I couldn't watch the pilot, but watched the trailer. Looks good. Hey, you actually got me when he answered the phone, I had the volume up pretty good and wasn't expecting that... made me jump! Good luck with it.

While ago when i use to own a gs400, i cant wait to film from some different angles / chase boats with my new Canon XH A1

http://wakepics.com/view_single.php/Awaking-Production_wakeboarding-photos.html?medid=13538

Did anyone here participate in Apple's 2007 Insomnia Film Festival? Here is my entry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHxPEhPyVXI

A couple of friends of mine participated, I made a thread earlier but didn't mention the competition.
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=105723

I watched yours, and it was great. Pretty suspenseful, thought the man was going to pull out a gun, surprised me with the stuffed toy. Good work.

Here's a movie a made for the ChillerTV contest. It's about 6 1/2 minutes long. I think it came out pretty good for my first serious effort.

For the Red Wraith Trailer (about 30 seconds)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R16Jy6ekINw

For the Movie:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9DdCCHg3SgQ

If you need to download it instead, go to:
http://loney.youhoser.com/loney/redwraith.htm

Thanks. Did the effects, editting, and music myself.

I watched the trailer. I thought it was pretty good. Looked great. Funny.

I liked it, I'm not one for tv shows, but I think you're onto something, I could see that getting picked up.

We had tripods with us that day, but we decided not to use them because we agreed the handheld style would suit the movie well..

Maybe could look better with the use of a tripod.
Never know..

Thanks for the comment!

Well, here is a cut from a concert i did recently in Dallas. I am dissapointed that I had to cancel my hd truck 8 camera budget at the last minute. I shot the concert with 2 F-900's and a Z-1. I also had to scale the lighting back and so the Z-1 gets pretty soft depending on the lighting. There's not a lot more I can do since there were only 3 cameras but anyway, what do you think?

web.mac.com/yasgur

Thanks guys... glad you liked it.

Yeah, there was one studio that implied they would buy it, but they didn't think they could sell it to a network because the logline is too much like Chuck (even though the show itself is not).

Thanks, we were going for a hitchcock kinda thing. I only mentioned the competition because I posted a thread about a few little shorts I had made earlier and no one commented or anything. I liked you short, it was well shot. What did you shoot it with? I really like the colors.

Ok, so I shot this and sorta edited it in a hurry for fest back in 2005, and spent some time last year and more in the past month making it much better. So I present it here.

http://www.joshbass.com/alarmclock.wmv

35mb
15 minutes
WMV format

Disclaimer:

Do not under any circumstances try this anywhere!

Absolutely no one was hurt during the filming of this parody.

This is my parody of the Andy Samberg sketch "People getting punched just before they eat." Shot with a HDR-HC7 and edited in 1080 24p.

http://stage6.divx.com/user/jackvancouver/video/1755486/

Direct Download: http://video.stage6.com/1755486/.divx

Just in case you haven't seen the original, go on NBC's Youtube channel or website to check it out.

Oh the drama of trying to direct Grade 9 students to act...

Here are my thoughts. Please take them as constructive.

1. The sound has to be fixed. It sounds like what you did, which is ADR, but not good ADR. You are watching an image of guys OUTSIDE in the desert, but their voices sound like they are in a bathroom. That completely threw me off, especially since the opening shot had me in a positive way, until they began to talk. Maybe it was youtube transfer but it sounded bad.

2. The deliberate blurring to get a shallow DOF also has to go. It looks like bad effects. If it is just the youtube transfer then I apologize.

3. The music also has to go. It’s too distracting and doesn't fit. It sounds like a bad horror murder mystery from the 40s. Maybe just use sound effects if you can't fund the right music.

4. The acting you can't change, but next time, spent time working on getting better actors. People don't judge a movie by the 'effort" t hey judge by what they see. I commonly hear, "we couldn't afford to cast the film" or we didn't have time to cast." That is the biggest mistake. People can deal with good actors but poor production, but they cannot deal with bad acting and good production.

