinion from a friend and non-professional, I really enjoyed the documentary. I also agreed with everything Kieran said, but on a small sidenote, I think you should try cleaning up the audio a tiny bit. As high school students, I know that we can't afford the best equipment, but you can still tweak the audio some with a decent audio editing program. The microphone buzzes (most noticeable in the voice overs) were a bit distracting, but overall not a big problem.

But anyways, I enjoyed your documentary and I think you should post up your other ones. The rough edit I saw of your AP History documentary was great, and I'd really like to see the final cut. Keep up the good work, and don't be afraid to branch out from documentaries - you obviously have a lot of potential and, with this board, all the help you could ever need! Oh yeah, and congratulations on getting into Harvard!

- Chris Yi

hey kids...

I found some more of my DVX100 footage from this summer lying around. Take a look at her. Sorry no sound! Its chuncks taken from my 5min short film called "Floor 5ive"!

The black car stuff is just other stupid stuff. Hope to post full complete version of "Floor 5ive" soon!... when i have time eh!

http://www.illconcepts.com/muhahaha.mpeg

Take a look at this:

http://www.woodpeckerfilm.fi/rare/

A christmassy short, don't know why it's made... Nor if this was shot on film or HD or DV, but the looks are simply great. It's worth loading the full size version, because the picture quality is quite superb.

Have an enjoyable time watching this :)

-Jarno Satopaa

PS. The material shown includes shots that may be inappropriate for young children. You decide...

PPS. I have no connection with the group that has made the film, just found it on the Net.

Loads extremely slow, (I'm on a cable modem) though it may depend on time of day. I gave up after 15 minutes and only the first 30 seconds had downloaded.

jeff it is 67mb big. I ended up ripping out the direct link and simply downloading, it is worth the watch.

Zac

The link is not setup right to download on a Mac. However, on a cable modem a 67mb file downloads in several minutes at the most (assuming at least a reasonably fast server).

It allows you to "Save as" once you've downloaded on a Mac. It IS worth it.

Yeah, the server seems to be quite slow... Checked the speed too, and it takes almost half an hour to download.

It still makes me laugh... But, as some may think, it's a tad harsh, maybe...

-J

My friend and I were studying at our university library...we got tired of studying and luckly I had my camera with me. The "script was thought out as we went and the "shoot" took about 15mins - the elevator was a bitch...waiting for a free one and then making sure we got it down right. Anyways, enoy...but realize that this wasn't a pre-planned thing...just some fun. Oh yeah, and colour adjusted to add to the weirdness in post.

Here:
http://static.zed.cbc.ca/users/r/rhester/files/sneakybook-1.wmv (6.71 mb)

Great! I just love it!

Jarno, what does the hunters say? I'm from Sweden but can't figure it out...

I would love to get to know what the setup was.
35mm? 16mm? Really really good..

If anybody wants to download it directly or use a download
manager and doesn't want to rip out the link themselves,
here it is (http://www.woodpeckerfilm.fi/rare/video/rare_exports_large.mov)

Well since you threw it together it was kinda okay. I really disliked
a lot of the shaky camera stuff. Also it looked like you wanted to
introduce tention which didn't work out too much due to editing
and certain coverage.

You do know that you are using music in the video which you
(I'm assuming) don't have the rights for?

I thought the editing did improve futher down the short!

The hunters just mumble something... Like "two and a half at 1 o'clock... seven three four..." It's not very important anyway, they're just aiming at the target and figuring out the distance (I think...)

I have no idea whether it's shot on S16 or HD, but probably not on 35mm. The director (Jalmari Helander) has been called something like the rising star in Finnish action film (yak...). I've seen some other films he made, too, and he just rocks. He started as a amatuer, but works nowadays for a well-known (and well-paid) production company, making mostly ads. This can be seen, because the technical side is great but the storytelling is... well, not-so-great. He's an ace in entertaining people, but when discussing in-depth, he might have something to learn. Well, that much about the director.

Anyway, this short has been made on a hobby-something basis, self-financed (I think) and with a non-professional (or at least non-paid) crew.

-J

PS. Merry Christmas, everybody. *<:-)

<<<-- Originally posted by Andreas Fernbrant : Great! I just love it!

Jarno, what does the hunters say? I'm from Sweden but can't figure it out...

I would love to get to know what the setup was.
35mm? 16mm? Really really good.. -->>>

yep no intent to sell...probably still in the wrong though :S

this wasn't planned or anything - shaky cam I tried my best to smooth but we also felt like idiots running around with a cam in the university library!

