I'm travelling for the next week, so I'll post mine now.

First, I had a real challenge with the lighting. This is probably due to poor equipment and inexperience on my part. The lighting situation caused the uneven look to the indoor shots. It also played a role in the flaws in the effects.

Second, I can sum up my acting like this: Bwahahaha!

I used a DVC30 Rode VideoMic to shot it. Lighting consisted of two 125 watt lights.

Editing was done with Premiere Pro 1.5. Much of the sound was created with Adobe Audition

Overall, I am disappointed with it because the effects did not turn out as well as I had hoped. I am learning a great deal, however, and ultimately, that was the primary reason that I signed up for this.

I am looking forward to your input.

I thought that this was very cool! Interesting concept and conclusion. You brought the reflections theme and the backdrop theme into the front of your story very well. And you pulled-off some aggressive effects work. Nicely done!

I thought that the effects were very good. How did you do the "dream stone lighting up" scenes? What software/plugins did you do for that? The only minor effects glitch that I noticed was in the background of the dream-stone handoff scene, which must have been a tough scene to do.

And the sound was wicked-cool (especially with my headphones on)!

Good job!
Bill

i wish i could view this, but i use a mac with flip4mac to view wmv files, and it doesn't let me download it. i tried saving it, but it only downloaded the front page of the website. it's got a compelling title, though! wish i could watch it...is there any way to bypass the front page which defaults to suggesting i download still! more! viewing software?

Scott:

I had hard time viewing too. Best way to do this is to allow just straight downloads so people can download and review a couple of times. The way it is set up now, we keep using up bandwidth try to watch the full film. I kept having it stop and start. Some people might not be as patient.

I finally was able to watch in full, and thought it was great. Special effect/split screen mirror scenes were great. I did notice a line with the the scene you were on the floor being handed stone.

Acting was great. I have the same problem you do, probably, can't stand to see our own acting.

I too am interested in what you used to get the light from the stone. After effects or something like that ?

I liked this, I thought the acting was bad in a good way; understandable since we're not actors, and it worked well enough to get the point across.

I would have liked a selection of different recordings of "Bring me the dream stone", it sounds like the one you have here is just repeated several times. And the scene at the (shiny, glass) breakfast table looks like the perfect place to add another conversation with your reflection. Unless the guy lives in the bathroom.

That split screen/matte work is hard, especially relying on natural light. Changes regularly, and the two halves may not always match. Having attempted it at all is commendable, and at least you become more familiar with the process.

I'm not sure if this allowed or not, but if Dylan gives the ok I'll post a link directly to the video, but it is quite large (about 75 MB). For the MAC users, I tried to render using Quicktime's format but ran into the bloated fuzzies that were described in a thread a couple of weeks ago. I have done some research and figured out how to produce a decent Quicktime version, but I am out of town at the moment. I'll have to post the QT version next week, after the contest.

I used the flash effect in PP 1.5 to light up the stone. Also, the low rumble you hear during the dream sequences was a sound that I picked up at one of the outdoor locations. I have no idea what it is and didn't even know I had it until I got home and looked at the footage. I just tweaked it a bit in Audition and then looped it. I think it really adds depth to the sound during the dream sequences.

I apoligize to the Mac users that haven't seen it. I will take care of you next week--although it will be after the contest. :(

Also, on my acting, I'm glad to hear that works well enough for the type of movie I made, but it is still painful to watch. I knew going in that I should avoid drama!

Hi Scott!

Love the title! Your film was good too. Yes- the special effects for the Dream Stone were very nice. Am not sure why you weren't pleased with them. I thought you did a wonderful job.

Don't be too hard on your acting. It wasn't so 'Bwahahaha'.

Did some split screen stuff myself and certainly understand the challenges these shots present. I ended up creating layers, exporting the clip out and back into the timeline, more layers and blending, export/import, etc. Perhaps that will help? Though I didn't find what you did to be overly obvious-so that's good. Perhaps sometimes, compression can be our friend.

Like Meryem, I have a mac and flipformac software too. Not sure why hers didn't work however, it took 1.5 hours before I could finally watch the whole thing through. Just as it finished up, my Firefox system crashed. Whew! Glad I got to see it.

