How's everyone doing?
 

Everyone seems to be busy making films... this is either a good sign or a bad sign, as the challenge gets close to the close. :)

Me? I'm going to wait until the absolute last minute before picking up a camera. Nothing like pressure!

I think the UWOL robbed me of my "spirit" for a little while. Not sure I'll have the time to put something together for this one... which is too bad considering I worked up the courage to enter for the first time. Oh well... guess I'll just have to catch it next time around.

Best of luck to you,
Andrew

Yep, that’s how it’s looking for me. An idea my son gave me was good but now the guys lined up to do it are too busy. That’s okay, though – I haven’t had time to even think about a script.

We just got done with our first “after the gig” get-together with the Blues band I’m in. (Yeah, D, I can type, but it ain’t going all that well—thank goodness for the backspace key... ) ;) Too bad I didn’t have a camera running to capture the kind of luck we had tonight. My film would be done!

I have not started at all!

I did get my UWOL film done, but now it does not appear on the list. I don't know what happened there. Still working on the roof of my motorhome (almost done) and my son's flying in today. I have to teach a class tomorrow night and we have a shoot this Saturday.

No sweat, I may get one done yet. ;)

Mike

Well, I got the UWOL challenge done well before the deadline and before I could start on this one, a Defensive Handgun Skills class came up and I pretty much need to teach those when the folks need the training.

So last week was spent doing that. I did manage to get a couple of folks interested in a story and for the first time I made myself do a storyboard. That helped me write a fair script and we started shooting last night. I won't say it went totally smooth but we all liked what we got.

I now shoot with a Canon HF100, so I was able to pull the media card out of the camera, copy the .MTS files over to a laptop hard drive and we reviewed the "raw footage" on the computer right on location. Found one scene that absolutely needed to be reshot and did that on the spot.

Anyway, we're about 2/3 done and hope to finish up tonight. I have last nights material already edited and it's coming together.

I am working with the HF10, looking forward to see your entry :)

I am also taking this approach. Totally on purpose. Completely intentional. I have an abundance of workable ideas, how dare any of you suggest otherwise?

OK...I’ve finally got a story, no script yet, four actors who can only shoot from 8-10:30 on Saturday night, multiple locations to light, weird props to find...

Things are looking up! :)

Sigh
 

Well, sign me up for the wall of shame now. I've actually shot everything and I've got a rough cut done, but there's a lot of post that needs to happen and as I'm out of town this weekend (for a really cool camera class that I'm very excited about) there's pretty much no way we'll finish on time.

Well, we were very off theme anyway so it might be just as well. But we're having tons of fun and I'm learning a lot - really stretching myself in the sound design area this time out. So I might post it late after the competition is done and start a feedback thread. After all the real prize to this whole contest is getting the feedback.

Smile,
Kris

Well....if your story is really good you might be 80% of the way there.

If that's the case, make that more like 40%. ;)

Kris, we'll be looking for your late entry. It'll give us something to enjoy and review during the off time.

Blech...
 

... worked with a new DP who brought in a new camera he didn't really know how to use. My usual DP was acting this time. The camera work was very lazy. *grumble, grumble, grumble*

Dangit ! !
 

how come every time i check in it is 48 hrs till the deadline of the latest challenge.
..not sure what I wold do with this theme. Interesting.
Can't wait to see the other entries.


-Ken

Shot the last remaining scene this afternoon, dropped it on the timeling in the right place, and started test renders. Fixed a couple of minor things and finally got a good render...Then discovered I had the form of the required dvchallenge title wrong.

Corrected that and what I hope is the final render of the file that will be uploaded first to YouTube then to Vimeo, is underway now.

This one was a whale of a lot of fun, my cast enjoyed doing it as much as I did. I hope the rest of you are having that kind of experience because that will make one helluva great bunch of films to watch.

I thought about shooting an email your way, Ken, and then I got sidetracked, which is a common occurrence with me. Next time I'll try to give your cage a rattle. :)

That's great, Bruce!

The guys I have lined up to shoot tomorrow night all sat at a table with me at a wedding reception this evening so we had an opportunity to talk over our plan. It didn't happen, but we had the opportunity... ;)

I hope your shoot tonight goes well.

I'm DONE! Uploaded and checked out. YouTubes "watch in high quality" option is great! Does have an occasional "stutter" like Vimeo but it's pretty sharp and clear.

hate youtube...can someone advise me what the best compression dimensions are for a widescreen file on youtube? they offer up 640 x 480, huh? what century are they operating in?? can i do a 720 x 480 or 720 x 576 and get it letterboxed? does anyone know how best to optimize the dimensions, to fit the rectangular peg into the square hole?

dylan, you need to switch to vimeo!

