Hi Everybody,

Well, I sat down to watch all the films today. Ahead of time I thought that this would be more fair, so I didn't rate all the Tuesday films poorly just because I was tired or all the Thursday films highly because I had a great day, etc. However, after watching all 30 I must admit that I'm a little bit bleary eyed. Maybe next time I'll watch half on one day and half on the next day.

Anyway, my main comment is how enjoyable all the films were. I truly saw no "duds" this time. So, a big "thank you" to everybody who entered. Good job, everybody! The quality was really very high this time through.

So, I'm done watching all the films and sitting here looking at all the kudos I jotted down. The last thing I want to do is split my comments into 20-30 different postings in 20-30 different threads. Yet, I want to let folks know what particularly stood out for me as I was watching all of the films. So...

Below is my "big list of kudos" on the films, grouped by type but in no particular order. Thanks again to everybody.
Bill

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EFFECTS:

Ferling-PlanB: Nice special effects with the meteor thing, and with the "missile" at the end!

Holodak-Replaced: Nice work with the "news effects"/greenscreen stuff!

Broussard-Spontaneity: Also nice work with the "news effects"/greenscreen stuff!

Ahye-FaceTheProblem: Nice work on the "zipping to the sun" stuff. Even the title disappearing behind the character at the start! Love the attention to detail here.

Martens-ThatWouldn'tHappen: Like the shack on the moon shots (though it's either a really big shack or a really small moon! :).


LOCATIONS:

Ferling-PlanB: Cool basement location, and nice shot up the elevator! Where was that?

Silver-BrightSide: Great looking planet shots.


LAUGHS:

Barcellos-WhyMyMovieStinks: Loved the feet! :)

Tyler-DogDays: Fan gets run down. :) Flips the finger, then pushes up the sunglasses. :)

Kahye-Plato/Cave: Guys in the cave. :) Great props with the chains and headgear!

Norton-Mirage: Loved the beers being taken back at the end! :)

Hood-BrandNewDay: :)


STORY:

Huenergardt-FreshBaked: Nice concept and story!

Teutch-MansBestFriend: Cute story!

Tyler-DogDays: Nice story!

Kahye-Plato/Cave: Funny work!


CINEMETOGRAPHY/EDITING/OVERALL LOOK:

Huenergardt-FreshBaked: Really nice shot composition and editing! A joy to watch.

Tyler-DogDays: Really pretty film! Nice video work, and nice shot selection.

Fossenkemper-RaBoogie: Beautiful shots, and all edited together flawlessly! Loved the "pan to the beat" shot.

Mays-Mandy'sLetter: Always love Dick's camera movement and shot selection. Very pretty!

Ahye-FaceTheProblem: Love the total look of this film! Focus pulls, editing, shot selection. Looks great!

Davie-StrivingAfterWind: Beautiful film. Lighting, dolly shots, composition, etc.

Gan-Prophecy: Nice lighting/camera movement/shot selection in the first scene. Day for night shots didn't work as well, unfortunately. Nice camera motion throughout.

Jesselli-Tageslicht8/17: Nice looking film. Cool shot selections.

Silver-BrightSide: Very nicely shot and edited.


LIGHTING:

McHenry-BentRays: Nice lighting in the interview. Foreground/ background, key and fill, color all looks very pro.

Kahye-Plato/Cave: Great lighting in the cave scene!

Davie-StrivingAfterWind: Really nice lighting. How did you light that first shot and get the interior and exterior both lit correctly? Did you completely blast the interior with light, or ND gel the windows, or what? Tell me, please?! :) This is so often done poorly with windows being totally blown out, and it's so notoriously difficult to do with video that I'd really love to hear the details regarding how you did this!


CHARACTERS:

Tomchuk-CanadianBistroDivision: Enjoyed the quirky interactions.

Davie-StrivingAfterWind: Really good acting, especially for kids!