5. The Special effects need work, but I would suggest getting rid of them if you can't improve them. Edit in a way so you don't need to see the effects, cause they are humorous (not good). The lens flare doesn’t work and been done a million times. It comes off as amateur and you don’t want that.

6. The premise of the story has been done so many times, so next time try to come up with something original. Better yet, write about something unique that happened to you or a friend, not what you have seen in other movies you like.

On the positive side, the camera moves were better than most I see and the over all cinematography was good. Again especially the opening shot, which gave it some professional feel to it. Other than that, I think you should do a few things different next time.

a. Come up with an original idea
b. Spend time writing and rewriting and have people critique the script.
c. Take your time casting
d. Take time to rehearse

Hope that helps

Thanks for checking out my movie. It was my first big effort so I knew it would have problems.

1. We had did this in about 12 days. From the first day of shooting was 9 days. And that was the deadline.

2. The audio on day 2 which was the first 1:45 and the last 40 seconds or so was almost completely shot. And without time to do it again (that pesky deadline) we had to overdub by watching ourselves speak. Unfortunately it made the acting cheesy and the audio sound very unnatural. You'll notice that once we are in the canyon, it goes to natural audio and is much better.

3. You're right that we did not rehearse at all. We were learning lines between takes which is not good.

4. Some fake-DOF was to hide logos on the actresses shirt. But others were on purpose.

5. I have to argue with you on my music though. I thought I did a good job. Better than the techno loops and crap most indie movies I see use. I recorded it myself and I've received many complements on it. Also I did 6:17 of music in a day and half which is really something. Of course, you're entitled to your opinion.

6. As far as my effects, some are good, some not. Hey I'm new. And every shot had effects. It was all day to night converted. Sky replacements were my best effects. The wraith just needed a little extra to look like more than just a guy in a costume.

I got your idea of doing handheld on the closer shots. It felt natural there, but long shots with slow action made me start thinking about the camera. It was mostly the shots at the gas station in the beginning where less movement seemed appropriate. Maybe a monopod would split the difference between too static and too jerky? Were you zoomed in? Zooming amplifies camera movement.

By the way, I'm curious if I was starting to understand the story. What ideas were you trying to convey? Was it something about learning to adapt to adversity?

I'm assuming that the Z1 is the camera in the balcony? It really didn't look bad, but that camera position wasn't as good as the others.

I listened with headphones and the audio sounds good. That's most important.

Were you directing the cameras through a live switch or was this three separate tapes you edited together?

I think this is perfect as an old b-movie. It has the look and feel of a 60s/70s b-movie. I think some of the digital effects should be removed to make it look appropriate for a period low-budget scary movie. The day-for-night and imperfect ADR go exactly with the style of music. I'm not joking, I think you have a perfect kitschiness with everything and should just have the glowing eyes and red robes effects. The digital spurting blood and warped face at the end ruined the effect for me.

Change the effects and this movie would be perfect as the movie that plays on the TV of your next movie.

Hey, I just had an idea. We should get DVInfoers to share videos so we can cross-promote each other. Play your movies inside other people's movies! We could also get people to shoot scenes like fake news footage for each other.

Probably the most horrifying movie I've seen on DVInfo.net. The worst dream I ever had was much like that.

The only thing I thought sucked was the music at the end. I think those lyrics weren't very original and the singer has a whiny voice.

The web site didn't seem to want to load in my browser and the download would be over an hour and a half. 314 megabytes may be a bit large for most but I'll try again tomorrow.

4. Some fake-DOF was to hide logos on the actresses shirt. But others were on purpose.

Don't worry about logos. You are doing a short, not a feature for commercial release. It takes away from the movie.

. I have to argue with you on my music though. I thought I did a good job. Better than the techno loops and crap most indie movies I see use. I recorded it myself and I've received many complements on it. Also I did 6:17 of music in a day and half which is really something. Of course, you're entitled to your opinion.