Now as the contest goes on, I can't help but wonder when watching the next film...if there will be a guy standing in front of the sink either brushing his teeth or washing his face. It is interesting to see how many people worked with that concept.

Best Wishes~
Bradley

Now as the contest goes on, I can't help but wonder when watching the next film...if there will be a guy standing in front of the sink either brushing his teeth or washing his face. It is interesting to see how many people worked with that concept.


Bradley,

Dylan said that he'd double our score if we included a mirror scene with tooth-brushing or face-washing. Didn't you get that post? :)

In seriousness, I also found it interesting that many people went for the mirror with some twist on the reflection being different, and also that so many people did something different with it!

Bill

Bradley---------------> out re-shooting his entire film. Will not be back for several days. Please leave a message.

Seriously- Scott. You were the QT Bloated Fuzzies guy? I remember that post. It looks like you and I posted in your thread at almost the same time. I use a mac too and while it was a difficult download, I managed.

PP 1.5? Can you spell that one out for this uninformed individual?

Best Wishes~
Bradley

I liked your short film, and the story. It may be somewhat unoriginal, but it looks like you had fun with it. I really liked your sound design, pretty loud and atmospheric stuff.

scott, ed slonaker solved this for me in an e-mail. (bradley, maybe our browsers had something to do with it, since you're using firefox, and i'm using safari. i'm a bit of a dim bulb with web stuff....)

anyway, i just clicked on this link in safari, and it played in a teeny little 1 x 1 window. hard to get the full meaning in that size but better than nothing...

http://slygo.com/vids/ds1.wmv

I can tell you put a lot of work into it, and I really liked the idea. I almost wonder if it would have worked better if it was a different person in the mirror, or at least a different version of himself -- more animal-like or scary in some other way, like a jekyll/hyde kind of story. I could keep track of who was who in the mirror -- you kept the continuity there fine, I just wonder if the emotional impact would have been better.

I felt a little bit weird about the fact that he knew right where to go to find the dream stone, and while the stereo effects were good effects, I couldn't find a motivation for them -- were they cars on a highway, jets flying over, or just dreamy/weird dream noises?

I liked this, I thought the acting was bad in a good way; understandable since we're not actors,

Hey, some of us ARE actors!

Unfortunately, I too, have been unable to view this movie. Can you make it available as a link to a QT or wmv file?

Well, okay, most of us, then. Those of us who had to star in our own productions, that is. Yeah, there you go! That's what I meant.

You pick up a mean cup of coffee, though. Do you give lessons?

I'm not an actor! Is that good or bad ? (I do however teach acting classes, everthing I know I learned from watching tv with the sound turned off, Lessons 1-10 wag your head alot...:) True or False? You be the judge.[00

I really liked this film. I didn't think it was predictable and I thought the soundtrack was pretty cool (except for the annoying pppphhhhht during transition).

I gave the entire thing high marks. Since we're judging, one of my personal criteria is "Enjoyment factor", in this regard it scored high with me. I saw no major flaws in production and the story flows well. The special effects were very good. And I am always appreciative of obvious effort put into post production.

Seriously- Scott. You were the QT Bloated Fuzzies guy? I remember that post. It looks like you and I posted in your thread at almost the same time. I use a mac too and while it was a difficult download, I managed.

PP 1.5? Can you spell that one out for this uninformed individual?


Bradley, I wasn't the guy who started the bloated fuzzies thread, but I did run into the same problem.

Also, PP 1.5 is Premiere Pro 1.5.

Thanks.

I felt a little bit weird about the fact that he knew right where to go to find the dream stone, and while the stereo effects were good effects, I couldn't find a motivation for them -- were they cars on a highway, jets flying over, or just dreamy/weird dream noises?


I suppose I was trying create an other-wordly feel with the stereo effects. Plus, it's a dream, so not everything makes sense.

I seem to recall they were triple points if we used the dreaded cell phone...

I liked it too. It's pace and lack of motion in some scenes remid me of those bad Sci-Fi films on late at night or on slow Sundays on the Sci-Fi channel. Some of those things, like when they are waiting for a monster to pop out of a closet or something, seem to take a bit too long to happen. That would be a great thing in a spoof of Sci-Fi. I'll have to remember that.

