Hopefully the second link works. After all the trouble uploading, now that it's time to download, the original server had reached its bandwidth limit.
The .mov version is therefore unavailable. You will need a recent version of Xvid to watch, but at ~15MB for the video, it's still half the size and twice the quality.

And here is my pre-emptive rebuttle:
Not much went to plan - oh wait that was my fault, bad organisation. Much to learn for next time. Weather and wind did hamper our last minute dash.
I don't know if I tried to do too much, I don't think I could ever get it down to 3 mins. But hopefully it makes enough sense.
What can I say - we had bushfires recently, so the story grew around that.

Might need to find some experienced actors for next time. And a working JVC GY-DV500 would be nice too. This was shot with the PD150 - about 55mins on tape. Also used the Sennheiser ME66 for the main audio, the AT3031 was too wind prone. And I'm really stumped as to how to match indoor audio with outdoor. Maybe we didn't have enough mattresses, and the reverb is a factor.
The music was largely to drown out background hiss from rustling leaves.

If you can't watch the AVI I'll see what I can do about a mirror for the MOV file.

Comments, suggestions, criticise away. Now's not the time to be kind, it will only hurt in the long run.

When I tried to view it, the color was all messed up: like the green was physically higher or lower than the blue or the red so I'd see strange green, red, or blue jackets appearing over people's faces, etc. This made it essentially unwatchable for me. Don't know if I have a codec problem, if other folks have the same problem or if I'm the only one, etc.?

Anybody else have this issue?

Bill

Did you save it first, Bill? It looked fine when I did that.

Trouble is, it's been long enough ago that I watched it I don't want to give feedback yet. Five hours is a long time for me! :)

Hi Andrew,

I tried this morning to download your movie from both links. Both times it said "Bandwidth Exceeded". So thought I would try again tonight.

One of the links said the same thing. The second link downloaded the movie but I can't seem to watch it.

I'll try again tomorrow. Would like to watch your film.

Best Wishes~
Bradley

I was able to watch your film. Thought it was pretty well done. Left a bit lost at first trying to figure out what was going on, but it all made sense in the end. Nice job !!

finally was able to download it. Looks like a lot of work went into this. If I got it correctly, the guy is Schizo and what we see in the beginning is how he saw the event? we saw a dialog between his two personalities? then in the hospital we get what's happening when he looks in the mirror and in the reflection you see his other personality. This is how I took it. I liked the drama as it was unfolding between the two of them. I think the music took away a little from the mood though. I really liked the main actor, I thought he did a great job. Hope you had a bucket of water handy? hahaha

Did you save it first, Bill? It looked fine when I did that.


Yeah, I saved it first. Looks like everybody else wasn't having a problem, so...

I tried it playing it using VLC and it played fine, though still when I play it using Windows Media Player the colors are all messed up. Very strange...

Bill

Bill, I'm guessing this is a codec issue. Other codecs try to assert themselves in some cases. I have used G-Spot before to determine which filter/codec is being used to render the video. And it may require deregistering a codec or altering settings (if available). I had this problem trying to get Xvid to work properly at one stage - 3ivx kept asserting itself to decode, but made weird coloured blocks all over the picture. I think 3ivx has a config utility to set which files it decodes.

As for the film. Most of the time was spent on the script, though too much procrastination. And then some people can't even recite the lines off the page, but near enough ;-) It took a few takes to really get the drama happening, and I was forced to use the latter takes for this reason.
As for the audio/music. I ran out of time tweaking relative volumes and figuring out the best piece in each case. But without music the whole thing seemed a lot more hollow. It was the only real option for the pyro scenes; you may get an idea of how windy it was from viewing it - audio was not an option that day. Just lucky it wasn't raining and the fire lit, almost too well.
There's definitely a few points to note for future work, and that's the beauty of the competition, you force yourself to learn what you should have already.