Don't take it too seriously...I just know I love seeing what people make with their cams on here, even if it sucks - it always gives me ideas, things I tell myself i'd do differently mostly

editing was too slow in my opinion

Some of you may have seen it already.
But this is what I've been up to.

It's from my upcoming video on DVD.
This is the two dances I made for the movie. If you have any questions or comments don't hesitate.
I need to get better and the best way is for other people to speak their mind about my work.

Intro: www.atamashi.com/work/saltomortalez/intro.mov
Dance1: www.atamashi.com/work/saltomortalez/Saltomortalezdance2.mov

And this is my latest work.
Dance2: www.atamashi.com/work/saltomortalez/Saltomortalezdance.mov

Thanks for taking time to watch my short films.

Be safe, and may 2004 bring us all some great footage!

/Andreas

Beautiful imagery, Andreas. I did notice one small thing. It looked like your 16:9 mask moved at about 2:27 into the dance video.

And for what it's worth, I agree with Keith about the Dance2 video. I don't get the impression that the guy hollering at her crushed her spirit at all. If you want that to be the message, then I think you have to recut so that she doesn't dance anymore after he yells.

The only other suggestion is there were some long shots in Dance2 that appeared very dark on my computer.

It's still great work. I'm anxious to see the DVD when your finish. Keep us posted.

Mickey

Thank you.

Yes, the mask moves. the intent is to spit the view in 2 and run one side in normal motion and the other one in slow-motion.
Somehow the quicktime and some other things made the 16x9 mask flip out. But when I render full DV quality it works.

I didn't feel I would change that just for the .mov I renderd.
(sloppy and lazy) :)

Well, you seem to have gotten the message so why do a recut?
If you take it in a way that he crush her spirit that's your choice.
If you want to take it another way that's fine too:) I feel it came across as good as as it could. (she is a dancer not an actor)

I know some bits in the dance appeard to dark, we had a monitor with us and on the monitor (TV) it worked a lot better. So on the final DVD on a real TV it will be better. More contrast (with brighter parts). We did struggle with the light conditions. I always felt we had to little light to work with, but I did manage to keep the gain out of it.


Thank you for your comments, I'm noting them in my mental notebook!

Take care Mickey!

This is an amazing collection of files - many thanks for posting them - inspirational stuff!

I'd say most kids use music from cd's they've bought or downloaded in their videos...most kids I know...being that i'm 16..don't go and sell these videos...they are all for fun

Oh, alright (I suppose that should be "all right", technically, but I like this spelling better), I see--over the past week or so, while DV.com was down, I wanted to post some of my material here for your viewing (dis)pleasure, but couldn't decide which forum was best for it. I'm not doing broadcast or theatrical video, but it seems others in my position are also comfortable posting here, so what the hey?

I'll keep this simple. I've got two little movies to show you guys, and I want some feedback. Good, bad, indifferent, I don't care, so long as it's feedback. One could say I've got an ulterior motive for desiring this feedback, but telling you what it is could potentially taint your perception of said films, so bear with me.

I could go on and on and on about all the incredibly obvious problems with these files. All the blatant errors I made, all the stupid things I did, and all the less important things that I simply don't like, but that would take all of the fun out of criticizing me, wouldn't it?

My only disclaimers are as follows. No, there's not supposed to be audio. I'm working on it. And yes, I know the second one doesn't have a point. I'm working on that, also.

Everything else is fair game, so go to town.

These are just ordinary, run of the mill Quicktime files, encoded with SV3. Hope you can see them.

http://www.gyroshot.com/movies/Ninchairs.mov

http://www.gyroshot.com/movies/HorrorClips.mov

Those of you who also belong to the community at DV.com can find an equivalent thread at http://dv.com/jive3/thread.jspa?threadID=300000254&tstart=0, should you so desire.

With the horror one the first thing that stuck out to me was that you NEVER moved the camera... it was a locked down angle every single shot. Camera move, good.

You used the 'walk into the camera and black out the picture' transition more then once-- tough to get away from.

I only watched it once but the picture looked pretty good and the lighting in the basement shots looked like it worked.

The chair ninja thing was fun and you did move the camera but a lot of times in action fight sequences you'll see a lot of quick cuts that highten the tension and make it all seem more exciting. might want to try that.

I always say "steal from the best". Pic your favorite martial arts fight from a film and steal as much of it as you can as far as angle, transitions, shots. You'll learn a lot that way and the next time you do something like this you can change it up with your own ideas.