I could also see the matte work in the initial mirror and later scenes. The concept was good however. I think there is an auto-match in Premiere that might have helped with the color and luminance balance to get the two overlapping images to look better. Also, if you have the option, use a soft border. It will disguize the edges much better. I try to use wipes to do a simple split screen. Sometimes you have to use a diagonal or other odd pattern to do it, like I did in mine.

You might also be able to create your own wipe patterns from a mask, like they do in some aftermarket plugins. You could actually draw your shape in photoshop, import it and use it as a wipe pattern and still use a soft edge. Very similar to mattes.

Overall, I like good B&W. If you had used a plugin to "age" it a bit, it would have had an old Sci-Fi movie feel to it even more.

I like the flare for the stone.

Sean McHenry

OK, here's a Quicktime version (as promised). At 59 MB it's still a bit large. It took me 5-10 minutes to download with a cable modem. I'll see if I can generate a smaller version without scarificing too much

http://slygo.com/vids/dreamstone000.mov

Also, here a 19 MB Windows Media Version. The sound quality is off just a bit, but it's not too bad, I guess.

http://slygo.com/vids/ds19.wmv

I liked it too. It's pace and lack of motion in some scenes remid me of those bad Sci-Fi films on late at night or on slow Sundays on the Sci-Fi channel.

If you are referring to the lack of motion in the intial dream sequence, that was due to some shaky camera work on my part. TO cut it out I had to use stills from the footage.


I could also see the matte work in the initial mirror and later scenes. The concept was good however. I think there is an auto-match in Premiere that might have helped with the color and luminance balance to get the two overlapping images to look better. Also, if you have the option, use a soft border. It will disguize the edges much better. I try to use wipes to do a simple split screen. Sometimes you have to use a diagonal or other odd pattern to do it, like I did in mine.

You might also be able to create your own wipe patterns from a mask, like they do in some aftermarket plugins. You could actually draw your shape in photoshop, import it and use it as a wipe pattern and still use a soft edge. Very similar to mattes.


The visible matte work is what I was so disappointed with. I played around with the auto-match effect but really couldn't get it to work for me. I tried to match the colors manually, eventually having to settle for what you saw because I was just running out of time.


Overall, I like good B&W. If you had used a plugin to "age" it a bit, it would have had an old Sci-Fi movie feel to it even more.


Premiere Pro has all kinds of effects to do this, but I didn't find anything that felt right. Most of them rendered the Dream Stone into something that was not recognizable, so again, in the interest of time I settle for what I had

i wish i could view this, but i use a mac with flip4mac to view wmv files, and it doesn't let me download it. i tried saving it, but it only downloaded the front page of the website. it's got a compelling title, though! wish i could watch it...is there any way to bypass the front page which defaults to suggesting i download still! more! viewing software?
I'm on a Mac, too, and initially it wouldn't download, but I did eventually. In Safari, click on Window at the top menu bar, then Activity. Scroll down until you find something in red (you may need to open up the folders). Double click on the red and it should download in a separate Windows Media Player pop-up window.

I used the Color Corrector in PP for most scenes in Burnt. And despite having the same lighting and positions, even with identical Color Correction settings the matted mirror didn't match. But a bit of tweaking fixed it. It did make a few outdoor bits grainy though - should have just over-exposed the sky to start.

I generally play with the contrast, brightness, contrast centre, sometimes the gamma, and also modify the colour curves. All within the CC filter. But it does take a fair bit of playing around, and I often find it hasn't improved things a great deal. After effects gives you more per-channel control, but takes even longer again. Though you can really enhance the contrast in areas you want if you know what you're doing - pity I don't.

To get any more sophisticated you'd need to do a blue/green screen for one version of yourself overlapping the other, but the lighting would get almost impossible to match. Cutaways would have helped with the jump cut, and only show one version of you. I know I found out the hard way, you can actually show (a lot) less and still illicit the same imagery in the viewer. And in my case probably not bore them as much.
Aside from the harsh edges with the (I'm guessing 4 or 8 point garbage) matte it worked pretty well. Why it doesn't offer soft edges I don't know.
You only learn by doing it, and then wish you knew what you now know before you started.