MUSIC and/or SOUND:
Fossenkemper-RaBoogie.
Tyler-DogDays.
Ahye-FaceTheProblem.
Hood-BrandNewDay.
Martens-ThatWouldn'tHappen.
Jesselli-Tageslicht8/17.
DiMauro-SUN.

(And a nudge to everybody who entered with no music: add some music next time! Even a little music goes a long way to help set the mood)

Thanks one more time to everybody,
Bill

Thanks for the kudos, Bill, as well as taking the time to make all these comments.

To answer your question about the INT/EXT shot, I actually didn't do all that much to get it to work. The basic idea was, like you said, to blast the interior with light. In our case, that just meant pointing a 500W Omni at the subject with the least material possible inbetween. That just mean't that instead of putting some kind of diffusion in there as usual, I left it hard, putting no more than a 1/4 (maybe 1/2, but I think 1/4) CTB gel in front of the light, just to keep the color temps semi close. That's basically all I did, besides setting the exposure to what seemed like a happy medium, maybe even a little biased towards the exterior. However, the situation was greatly helped by the fact that the front yard was heavily shaded by trees, making the difference in brightness less severe. I hope that answers it for you. :)

Hey Bill, anymore "SUN" and you'll run out of actors...

You wanted to know of the location for plan B (I forgot to include that, thanks for the reminder). I started a thread and posted it there to keep things tidy. Go to #3.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=533844#post533844

Kind of hate to admit this since it got me kudos, but there was no greenscreen involved. To be honest I fear greenscreen because I've never managed to light it well enough so now I avoid it. The lower thirds and backgrounds were all Live Type and the letter was a few Photoshop layers.

Jeez, I feel like you're taking attendance in gym class. "Martens!" "Here."

Thanks for the notes, Bill! All credit for the music--and even, ultimately, the story--must go to Aamu (http://pakkasherra.com/aamu), who I'm making every attempt to mention. Went browsing unsignedbandweb.com (http://www.unsignedbandweb.com/) after Sean McHenry mentioned it last contest, and heard this guy's work. Listening to "Crescent Moon Theme" gave me the story, and I synced everything up in my head. Didn't do such a good job turning that into video, unfortunately: the shot where my prospector puts down his book and looks at the newspaper was stretched out a bit long, but I needed to get that section of music to match the pan across the picture frame. I have read a thing or two about music editing, and even tried it out once or twice with decent results, but I didn't want to hack up this music with so little experience, so I left it intact.

As for the Moon, well, yeah, I picture it as being tiny, not the shack being big. The image I used is only so high resolution (1200x1200), and it breaks down under scrutiny as is. I also needed the shack to be visible on screen, especially hard when the whole thing is supposed to be dark. If I'd built it to scale--and honestly, I don't know what "to scale" would be in this case--either the shack would be tiny and hard to make out, or the Moon would be up close and blurry. Had to pick a balance, and decided to lean more toward the "story book" look that was mentioned in my film's feedback thread, which I've convinced myself was my original intent when imagining the film.

And really, considering it's a homemade wooden shack on the surface of the Moon (which leaves its orbit after the Sun disappears), I wasn't terribly worried about scientific accuracy, and I didn't think most people would care in the end. If they're concerned that I'm breaking the laws of physics, well, I've already lost them.

Kind of hate to admit this since it got me kudos, but there was no greenscreen involved. To be honest I fear greenscreen because I've never managed to light it well enough so now I avoid it. The lower thirds and backgrounds were all Live Type and the letter was a few Photoshop layers.
D'oh! Cut and paste error. I already wrote the comment for Bruce's TV News one and just cut and pasted the comment. Then, when editing my comments I moved them around and forgot about the additional greenscreen comment. (and put in the "also" for Bruce's one). Sorry about that.

But, hopefully you know what I mean: nice titles and text, blurred "anonymous" folks, text bullets on the letter, etc. Really nice work on all of that stuff.

Bill