Excellent, excellent, gettin' some response! Appreciate it.

That "walk into the camera" thing, well, yeah, I was afraid that'd be a problem, but damned if I wasn't too lazy to come up with something interesting. :)

As for my static camera, that was intentional. I had meant for the locked down shots to be contrasted with some actual moving ones of a sort, thus making the difference between two particular locations in the film more apparent, but I haven't shot that stuff yet, so this crap has to stand on its own. And, in retrospect, I suppose I could always just move the camera DIFFERENTLY to accentuate the comparison, rather than be so overbearingly drastic.

Of course, even if I wanted to move the thing in these shots, I'd have been hard pressed to, as that's my fat, goofy, awkward ass you see on camera. Lesson learned? Find some good-looking friends who can act.

"Steal from the best", eh? Sounds like fun, I'll try it out!

In a funny way I liked the chairs idea it seemed odd at first yet I started to laugh at the amusement that you brought to the table.

Thank you

Feedback:
The ninja chairs was too slowly paced to hold my interest for long. Edit it more, maybe speed it up.

The horror on needs some tighter editing, and music. And it needs to be lighter. Use some dissolves between shots.

Hey, I liked the "horror" one. The other one didn't hold attention because it looked like an excersise in "let's see what we can do" type shooting. Remember, it's about a story and related to the people you're telling to watch your film...at least create a little back story to the first one...something to flesh it out.

Ok, so the horror one had some nice locations. It visually kept me interested because dark locations that are lite well always make me watch. It also had some nice camera work - just like one of the previous posters said...no camera moves....it's nice.

Also, I liked the widescreen format much better...I LOVE widescreen actually. Always use that if you can in my opinion.

Ok, so I would tighted up the editing all around like the previous post said...and remember....just layer story over it...lots of layers of story.

Murph

Heh...matter of fact, it WAS an exercise in "let's see what we can do" shooting. I kinda like the idea itself--people fighting chairs--but some sort of a POINT would be nice, I agree. I'm working a story into the new version (I wanna see if I can't improve upon the same concept).

Hello all. I've just completed my first "real" production. The trailer is now available and I'd like some feedback.

The production is a 20 minute promotional video done for a local gear shop. This trailer is a good overview of the feature. This project was done after about 2 months of practice in Vegas. It's definately a "starting point", and won't compare too well to the outstanding work I've seen from some of you - so don't laugh too hard. I've got lots of room for improvement.

The text overlays in the trailer are pretty basic and boring. They were originally put in as a rough edit - I planned to redo them in After Effects, but the deadline came up before I could get into using AE. The next feature will definately have some better compositing.

Anyway, here's the link to the official site - you can download the trailer from here.

http://clubracing.pixelpointfilms.com

Thanks for looking!

I liked the use of Green Hornet by Al Hirt. -Favorite song from kill bill- though, the song continued energetically even after scenes with energy had ended.

I thought it was kind of cool for being shot on the fly.

Way to go!

Don't be too concerned about others being critical. The thing that is important is that you took an idea and created something that didn't exist and completed it.

Most small films never get completed.

Good job!

Cool video!

Way to go!

I've done a couple shoots in the school library and know exactly what you mean about feeling like an idiot. One thing that might help is that, although it feels like everyone is talking about how much of a moron you are, they're actually having fun. You'd be suprised how many random people will jump at the opportunity to watch the finished video that they saw being shot in the library that one time. And the craziest part is that they don't ever remember those "idiots" making a movie, they remember the fun... which is what its all about. Those we-made-it-in-15-minutes movies are always good for a couple laughs down the line too :).

I always welcome constructive criticism, which it seems you're going for here. Others can point out very usable mistakes and improvements, but usually you are your own BEST critic. You will kick yourself for a lot of stuff along the lines that others aren't concerned with. That's how you develop your own style.

Now for my critique :)...
One good practice to get into, especially with videos like yours, is making the viewer have to figure out what's going on. This can be as simple as opening with a tight shot or two before revealing everything that's going on in the scene. It makes the viewer think "What does this have to do with anything? I'd better watch more to find out."
Instead of the wide shot, you could have opened with a close-up of your pencil/paper, then your facial expression, then reveal to the library setting. It moves along faster and more naturally. Think of it like this, when you walk into a room, you don't notice the entire room right away. You notice the squeeky door, the diagram drawn on the chalkboard, the kid in the corner picking his nose, etc. Then you notice the entire room. Start taking a mental note of how you look at things, then edit the way you see.