DVC 7-Michael Gilbert-Model No.La 504

[Michael Gilbert]

Yeah this was my first attempt at a DVC....actually one of the first films ive directed this semester that was not for school....Any kinds of comments are welcome. Anyways was hard to squeeze everything I had into the time...had to cut entire scenes actually.

[Bradley L Marlow]

Great 1st DVC entry. You had an interesting story happening here. I found myself wanting to follow these characters more.

That part where he blasts himself with the Model No LA504 is hilarious! Who has not misplaced their keys? I liked the approach you took to a very universal "problem".

From the opening shot with the TV announcer all the way through, the sound only came out on the right channel for me. The VO that says, "Here's the package" came out on both channels. There were a few areas here and there with full breaks in the sound.

I liked your lighting outside. Care to share how you did that?

"Call today"- with the thumbs up. Oh yeah, I liked that guy!

Best wishes~
Bradley

[Alex T. Hurter]

I liked the concept and your forgetful character made me laugh when he dove for the keys.

At the end when the sales guy walks up to mic the audio was pretty low and I couldn't really hear what he was saying. If you punch up the level a bit it might make him more clear.

[Michael Fossenkemper]

I totally thought the guy walking up to the mic was going to break out in song. hahahaha. I think my favorite part is when the package hits the door. Definately had some audio issues but you did really well at telling the story, which says a lot. A little bit more light on the indoor shots and some of the night shots would definately make it pop more. Great entry.

[Michael Gilbert]

Thanks for the comments. As far as the audio goes, im still quite the ameteur at post audio, and the fact that we forgot got to get room tones made it hard to fill in the gaps. As far as it coming out only in mono, im really not sure how to make it stereo....only way i can think is to copy it to another audio track and just pan it maybe. The audio with the announcer was a problem, if i cut the audio track and raised the levels right where he talks there is a very noticable change is ambient sounds in the background and im not sure how to get rid of that noise floor. This was my first project using premiere pro 2.0, so all the audio effects and tweaking, I tried messing with but for the most part I didnt have the time to teach myself, get it done properly, and on time for the competition.

The Lighting in the entire short was done using a 2 500 watt work lights mounted on a stand and a small little 60 watt work light. We had some gels for color and other things. The outdoor scene worked out very well for us. The day before the shoot that huge excavator/machine thing was placed in the front yard of the house next door to mine. There was a street light that illuminated a bit of the scene, combined with the work lights and the little can/work light kicker we used for fill/backlight. The fog was very thick which worked out great giving a real eerie feel and helped out alot with lighting, made a huge soft light source instead of hard sources. Some of the background color lights, aka red light in the close up of the gun owner was a street light in the distance that we just waited until it turned red to get the red lights in the background.

We had to shoot everything using basically a 2 light setup, white poster boardfor bounceboard, and whatever lights in the area.

The coolest thing was that we started shooting at 8am wednesday morning and ended up finishing around 7 am thursday morning, had to shoot around peoples work schedules, we got the last few pickup shots inside my house and then stepped outside to see the construction crew demolish that house we shot in front of. Kind of crazy. Overall it was an awesome time, had way way too much footage to sift through....going to make another cut of it with all the scenes we shot included and I will take the time to tweak audio and color correct if needed. Probably about 6 to 7 minutes long total or so with credits.

Thanks for the comments and thanks for this competition. Keep em coming...

[Hugh DiMauro]

Mike: Where can I get on of those? The number is disconnected! HAHHAHAHA! Nice little story and I believe you made good use of natural sodium vapor streetlight. Cheesey commercials with the cheesy salesman smile at the end always get a laugh. Thank you . We needed one of those.

[Mike Horrigan]

LOL! Funny stuff! The sound was a bit of a problem but it didn't distract me from having a few laughs.

Nice job.

Mike

[Chris Barcellos]

Good storyline, but didn't see why the whole thing had to be a commercial... I could see the commericial to get him to buy, then things happening after, but making it a part of a "bigger commercial" didn't make sense. Sound from announcer coming up to mic at end did not come off on my machine at least, though I am beginning to suspect i may be having sound card problem...

Camera angles and lighting for the inside story were great. Commerical guy, well, cheesy, as you probably intend. Nice job.

[Dennis Khaye]

I loved this entry right up until it stopped being a comedy and went off in a direction I didn't expect and didn't like. But that's me. I'd have liked to have seen more fun/funny things that this wacky gun could do. So many possibilities for comedy but alas. The choice was interesting and it didn't stop me from enjoying the entry. Nice job you guys.

[Bruce Foreman]

I need one of those!

You tackled quite a lot to try to come up with a 3 minute short. Camera work and lighting, and action flow worked pretty well for the most part.

Audio, as others have pointed out, is a bit of a problem. Most of the time the audio came in only through the left channel. Were you using an external mic that is mono? It sounds like that may have been the case, even sounds like it may have been a shotgun mic.

Very entertaining and funny.

Bruce

[Brent Graham]

I have to say, I've kinda always thought I'd get into tele-commercial production, but your cheesy ad kinda turned me off!

I think that for outdoor lighting you guys did a terrific job, I don't even think I would have tried to tackle that kind of a situation.

The stranger walking down the street turning into the 'host' mic guy was sweet. I love it when the film maker is willing to play with the medium like that. You pulled me in then pushed me out, very cool.

[Kris Holodak]

Fun premise, good camera angles and movement. A couple of technical issues (I'm coming at this late, so sorry if it's been said already). The sound was only on the left. Some of the speeding up and slowing down in the early parts left me a bit disoriented. Seemed like it was more to squeeze it into time than to help advance the story. Editing down to three minutes can be a really brutal process sometimes.

Smile,
Kris

[Michael Gilbert]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, I'm ecstatic to hear that you guys enjoyed it.

As far as speeding up the footage, the package was time constraints really, but the keys/memory sequence was meant to be sped up and kind of disorienting while still showing where the keys went, I might change it from being sped up to a strobe like flash of images.

Mike

[Jamey Hastings]

Hey Michael -

Sorry I'm so late giving you feedback...Anyway, I really liked your concept! It wwas a totally different approach to memory than everyone else...a film about a tool to be used FOR memories as opposed to a film ABOUT memories themselves...totally cool approach!

I loved the scene where the box arrives...there were some cool angles and it was really fast paced and just got me all excited about the item he was recieving!

Fun flick! Keep up the great ideas!

Jamey*

[Sean McHenry]

Good idea in this one. It has some more comedic potential there as well. Actually, might be the kernel of an idea for a feature film in this. Imagine all the things one could do with it.

All the things I might say about this one have been covered so I won't rehash them. Nice story idea and interesting angles and other technical choices.

Sean