Check out my short, "Get Creative"

[Scott Spears]

Hey Folks,

Here's a little short I did a while back when I was teaching a video classand decided to show them how a short if made. I needed something simple that I could shoot in a classroom or close by and could be shot in around 3 hours, so I came up with this little ditty. It was edited by one of my students. Later, I went back and tightened it up a bit. I created the music using ACID. It was shot with a Sony VX2000 before I bought a DVX100. Run time is around 5 min.

Check it out and let me know what you think?

www.scottspears.net/creative.htm

Thanks,

Scott

[Dylan Couper]

Very good. Makes me wonder a little about taking your class though.... <g>

Ok, techinical feedback... Technicaly excellent, and I wouldn't expect anything less from you. The only suggestion I would have made is a hint of the students intent right off the start. I found it dragged just a bit until the student got into the classroom and a little more foreshadowing would have hooked me sooner.

Thats all.

Oh, and there was one shot with a little camera shake, but now I'm being super picky. :)

[Scott Spears]

Thanks for the input.

I wanted to go with the air of mystery about what was in the bag the student was carrying. There are times I think I should cut the open walking sequence down. Part of the reason for that sequence was to teach how to use the line and have a scene with no dialogue.

And yes, I wish I had more time to make it better, but it was more of a teaching project, than a movie.

Scott

[Dylan Couper]

Hey, considering the time you made it in, it is great!

I agree, I'd cut the opening sequence down by about 30%.

[Peter John Ross]

I really really like Mickey Fisher as the teacher. I can't say enough good about his acting.

[Pete Bauer]

I usually don't critique others' works, since I haven't done anything purely artistic yet that I can put forward to take my own "spears in the chest." But since overall I really enjoyed your piece, and I had one specific picky little observation that I have knowledge about, I thought I'd throw it out there.

The apparent weightlessness of the weapon really caught my eye; the way the actors handled the weapon (a Mac 10?) made it look essentially weightless. Either they are strong guys who worked too hard to hide the weight of the weapons, or much more likely, didn't work hard enough at making a plastic studio replica look more weighty than it really was? As a career military guy, I can attest that real guns have WEIGHT...you just about can't hand one over at arm's length and have no dip or jump in the arm when you take or let go of it.

Yes, a nit-noid point. Overall, the piece undoubtedly served its classroom purpose well -- and was enjoyable for us DVinfo types as well. Thanks for sharing it!

[Scott Spears]

Thanks for your input. Yeah, we're busted, that was a squirt gun that I found at my sisters. I had a fake pistol, but I had loaned it one of my students borrowed and failed to return, so I ended up with the Mac 10 at the last minute. I tried to get the actor to pretend it was heavier, but we got into a discussion about adrenelin and how he'd not feel the weight. I let him do when he did. Again, with three hours I didn't have much time to fine tune the way I'd like.

Thanks for watching.

Scott