Shot this film as an exercise to tryout my homemade 35mm adapter, fashioned after the Redrock Micro35 plans I bought about a year ago.

Shot with FX1 in fairly dim conditions with supplemental lighting. An all family affair. My daughter and son-in-law are the actors, music by brother and sister in law..

Very nice work, Chris! I really liked that it had a good, coherent story which I know is hard to pull off in 3 minutes. Nice lighting, nice music. I liked the intro shots and the shots by the fireplace in particular. Also, a nice clean web version, too.

I didn't see much in the way of "shallow depth of field" that usually jump out at me when 35mm adapters are used: what lenses did you use, and did you try to push the shallow depth of field at all?

Good job!
Bill

Depth of field transitions were attemped with the bedroom scene at the beginning. Will show up a bit better in the higher definition version. And with 3 takes shot rapidly because of time constraint, could have done better job... but if its not noticed, that may be good too....

My adapter was built for Pentax lenses I had. I shot this with the 55mm at 1.4 (wide open). Camera wide open too, with gain at 9.

Nice, nice work, Chris. You and your family are all so talented! The music almost took away from the story because I kept thinking, “Dang, that’s a good song!” :)

What I want to know is, where did you get that opening sequence? That was amazing. Also, I applaud you for your camera work in low light; everyone knows how hard that is to pull off. You did it very well.

Loved the intro. I need some of those pills, hahaha. Liked the 35mm adapter look, maybe could have used more light with it, those things eat light a lot. Fire looked great and very clean. But the bedroom stuff was a bit grainy looking which was very cool until you saw how sharp the fire scene looked. Only then did the grain in the bedroom scene jump out. I think my favorite shot is right after the first shot. I loved the camera angle and the shallow DOF of him sitting up in bed. Is your adapter a spinning GG adapter? if so, did you have any noise issues from it to deal with?

I liked your story concept and was drawn in right at the beginning. Your actors did a great job too. Well done!

Very nice beginning bedroom scene and your rack focus shot was excellent. Noted a cool blue and soft look (nice) to most of the scenes with the exception of the "take it now" shot and the closet shot. A marked difference in the "feel" of these. May I ask if that was what you were going for?

As the piece moved along, thought that the beautiful song "Amelia" fought with the imagery a bit in places.

A total family affair? How cool is that? If I tried to get all of my family together to do a short film...well, that would never happen.

Would it be possible to have you post a pic or two of your home made 35mm adaptor? I would love to see that.

Best wishes~
Bradley

Loved the mood lighting, subject matter, original music and rack focus/depth of field. Also, I am in full agreement with your message. Job well done.

Nice, nice work, Chris. You and your family are all so talented! The music almost took away from the story because I kept thinking, “Dang, that’s a good song!” :)

What I want to know is, where did you get that opening sequence? That was amazing. Also, I applaud you for your camera work in low light; everyone knows how hard that is to pull off. You did it very well.

My son-in-law was an instructor at the local fire acadaemy. I shot that at a demonstration they had...Did stretch and simulated explosion in post, of course.

My brother and sister and law have been musicians for 40 years. They did the snow lodge circuit for years, and do a lot of blue grass and folk stuff... I was worried the music was too good for the film... but what the heck, I always liked that song....

.
Very nice beginning bedroom scene and your rack focus shot was excellent. Noted a cool blue and soft look (nice) to most of the scenes with the exception of the "take it now" shot and the closet shot. A marked difference in the "feel" of these. May I ask if that was what you were going for?

As the piece moved along, thought that the beautiful song "Amelia" fought with the imagery a bit in places.



Color correction was a rush thing, and used a bare bulb in the closet, so it was starker, and a bit different. However, I went with it because it was meant to be a stark change in the situation...

Agree that "Amelia" could probably distract the viewer, and I had planned not to use it, but in end, just used it because I thought people would rather hear that, than the old Cinescore stuff....

See pic of adapter attached.

Loved the intro. I need some of those pills, hahaha. Liked the 35mm adapter look, maybe could have used more light with it, those things eat light a lot. Fire looked great and very clean. But the bedroom stuff was a bit grainy looking which was very cool until you saw how sharp the fire scene looked. Only then did the grain in the bedroom scene jump out. I think my favorite shot is right after the first shot. I loved the camera angle and the shallow DOF of him sitting up in bed. Is your adapter a spinning GG adapter? if so, did you have any noise issues from it to deal with?

I did light with a soft light, but it was a fight keeping it look like a bedroom seen.

Adapter is spinner, yes, based pm Redrocks DIY plans. Noise meaning sound, or noise in the image ?. See pick I posted in response to Brad's above. I was actually concerned about sound noise from adapter. It buzzes a bit. Mic was off camera, ME66, and in phones I thought I picked it up, but I never heard it when I played back...

I loved the lighting in this one, very nice. I wasn't sure where the story was going but you more than made up for it at the end. I won't give it away...

Nicely done,

Mike

Nice adapter. That is quite the set up! Thanks for posting the picture.

Best wishes~
Bradley

man is that some setup. looks like a weapon. yeah I was talking about the motor noise being picked up. I couldn't hear it and was wondering if you took great measures to not pick it up. It looks like an on camera mic would pick it up really well though.

This is my favorite soundtrack so far; there's a moment or two where the vocals overlap the film's dialogue, but it's still intelligible, so it wasn't a big deal for me.

I don't think his wife needs to specify that it was an "explosion" during the conversation in bed at the beginning, and there was some reverb in that scene, but the rest of the film's audio sounded superb, especially in the closet. I suspect the clothing helped prevent stray echoes, 'cause it's great stuff. And I liked the ending, though I'm not sure I would have ended on a freeze frame. Thought there was some sort of Media Player problem at first.

