Show Your Work 2003

[Amelie Stein]

it seems a bit amateurish, but that just makes it all the more worthwhile when it has a polished professional finish. Go back, reshoot, work on the sound, acting, visuals - the whole deal. And then do it again. And again. - you'll learn a great deal. trust me :)

[Bryan Roberts]

Staying positve as an amateur film maker myself, I'd say rethink the effect you want to portray to the audience and reshoot. I can see how you went for the one shot long take effect but I think that with some subtle shot changes that went in closer and better framing, you subject and short overall could have much more dramatic impact.

[Rob Lohman]

The other thread can be found here. With that
I'm closing this thread.

[Nori Wentworth]

Hey Kids,

The second feature I D.O.P.'d, Brothers Assassin, will be showing at the Camp Rewind 2003!

For more Info go to:

Camp Rewind 2003

-Nori

[Josh Mitchell]

I wanted to invite you to watch my new DV short film CELL PHONES & ACTION FIGURES on www.ifilm.com.

Here's the link:
http://www.ifilm.com/filmdetail?ifilmid=2458986

A cell phone salesman writes a dirty book in an effort to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend. His world is turned upside down when an eccentric action figure enthusiast steals his car with the books inside.

The film recently played at The New England Film & Video Festival and on The Independent Film Channel. Check out the story on me in IMAGINE NEWS MONTHLY:
http://imaginenews.com/Archive/2003/..._MITCHELL.html

Please let me know what you think.

-JOSH MITCHELL
http://wickidpissaboston.iuma.com

[Till Kraemer]

Just wondering if there will be a "Lady X Season 1"-DVD
containing all episodes in high quality after the release of the
final episode? Would be very grrreat!

[Mark Kubat]

Hi.

Our short thriller "Siamese Connecition" was screened on Canada's Movieola (specialty short film channel) and talking to the founder/owner of the channel, they got Nielsen rating numbers and he confirms about 70,000 viewers caught our film during its premiere at 9pm EST on May 9,2003.

Our film's gotten some good press and there is some talk of a local reviewer piecing together an article about new emerging Canadian filmmakers that we're supposed to be a part of...

for more info, visit us: www.kubatfilms.com

For those interested, we shot with "old" XL1 (NTSC) with regular zoom lens as well as with wide adaptor and Canon EOS adaptor (and lots of step down rings/adaptors!) on some shots. We shot 4:3 to preserve quality and did letterboxing via "pan-and-scan" type method in post, as well as a bullet-time like deinterlace in after-effects to give it a film-look.

I have buddies from film-school days who look at the film and would bet all their money it was shot on super 16mm.

great forum here!

sincerely,
M.K.

[Keith Loh]

That's good to hear. Got any clips on your site? I couldn't find any.

[Mark Kubat]

thanks for your interest!

are you really a pilot?

saw your site - neat stuff.

[Keith Loh]

No. Not a pilot :)

[Kevin Burnfield]

Mark, Congratulations!

I haven't seen the project but since you've mentioned the filmic look of your project would you care to discuss what FilmLook techniques you used?

Any chance of getting a clip or two up somewhere?

[Andrew Petrie]

Mark, I'm in London, perhaps we can hook up some time, even if it's just to observe :)

[Mark Kubat]

okay, I went to film school and used 16 mm a lot so I knew a thing or two about what I wanted to go for.

Best place to start is light like you're lighting for film. An understanding of film set lighting style is critical as some videographers don't appreciate there's a difference :)

to preserve quality, we shot full screen and then letterboxed in post - a letterbox look immediately suggests "film" to the casual audience goer.

the biggest step was deinterlacing the footage - it's been referred here before in these forums - do a search for "deinterlace blend" and you'll get an article from some L.A. film school which talks about how it was done in Premiere.

Okay, okay - I post the quote here:

"Deinterlace Blend
A variety of methods may be used in deinterlacing a video image in order to resolve the temporal differences between video fields and create a complete image. This method requires duplicating a video clip in a non-linear editor (I used Final Cut Pro) such that you have two of the same clip on top of each other. Using a deinterlace filter, apply the effect to the lower fields in one layer and to the upper fields in the other layer. Reduce the opacity of the top layer to 50%.
PROS: Simple technique. Deinterlace filter included with Final Cut Pro (not sure about other NLE's, but it's a standard effect).
CONS: You gotta render.
RENDER TIME: 26 mins., 42 secs. [Final Cut Pro 3]
EDIT BLENDS: No
JAGGIES: 5 - As smooth as 60i.
COMMENTS: A nice, smooth, simple effect. Similar to frame mode and the DVFilm utility, but with slightly more motion blur on the edges. Not quite as filmy looking as some of the other techniques, but darn close. Experimentation may yield varying results: For example, try deinterlacing the bottom clip while leaving the top clip alone, but changing its opacity to 30%. Resolution chart exhibited slight loss of perceptible resolution. Fine edges rendered smoothly."

I've now gotten to try magic bullet and find the deinterlace blend method works just as well - it actually renders faster than magic bullet does so in most cases I'd probably go that way outlined above. As the above recipe indicates, you layer your footage so you get a more saturated final clip that you might need to colour correct/adjust brightness & contrast on but it's still worth the effort.

Did I add grain? no. the dv footage is raw enough - plus the cinelook filters etc. are tell-tale signs the stuff was manipulated.

Everyone's been asking for clips for me to post - all I can say is I will certainly make them available soon but really the effect works best on ntsc monitor on DVD or on DV tape - I think the way computer monitors work somehow the effect is not as impressive.
I edit in Vegas video and when I edit the film-look footage on my computer monitor it's hardly apparent - but when I plug out through video card to tv monitor or through firewire to camcorder to tv for "live" editing on tv monitor, it looks so filmic...

I know magic bullet does this too - you have to have faith and actually watch it on tv to appreciate how well it works - the computer monitor doesn't do it justice.

One last but very critical point - the time slur thing has been fixed in DV to get it filmic with magic bullet, 24 p cams, etc. But the common complaint still is the big depth of field. I use After Effects to touch-up shots where I want to do cool depth of field stuff or rack focus - it's simple: duplicate your layers, keep them in perfect synch, animate a mask around actor in foreground, do a fast blur on "background" and voila, instant depth of field. There are pricey filters out there you can use but the nice thing about doing it manually is you have total control. It's not needed all the time either since a lot of shots in films even have big depth of field as a style (like Star Wars).

[Joe Carney]

(Deep depth of field) ...don't forget Citizen Kane.

[Dylan Couper]

that would be very cool.