Yeah, it is my opinion, but I will say this in my defense. I have a good eye, and 99% of people that praise your work, either they don't know any better, or are trying to be polite. It happens to me too so I try to surround myself with people that not only KNOW what they are talking about, but more importantly are honest.

6. As far as my effects, some are good, some not. Hey I'm new. And every shot had effects. It was all day to night converted. Sky replacements were my best effects. The wraith just needed a little extra to look like more than just a guy in a costume.

Everyone is "new." That's no excuse for making bad choices. I have seen new people make amazing and original stuff and unfortunately majority of new people make unoriginal films. Again, you can't put a disclaimer in the beginning of your movie saying you are new, we had only so much money and time, we had problems etc. No one cares about that. They will judge your movie as they see it. If you are just doing this for fun all the comments won't matter, but if you are trying to advance a career the comments do matter. If I can't get it to where I want it to be I leave it out. I don't use effects or other bad stuff.

I think I hear the excuses from pratically everyone, and I have done so myself, but a friend told me what I am telling you, and I know he is right. "Don't use excuses because others are." Bacsially I was saying the same things you and everyone are telling me. No time, no money, new at this, its not as bad as others, etc.

I am only being harsh because most won't. Its the same reason why you have people going on American Idol who can't sing, but no one wants to tell them, except Simon. Now, I'm not saying you can't make films. I'm saying make better choices with what you have and you will improve. Hopefully also learn.

Another lesson is you can't improve and learn from great comments. You can, however, improve and learn from constructive comments.

Don't compare your music to the bad music that are used in many indie films. Just because they use a poor choice of music, doesn't mean you should. The music isn't bad, it just doesn't work unless you are making a comedy. Its distracting the scenes and overly dramatic.

:To Brian Dunke

I thank you for your review and you don't have to defend your opinion. I was mostly explaining why some of the things you saw were there. Like, for example, the audio at the beginning. I would've reshot those scenes had I had the time.

Of course on the music, we'll agree to disagree. That's my style. And I'm not offended, in fact I thank you for telling me what you think.

And as far as the logos, this is for a contest and this will play on the Chiller Channel. I've already sent them a DVD to be part of the Halloween Marathon. I'm thrilled to get my first attempt on TV.

This whole process was alot of fun, stressful, but alot of fun. I'm looking forward to making another and fix as many things as I can.

Yeah, the Z-1 is the one in the balcony. He stayed around the stage normally but later in the show he was trying to add a few new shots to break up the whole concert. The first two were on sticks so not much variety there other than zooming in on solos and such. We iso'd the cameras and I did the multicam edit in FCP2. This is just rough audio. the mix just got finished and will go to mastering in a week or so. BTW, I captured to Pro Res 422 HQ, even the Z-1.

Jeff

Very nice. it was fun to see Michael Murphey after all these years as well. Looks fantastic. Sounds terrific. I was totally comfortable with the amount of coverage that you got. We shoot a lot of live shows, and as a viewer, I didn't feel like you skimped at any point. If you hadn't talked about your plans to have more cameras, it wouldn't have occurred watching that you needed more.

I'd say less zooming next time out, though. There were a few times I wanted the camera to just hold still.

But overall, really very nice. Congrats.

Lori,

Thanks for the comments. I only used the zooms because I thought the movement would take away from the fact of viewers "noticing" the same old shot. I almost thought it gave the air of doubling the profiles.

Thanks again.

Jeff

I will redo the end vocals in a lower register.

Yeah, the max bitrate is 12Mbps. Best quality at the cost of a huge file.

Crap, I can't tell if you are joking or not. Humor just doesn't work on the internet. You do know I was joking, right?