I see you had the gain up to nine on your camera? Impressive, I didn't see any grain. And I'm even more impressed once I read that the blue cast was intentional (I think the blacks in those scenes are a little washed out, might want to bring them down a bit). Good job on both film and adapter!

I think the blacks in those scenes are a little washed out, might want to bring them down a bit.

Yeah, I was fighting that all the way. If I brought blacks down, I started to lose our hero's face, so I had to settle. I do think in conversion to either of the formats I chose, you do tend to lose more in the blacks at encoding. Seems to be an issue others have raised.

Good work Chris, I liked your short film.
Your handled that 35mm adapter well.
(I saw the picture of that cannon you call a camera :P)

Anyways back to the film. I'm not sure how the pills erased his memory so well that he forgot his wife, (that is a messed up situation.)
What I really wanted to see in the end was the reaction of the wife to his condition.

The audio sounded crystal clear and it was topped off with such nice music.
The blacks could have been crushed more (you already explained that), the scene by the fireplace looked really good. Oh and that firefighter footage in the beginning fit in so well.

I was not expecting that ending and it was a pleasent suprise. Good job.

That 35mm adapter gives one great look, where did you get the plans for it?

I was not expecting that ending and it was a pleasent suprise. Good job.

That 35mm adapter gives one great look, where did you get the plans for it?

Go to www.redrock.com site, they still have them available I think. Along with plans, they give you a "ground glass" disk (Actually plastic.) As far as my rail system, etc., it just what I cobbled together with Home Depot aluminum tubing...

what a dreadful wife! blech. maybe she should go get a job instead of hounding him. i guess memory loss pills are cheaper than divorce!

nice job. great opening.

what a dreadful wife! blech. maybe she should go get a job instead of hounding him. i guess memory loss pills are cheaper than divorce!

Hahaha!!!!! I never looked at it that way, Meryem. Hilarious take on it! :)

Very impressive.
I very much like the depth of field changes when they are talking on the bed...
And it was a good story, with a nice twist at the end.

Bob T.

Go to www.redrock.com site, they still have them available I think. Along with plans, they give you a "ground glass" disk (Actually plastic.) As far as my rail system, etc., it just what I cobbled together with Home Depot aluminum tubing...

Tried the site and it was a dead link. Do you have any plans from the rail system? Looks pretty slick.

Hey Alex. Just checked site, working from this side okay.

No plans for rail system, and I will probably do some changes, but here is photo anyway. Mostly cut tubing and drilled holes, and bolted together.

Check my thread out here for more photos: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=80383

I believe you're looking for http://www.redrockmicro.com/. The other one goes to some sort of Canadian telecommunications company.

I believe you're looking for http://www.redrockmicro.com/. The other one goes to some sort of Canadian telecommunications company.

Duhhh ! I thought when he said he got a dead link, he was talking about to my film...... Robert is right. Sorry about the wrong link.

I know a bunch of this has already been said...but....

Loved your opening shot and the effect you added to it...I also love how you faded to orange to signify flames...very nice!

I also really liked the scenes by the fireplace, beautifully lit!

The way you used really long shots was cool too...reminds me of French New Wave films...and even a few indie films I've seen recently...nicely done!

Nice twist at the end too...Its very funny that the wife ended up being a "bad memory" too....lol you some how made the film serious and humorous at the same time...g'job!

I must say the twist in the end didn't surprise me but his line sure did. He remembers it's his closet but not his talking to him. I like that aspect of it. The pill wipes out only the bad memories but keeps the good ones. Now I'm wondering what he does in that closet that makes it a good memory. LOL

Excellent job you guys.

Chris,

This short really touched me. My last job before retiring was civilian staff photographer at an air force training base that has a fire training academy. I used to do a lot of still photography of many of their training exercises and I've seen and photographed stuff like your opening scenes.

The people who train in these academies have responded to or been selected for a special calling and believe strongly in what they are training to do. So your portrayal of the one in your film looks like a bit of a tribute to them.

The acting, camera angles, and to some extent your lighting all told the story and set us up for the final ending. I like the freeze frame and feel it was a very effective way to end it.

I'm not sure I like what I think the 35mm adapter does to image tones, contrast and definition. This is personal and no criticism of anything you've done. But I think I detect some distortion around the edges and some of this may be due to using the 35mm lens wide open. And it may be what killed contrast in your blacks and dark tones. I've seen video where these devices give tremendous depth of field control outdoors or in decent lighting levels without adversly affecting image tones and color but they may induce more problems than they solve in low/marginal lighting levels.

Again this is not critical of anything you've done. I liked the story, the way your actors did it, the flow from one part to another, and the mood the music gave.

Bruce

My immediate thought was I want to watch that again, but I'm not going to let myself to keep it fair (my personal rule is everyone gets judged on one watching). I liked how he was dark and out of focus in that first conversation. When she gave him the pills my first thought was , how much will he forget? So the end wasn't a surprise, exactly, but it played out well.

Smile,
Kris

Thanks to all for their input in this thread. I appreciate and expect any comments, that will help me improve my work in the future !!!

Nice story idea. It was interesting and works for me. Good job on that adapter. I may need to look into one of those for my little PDX-10. I have a fortune wrapped up in accessories for that tiny camera.

I liked the use of the fire footage and the way the whole thing was shot basically. I will have to go back and re-watch all the shorts for things like lighting setups, etc.

Overall, I liked it.

Sean