Well, I sure hope your local fire department doesn't come across this video, but it was good. I think things may have dragged on a bit too long after we found out the big secret, however. We go through the whole fire scene again--maybe if you just showed the actual lighting of the blaze, or snippets of shots with only one actor from the same angles as before, and then go right to the doctor's office/hospital room. And the music may have been a little jovial, considering what we discover about Steven.

it seems like you're trying to squeeze a bit too much narrative into too little narrative space!

nice camerawork, though, maybe even a bit more "cabinet of dr. caligari-ish" weird angles would be in order. the music sort of subbed in for accentuated visual weirdness, which i would have preferred.

fun to watch though! i enjoyed trying to figure this one out. i played it using the VLC media player, and it looked great.

I too cannot watch it. It has no proper video codec. I can hear it as that is a standard format. I am faced with not being able to download and install other codecs as it plays havoc with my Avid editing software.

If anyone has the QT version or if they can convert it to something else, please let me know.

Sean McHenry

Hi Andrew!

I finally got to watch your film! Had to download the VLC player (thanks Meryem and William), open that program then open the avi within. Long story short - it worked!

I liked your story concept. Very nice. I was a pyro as a young child and in my foolishness, set a plot of land on fire with one of dad's lighters. I distinctly remember an old man eyeballing me while he dowsed the thing with a garden hose and spouted colorful bits of language in my general direction. I digress.

Would echo the sentiments already stated thus far and did like your camera work as well as the actors. Terrific accents!

I am curious about the tunnel vision effects used. Care to share?

Good job!

Best Wishes~
Bradley

I downloaded it at home and it played fine on my older system. Maybe Canopus ProCoder or Sorenson Squeeze added the codec I needed to my system but I got it now.

I liked the story idea. I think the music didn't really bother me and in fact I liked keeping it a bit light. Sort of a counterpoint to the action and the underlying story points. A bit like a Hitchcock episode with the light music in there.

I remember a story where a guy killed and disolved his wife in the bathtub. The guy was a teaching doctor and had all this odd medical stuff around his home. They couldn't pin it on him for lack of evidence, a theme I think that was similar to Rear Window. Anyway, on the way out the door heading to work at the end of the episode, he turned to the full skeleton hangning on the stand by the front door and said "goodbye dear." or something similar. The point being, to keep the story from becomming too real or macabre, the music he used was always a bit light and even bouncy.

I liked the story and the direction this was going.

Sean McHenry

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
If anybody is still having problems watching, Dylan has posted a third link, which is a Quicktime H264 version. I tried uploading a Sorenson one, but it kept failing.

I think a number of the problems / bad decisions stem from leaving the editing till too late on and running out of time. A test screen before the final version is created, would be good also, the other crew/cast only saw a couple of early edited portions before it was submitted.
I was playing around with some of the visuals, but render times were prohibitive for the time left - I stuck to colour correction and a few basics. The tunnel vision was a radial blur in Premiere - I just wanted to differentiate the flashback visually, and it was desaturated a fair bit too.
I have since tested a time echo with the asylum (hospital) scene and I think it helps. I'll probably keep tinkering until I get a better version - best way to learn is to fix your mistakes/omissions.

It's nice to hear some of the stories people have. It's OK, we're in the fire brigade, ignoring the fact it's the 'fire danger period'... it was for heating purposes I swear. And boots are effective for putting out small fires.
I've lit up our paddock before, roared straight up the gully. Dad made me put a fire break around it with the rake ho. But the bonfire is a typically annual event, and we've had some big ones. Still have to edit that footage.

The accents were free. I had enough trouble fulfilling my roles, dialogue coaching would have derailed the whole thing. I suppose the non-American accents stand out a little compared to the other films. So long as we don't need subtitles to be understood.

Looks like things are drawing to a close, votes should be tallied soon.

Lorinda, it's been a lot more than 5 hours now. And I am left wondering what you were waiting to say. But I appreciate you helping keep the twist a surprise.

It's probably time to think about honing a few skills, and making a wishlist (to build list) for the next competition. I know I won't be winning a dolly, so I'll have to settle for a makeshift one, and think about a steadycam. But I think the real skill is probably knowing when to use each, and when not to. Or just cheat and use more tape(s).