DVC3 Speed Camera Kills - Feedback

[Andrew Paul]

Look forward to your views and constructive criticisms. I have leanrned loads over the past 7 days, and am probably about to learn even more. Hope you all enjoy the film, its the first I`ve done.

Andy

[Michael Wisniewski]

Hi Andrew,

Loved this short, reminded me of a Dr. Who episode. Big sci-fi fan, so I would have loved to have seen you expand the story more.

Pros:
The special F/X were good and entertaining. Your music was excellent and set the mood. Cinematography, was decent, and worked fine.

Cons:
Story - you had the beginnings of a story, but it ended way too soon. I kept waiting for a main character to step and and start reacting to the killings. I was expecting a person, perhaps a small child, neighbor, or reporter to see one of the killings not be able to get anyone to believe them!

So good job, you're showing talent and skill in this short, just needs more of a story.

[Fredrik-Larsson]

Like the Gremlin/mother in law say "ha ha ha". It was very nice and good pictures. I like the cuts where it goes to bright light (?) but they might have been a bit overused. The effects of the gremlin was great and when the skeleton collapses... neat.. the explosion of the car is of course tougher without a car to blow up and a lot of explosives :)

[Lorinda Norton]

Andy Paul, you are insane! (I mean that in a nice way.) LOL!!!

I don't do special effects, so this was extra fun for me. The first "zapping" got me giggling, but when you took out that guy (with the resulting skeleton that collapsed) I could hardly believe it and have to admit that I laughed out loud! Then to find out it was you!!! Brilliant!

Great choice in music. It really built suspense when the speed camera was about to do its thing.

One final laugh with the credits, too. Loved it!

[Meryem Ersoz]

nutty, fun, witty. i enjoyed this....the skeleton was a good bit.

[Sean McHenry]

I liked it too. Reminded me a bit of "Mars Attacks" for some reason. Probably the skeleton thing.

You done good. Did you use a wipe pattern and position it for the alien looking out the window? Looks pretty good.

I would work on the timing a bit perhaps. We have all gotten so used to faster cuts (thank you MTV) and seem to get bored easily these days if things aren't happening snap-snap-snap. I still like it but maybe quicken the pacing on some of it perhaps. It's hard to know where exactly.

Over all, another thumbs up.

Sean

[Josh Johnson]

Yeah, that was pretty fun and funny... I enjoyed it.

I don't think we have speed cameras around here, but we do have Red Light cameras.... I'll never drive again!

-Josh

[Hugo Pinto]

Andrew,

Somehow, "Mars Attacks" also came to mind. This was fun and entertaining. I would have laid the timmings on the cuts slightly differently, in order to make it a bit more fluid.

The skeleton was awesome. And, for someone who already has two speed tickets on his account, it´s always nice to see a police car busted by the speed-o-meter as well ;)

Very very cool.

Hugo

[Andrew Paul]

Thanks for the feedback, nice to hear you like it. I`ve taken heed of the advice given of which I am grateful. Its nice to see some constructive criticism which I can use to make the next one even better. There are always bits you`d like to change once its been rendered, but I just ran out of time. Hugo, when you say "I would have laid the timmings on the cuts slightly differently, in order to make it a bit more fluid", how would you have changed them round ?, Id love to know what you had in mind.

Skeleton and Gremlin where both animated with Poser and then blue screened into timeline. The scene with the gremlin, was the screen of the gremlin scaled down to fit in the square in the window of the camera. The animation had the gremlin coming from outside the screen area, I just had to make it fit.

I tried to have a police car door fly by the screen but I just couldn`t get the animation to look good.

I`ve been told to also add that "my mother in law is really very nice" (she`s standing behind me !)

Keep it coming all, I`m loving the bits where you pick at the short.

[Hugo Pinto]

Andrew,

My humble changes would be to have the scenes a bit tighter (i'd have MTV-like, as Sean was mentioning - nowadays, we're so used to it that anything a bit longer than a handful of seconds starts to look dull, unless done for artistic purposes - yet, this is not only MTV's fault, though, your average newspiece has the same editing).

Also, I´d probably keep the police car for last: it´s the thing you're not expecting to see, a police car being busted for speed - kind of a punch-line for the movie.

Hope those were nice ideas - I have a lot to learn too, anyway.

Hugo

[Bradley L Marlow]

Hey Andrew! Way to go!

This film cracked me up big time. Must be that little evil kid within. Perhaps he needs a teddy bear? NAH!! Great special effects (truly enjoyed the skeleton bit)

Like Lorinda- I have never done any special effects either and am always curious as to how the process goes.

[Andrew Paul]

Thanks Bradley,

As I said before, the skeleton and gremlin where done with poser 5. If you have never used this program, it is really easy to use. You get your model, choose how you want to animate it over a set amount of frames and render. There are obviously a lot of ways you can tweak the image and animation,, add frames, take away etc but it is easy to get a good basic animation. A lot of models come with preset dials so you can change expressions on characters faces etc. When I render, I render to a blue or green screen and then key out that colour in premiere or after effects. There are loads of programs out there you can use, some basic and easy, some not so easy (3ds max) etc.

looks like most people seem to like the skeleton idea. I did have the guy screaming, which was funny, but the explosion seems to have drowned it out at time of rendering.

Explosions where taken from a stock footage CD is bought a few months ago. Once again, the background was keyed out.

I used the key effect in quite a lot of the scenes !

[Sean Buck]

I love your sense of humor Andrew. I wanted to do something twisted with mine but got shot down by the others. Loved the little green dude. Do you know where I can get one of them?

[Bradley L Marlow]

Sean- That is his Mother-In Law...so it is maybe a green dudette of sorts...and I have a feeling he may be willing to part with her.

Andrew? Yes? No?

[Meryem Ersoz]

i'm really enjoying hearing producers talk about special effects. i can do the basics but am just starting to work with more complicated stuff, and it is really inspiring to hear what y'all are doing. daunting, too!