DVC 10 - Trick

[Brent Graham]

Hey guys, here's my thread for praises/complaints!

Haha, here's how this came about...


I procrastinated until Saturday to start this film. My buddy and I decided to wait until Saturday night to start filming... last minute right? Wait, it gets worse.

Around 10pm Saturday night by buddy decided he was tired and went home!

SO... I had to call my ex-girlfriend and ask her to be in this film! She came through like a trooper and helped me film it from about Saturday night midnight until 5am... then we napped and filmed the remaining the rest of Sunday.

I spent from 9pm 'til 11pm editing. and got it in in time!

I tried to experiment more with lighting this time around.

Let me know what you think about the film!

Thanks.

[Bradley L Marlow]

Amazing what you did in such a short timeframe Brent. No wonder she is your x-girlfriend. I wouldn't want to piss her off and come home for dinner...lol (jk)

Wonderful lighting you came up with in this film. I especially liked how you changed it from a normal daylight situation to the intense dark colors after the nap.

The red on one side and green on the other (of her neck) and the needle in the middle was probably my favorite. Nice shot on the cookies coming out of the oven too.

While that song definitely works for your film, I wasn't sure if it is one that can be used with rights. I could be completely wrong.

Please tell me the compression method recipe you used for your youtube upload. It looked great!

PS: I'm sorry for calling you Graham (above) instead of Brent. I'm brain dead.

[Lorinda Norton]

I’m afraid Bradley’s right about the music, but I wondered if you were making this so much for the fun of it that you weren’t worried about music use.

You’re such a smarty-pants—throwing together a great looking movie that would have taken me a month of light tweaking to shoot. Now, how do you guys get that “from inside the oven, the refrigerator, the plastic pumpkin,” shot that I see sometimes? It’s very cool.

I loved the “evil, sadistic witch masquerading as Suzy Homemaker” turn. The way she ran the needle across the “eyeball” before injecting it with… What the heck is that stuff supposed to be??? really cracked me up.

Your ex-girlfriend did a great job with the whole charade. Having her dress like an angel…lol. :)

Nice job, as usual, Brent. I really like your movies.

[Meryem Ersoz]

ditto what lorinda said, you had great camera angles with this piece. you must have worked your tail off in the time that you had.

i found it pretty amusing, too, but the musical selection took me out of the story a bit, because i kept having the same thought running through my head, about how legit the use of the sound track was....

"whisper flores" --what a great stage name, she oughta be in pictures....

[William Gardner]

Certainly one of the best for cinematography.

And the shots from the fridge, oven, and pumpkin were great, errrr..., "eye candy". (sorry, I couldn't resist)

Bill

[Josh Chesarek]

The camera work was great. Each time there was a new shot I was enjoying how it looked. The costume setup and everything was great. I guess if I had kids they would not be taking candy from anyone tonight :p... on the other hand I don't have kids but I do live in a family community so....

[Ronn Kilby]

The Flamingos' recording used is certainly copyrighted 1959 (and was used in a similar context on Buffy The Vampire Slayer) but the rights to the song itself may have expired (1934) without renewal, so you actually could have recorded your own version. Using theirs may be a snag as far as the rules go.

Great idea. Beautifully shot. Lovingly edited. 5 stars.

[Marco Wagner]

Originally Posted by William Gardner

Certainly one of the best for cinematography.


Bill

I second that. WONDERFUL looking segments. What camera were you using? Was it poison candy?

[Brent Graham]

Thanks so much guys!


Yeah, you don't want to piss her off! (just don't tell her I said that!)


Actually, I knew I wouldn't be in the running with the music. I'm not too concerned about winning these things. It's just a great exercise for me to pull something together (somehow always last minute) that fits the requirements.


I shot with my Canon XH-A1 in 24f HDV mode, custom preset. As far as youtube preparation, in actuality I did very little this time. I believe I output a wmv file as close to 100mb and keeping 320x240. But if you want to get really good, I'd suggest pre-converting your file into flash video first, then uploading it to youtube as they won't re-encode it.


Funny enough, that's her REAL name!

As far as the shots Linda...
- The oven shot was literally my camera sitting on a cookie sheet, you'll notice the door starts half-way open in the shot, because I couldn't close it all the way with the camera there. Add a quick cut from another angle continuing the action and BAM! you've got it.

- The refrigerator shot was just my camera sitting on top of a cracker box for height and angled to shoot the angle I wanted, open and close and there you have it.

- The pumpkin bowl shot was one of the bowls with the bottom cut out. I then placed the camera resting the back battery panel on my knee facing straight up, and held the bowl to the lens like a lens hood, and aimed it at white ceiling, then had whisper drop candy in from the top.


I've been crazy busy this week. But as soon as I get time, I'll get onto watching everyone's films! I can't wait to see what y'all did!

[Lorinda Norton]

That’s it for the shot tricks? Well, I don’t feel dumb or anything. For some reason the idea of shutting a camera in a refrigerator didn’t compute. :)

Brent, as others have noted this time around, your movies are first-rate. I could have that same camera (workin’ on it!) yet the images wouldn’t look nearly as beautiful as yours. As you know, it’s got so much to do with who’s composing, who’s painting with the light, etc., and you really know your stuff. To top it off you’ve got a great imagination, a great sense for what’s funny and how to cut it just right.

Thanks for giving us such a fun film just in time for Halloween. :)

[Dick Mays]

Ditto everyone elses comments.

Absolutely beautiful to watch.

[Hugh DiMauro]

This is an incredibly stylized film. Your actress has screen presence . Nice pun, too: I only have eyes for you... wink wink... nudge nudge.

[Chris Barcellos]

Brent: Like the others, liked the style of the movie. Unlike the others, I thought the music actually worked, and it reminded me in a way of the scene when the woman comes into the White House to "be" with the President in "Mars Attacks"...

[Daniel Kohl]

Classy film style. And I like the twist on the classic psychopathic killer.

It's funny how men tend to use over-sized edged, bludgeoning, or generally weapons that create irreparable wounds, women just poison people. Much neater.

The "back-room" lighting, reminded me of "the rocky horror picture show" for some reason. I loved the one eyeball looking into the camera while she was wrapping the others in plastic. I thought at first that she was some kind of genetics mad scientist housewife maniac, about to give her clone mutants their last touches before going to assemble them. The eyes reminded me of "Minority report" they looked to real to be candy.

Keep up the good work.

[Marco Wagner]

Originally Posted by Chris Barcellos

Brent: Like the others, liked the style of the movie. Unlike the others, I thought the music actually worked, and it reminded me in a way of the scene when the woman comes into the White House to "be" with the President in "Mars Attacks"...

You know i got that same feel from this, like an old skool vibe to it.