Hey, I first suggested that a while ago :) lol

Meryem, I rendered out to an HD 1280x720p at 60fps straight out of my NLE (same as I do for Vimeo) and uploaded that to YouTube. It turned out to be a 167MB file and I had to use their new "multiple (or large file) upload channel to do it. That file size took over 2 hours to transfer but it looks quite good.

That multiple/large file upload channel requires you allow the Youtube site to download and install a small program on your side and I don't know if that works on a Mac or not.

Previous to going HiDef, I used to upload a higher quality render of the .mov file required for the UWOL challenge. Where I might have to render at about 45% quality to stay under 60MB for UWOL, I used all the same other settings and upped the quality until I approached the 100MB limit YouTube used to impose.

That looks pretty good on YouTube and either method letterboxed just fine.

Hope this helps somewhat.

The clock is ticking!
 

Just a friendly reminder that the deadline is midnight, PDT (Vancouver, BC) tonight! Upload to Meryem and Mugurel’s favorite site YouTube and send the link to thedvchallenge@gmail.com

Man, I’m cutting as fast as I can but don’t know if I can get this piece o’ work done in time...

I just got my idea for mine NOW, very happy with it and I'm doing it NOW, it's 3AM here NOW on Monday, yeah I know, I get to live in the future, gonna set up lights and make a mess ...NOW! Yehey.

Lorinda, just a reminder that the clock is ticking! Don't stress yourself thinking how fast the time pass and how you won't be able to finish and all that, nah, don't worry the clock is ticking! :)

LOL! Thanks a bunch, Mugurel...and good luck with the shoot!

To those who are fairly close but feeling hopeless: I seem to recall on the DV Challenge site (or somewhere) Dylan saying something concerning the deadline like, "as long as it's there when I wake up on Monday morning..."

So, if you feel like pushing your luck (as I am) finish that thing as fast as you can but don't let the actual deadline keep you from submitting. I want to watch some movies!!! :)

Eating some lunch and then will start the editing :) Should be good fun.

aaaaaaaaaaaand it's rendering...

*computer crashes*

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's not.

DONE shooting :) Transferring the files, so good to be tapeless.

About vimeo...

I have been trying to upload mine to vimeo all weekend.

At first vimeo would show me no thumbnails...

Now it will but the upload dies at about 3%.

I've run into this sort of thing with vimeo before. It's a great site to watch stuff on but can get dicey trying to upload to it.

Murgurel, what tapeless solution are you using? I have left tape capturing behind once I got my hands on an nNovia Unit :)

Jhosh, I am using the Canon HF10 :)

Haha, Nice, sorry about incorrectly spelling your name.

Hi Bruce -- thanks for the tips, definitely helpful. I gave up and just compressed to 720 x 480 and that seemed to work just fine...

However, I am going to have to hang myself on the Wall of Shame. How do I go about doing that these days?

I have a long, sad tale about my audio failure, too lengthy to go into here, suffice to say it was terrible before the youtube compression, due to unanticipated circumstances, and the extra compression pushed it over the edge to completely useless....my efforts to put lipstick on that pig failed miserably.

Hang me on the Wall. Pour beers over my head.

Lorinda, I bow to your superior production discipline!

It ain't over yet, sister...
 

I totally sympathize with the audio woes, Meryem; that, and other things have made me think twice about subjecting folks to my flick, as well. I hadn't even considered yet what the compression will do, cuz I'm still waiting for nightfall to get some pick-up shots.

Can't make it a silent movie, eh? Throw some music on that thing and let 'er rip? Or just put up a link to a kinder version like Vimeo in a feedback thread. Like I said a few posts ago, I want to watch some movies! :)

Just emailed my links with hours to spare.

Meryem and any Vegas users: If you are using Vegas, this link led me to get a pretty decent YouTube upload. I set Audio at 256,000, and it is pretty clean.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kcvSoqQKZ0

May be hints there for even non Vegas users.

Done editing, music and the likes, rendering and preparing for the upload part :) Oh, and of course, the initial idea was scraped as it was too close to what someone created for a previous dvc.

Well, I just finished the UWOL and I thought one week would be enough time to finish this one. But, I was mistaken. So let me be the first to walk into the hall of shame, my head down low, tears streaming down my cheeks. Good luck to all of you...

Oliver Pahlow

DONE :) Uploaded, sent links in, hmm, 5 hours project :) Can't wait to see how it's received though.

Thanks!

Hmm...I'll give it a try IF I get that far. Thanks, Chris.

This waiting around to get shots I need plus some music that was promised is killing me. Then I made the mistake of looking back on Joseph's bad luck with his computer...now I've really got a knot in my stomach. After all the trouble my friends and I went through I want to get it done on time.

Mugurel, you're not helping matters either, smarty-pants. ;)

Sent. One minute to spare.

Doh! Not going to make it. I needed some LUCK to get this one completed. I should've just done a movie on trying to get the movie done...

Sounds like your wish will be granted :P