I was partly serious about how scary your movie is. I had a dream once that I got up and did all the steps necessary to get ready for school then the alarm went off. I had to do all the drudgery of getting ready all over again. The real problem was that I hated school and when I woke up I thought it was one of those Saturday morning nightmares and I really didn't have to go to school at all that day. Unfortunately, it was a school day and the feeling of dread that came over me was chilling.

"I was partly serious about how scary your movie is." I can't figure out how to end that sentence without using a preposition.

BTW, I made my first comment vague so I wouldn't spoil it for anyone. It really is quite good for a no-budget movie with a small crew. I actually felt bad that it has some corporate logos in it because that would prevent it from distribution. This would be a perfect short for something like IFC.

How did you do the silhouette against the setting sun? Was it just a luminance key against a white background?

That really is me singing at the end. I can't really sing period, but I can be less awful in a lower register.

Corporate logos. . .I don't fret too much about that stuff. If someone really wants my film, we'll work out some kind of arrangement. I can blur it if need be, or maybe whoever makes lucky charms will be thrilled. Not like I portrayed them in a bad light. Filmmakers get too caught up in worrying about this stuff. If you make a big enough splash for someone who has any reason to care to notice your work, that's a good thing, right?


Sunset, it was complicated layering stuff all done in Vegas.

When we actually shot it, we used a coral or something grad filter, sunset grad that is, over the lens to turn a regular colored evening-ish sky to a deep red. It is actually shot in silhouette (though I probably deepened the contrast later) I found the red keyed out pretty well with Vegas, so there's a background layer that's the image with nothign keyed out, a layer that's the silhouette, with the red keyed out, and a sunset layer in between. The sunset's a solid color layer with some FX for the gradient look, plus a cookie cutter or something (sorry, I did this part about a year ago) to make it circular. I recall I had issues with the tree leaves jittering from the chroma key, and may have used still frame/mask combo to reduce that where it was an issue. I can look at the proj file deeply if you're really curious.

"That really is me singing at the end." I know. I thought it was pretty funny, as intended. It's a rather good parody of many "metal" vocalists. I certainly don't think you should redo the vocals. They were perfect for what you intended. I think all the casting was excellent. I believe you played Slash convincingly and I couldn't say enough good things about the lingerie woman. The main character played a perfect Joe Average.

"Filmmakers get too caught up in worrying about this stuff. (logog)" You are probably right as long as things aren't put in a bad light. I do recall that Insinkerator sued the producers of Heroes last year because the indestructible girl put her hand in the garbage disposal and their company name was clearly shown.

No need to elaborate on your FX. You did it as I figured it must be done.

This movie sometimes reminded me of "Army of Darkness" in certain scenes. It was also in a similar overly dramatic comedy tone which I liked. Again, good job. I hope to make a movie this entertaining some day.

Glad you liked. Even the metal guys hit their notes most of the time, though.


Anyway, I will send it out to appropriate fests, and if people have a problem with the logos, I'll deal with it then. I should be so lucky to the get the viewership of "Heroes".

Hi all i just finished this music video by a local group called LXG
fell free to comment

here is the link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo3NzGeuLTI

Why not try to upload a smaller file..a lot of computers cant play streaming video at that rate( at least mine cant). I managed to dowload the first 40 seconds or so but all I got was jerky slow motion. In the digital age, our attentions spans are not that long. Grab us in the first 10 seconds or loose us.

Why not try to upload a smaller file..a lot of computers cant play streaming video at that rate( at least mine cant). I managed to dowload the first 40 seconds or so but all I got was jerky slow motion. In the digital age, our attentions spans are not that long. Grab us in the first 10 seconds or loose us.

Maybe we could start learning to be a bit more patient? Besides, he provided the secondary link for a direct download.

Kind of... The adversity is that she has nowhere to go, nor someone to talk to. She's all by herself. So she's constantly in search of human contact by hitch-hiking randomly at gas stations. That's her sad routine.

But ask yourself these questions:

- Does she really adapt to it?
- Does she feel content?


..Hope that helps a little bit.

By the way: yes, I was a little zoomed in for the opening shots.

Hey guys,

I recently created a short film for the Apple Insomnia Film Festival. We had to write, shoot, and edit the film within 24 hours using elements given by Apple. The 25 films with the highest ratings will be viewed by top directors and writers in Hollywood. Two winners will be chosen out of those 25 top films. Please register and rate our film. The link is located below. If you have any problems registering or rating, please shoot me an email or reply to this thread. Thanks!


http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=505

(We are from St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco.)



Michael Rapadas
invisionit@mac.com

http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=1035

My first time doing one of these time-limited contests, as well as my first time to use my XH-A1 for something other than test footage.

Made for the Insomnia Film Festival, with a Sony FX-1 and Brevis with zoom lens, about two pickpockets who inadvertantly pinch the other's wallet.

http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=1381

I'd appreciate a rating or even a comment!

Well it's a little odd but here's our attempt at the Insomnia 24 hour Contest. It's called Heads Will Roll

Thanks in advance for voting.

http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=1123

Let me know what you think. I was in charge of filming and editing on this project

Hey all,

Im currently making a new webseries called Brothers. It focuses on a group of college students, but from a rather different angle.

Episode 1 can be viewed at www.RIZVILIA.com.
Episode 2 will be uploaded this week.

Hope you enjoy!

http://rizvilia.com/brosep1.htm

http://www.sonic-hubrecords.com/films.html

It's our first movie... going well so far. Extra shoots being planned for the bits we missed... 80% of it shot already.

Any feedback appreciated...

Cheers

S

twas st thomas :-)

Just another small scene form the Feature I am finishing. Its not done yet, but we are getting close. Any thoughts would be nice, positive or negative.

Its scene "65 A" From Last Score:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=SuperbadDuke

So here is my entry for the festival. This turned out to be a nightmare experience, since the rest of my team didn't have a clue of what they were doing or how to do it.

So it basically ended up being me brainstorming, directing, filming, and editing mostly on my own. Major props go to my friend who starred in this - with no previous acting efforts, and to my uncle for helping me come up with music in Garageband.

I know it may not be the most polished entry compared to some others I have seen, but I think my concept is pretty creative and makes up for my lack of more eleborate filming techniques.

Feedback is appreciated - votes are nice too!

http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=1721

I would just like to add the link to the Apple page, my page is down for now.

http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=309

Channel 5. 1130, 1730 and 1900.

If all goes well in a meeting tomorrow I will be commissioned to turn it into a half hour for TX next month. Fingers crossed. Will be my first fully Brevis broadcast doco.

You can see part three also on my website under anorexia films as soon as it has finished uploading!!

Here is the new link for my music video, comments are welcome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KFj9iOl7v4

Hey James,

The video looks really good. :) Did you use a chromakey setup or a projection screen for the singing in front of the stills/logo shots?

The scenes near the graves could be brightened up a bit. The sky is blown out so it shouldn't cause any problems with that.

I noticed a lot of reflector movement on the walking shots and a bit on the New Orleans Ave sign but it's not too bad.

Is this project completely done with or are you still working on it? It looks really good overall. :)

Eric

here's a video i made of my friend stouffer's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFb-t60jLow

http://edcommunity.apple.com/insomnia_fall07/item.php?itemID=1589

Hello everyone, I wanted to share with you my first 3 min. film that just qualified for the Apple Insomnia Film contest!!!

Im asking a huge favor:
- click on the link above
- click on the Red X for PC's, or launch quicktime for Macs to watch the movie
- log in or create an ID to vote.

The contest prize for the winner is for $10,000 in computer and software. If you can, please vote for my film. I was a one man team, the main actor, and had to direct a 1 and 3 year old. Tough to make it work. Thank you all again for viewing and for your helpful support.

Peace and Blessings,
Danny Hidalgo