I agree with Rob- some of those shots were framed very well. Wierd story concept, but a cute piece overall. Nicely done.

Good stuff!
Now I'm hungry for an apple!

Thanks for the comments! :)

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : It was an interesting piece... I liked the music and some of the
angles etc. Did you do any color correction afterwarts (besides
the face changing color)? -->>>

Would you believe me if I said his face actually does that? ..... probably not ;)

As for colour correction, we used FilmFX to get that look. I'm really pleased with how it looks, especially in the last dialogue scene in the living room; I think the muted colours worked really well.

Alex, what camera did you shoot it on?

That was a real hoot to watch, i enjoyed the subtle difference to the norm it represented.

I have a few friendly critiques i think may help you.

* this is a short film, hence for a piece like this i think some tighter editing needs to be had. You have your opening, well just after, there is the car, then the car again into the drive way, then walking from the drive way, then opening the door. In reality not everything needs to be there, think about popular movies, and professional productions, the great thing about a movie is that it can be said quickly visually. Think about the car driving, 2 seconds or so, then starts to pull into driveway, then door opening and character walking in, that is all that needs to be there to convey that point. And could be done in around 5 seconds.

* start to think about keeping a handle on your highlights. Now i have not seen this uncompressed, but the clipped out overexposed sky outside and from the windows inside screams video, look at your colour curves, composing with or around the over exposure or recomposing those shots to avoid all together.

I really think it has potentional, and is very good as is, but think about it as a visual medium, not a book, you don't need to show an audience as much, remember this is a short not a feature and audiences are much smarter than you think.

zac

I tend to agree with Kermie's remarks.... The editing could have
been a bit faster in my opinion as well. But overall it was really
nicely done!

Dylan,
I shot it on a Canon ZR20.. not the best but I dealt with it! For lights, we had 3 construction lights -- a big one plus two little small ones and a few reflector boards.

Kermie,
Thanks for the suggestions, now that you mention it I guess I was doing that, it's good thing I noticed now before I made it a habit :P

I want to disagree with the comment that audiences are much smarter than you think. If that were true, Kangaroo Jack would never have been number one at the box office.

This will probably be deleted.

Better Luck Tomorrow: grassroots marketing
 

Interesting article in the LA Times about "Better Luck Tomorrow" and its grassroots campaign to get the seats filled. "Better Luck Tomorrow" is a film by Justin Lin about Asian American high school students who get involved in a murder. It's been covered in Film Comment magazine and received a spot of news when it was shown at a festival (Sundance?) and Roger Ebert shouted down someone who was protesting the film because it didn't show Asian Americans in a good light (like Italian Americans who protested the Godfather).

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-fi-grassroots11apr11,0,2077568.story?coll=cl%2Dmovies

Interesting talking points:
- the use of email campaigns interests me because my company's technology allows player and plugin free video for Java-enabled email clients
- the "first weekend" campaigns for black and other ethnic groups encouraging those groups to get out in the first weekend to send a message to distributors that there is an audience. The first weekend, of course, is totally important. Without a big first weekend films are pulled.

Thoughts?

Australia’s Cape York Peninsula
 

Here’s a short trailer for our upcoming doco of travels in Australia’s tropical North Queensland. Enjoy!

www.drivenxdiscovery.com

We filmed the entire adventure using a canon zr30, and while admittedly not the best in low light situations, it is a hearty little cam; it didn’t even really complain too much after it’s brief and, I’m sure, exhilarating swim. = ) We are using Premiere 6.5 to do all of the editing.

We are hoping to gear this tale of misadventure towards a general adventure oriented audience, as well as having it be a useful resource for people who might be interested in doing this trip for themselves … that is, how NOT to do it. = )
It is, if anything, highly entertaining (or, should I say, will be when editing is completed sometime this June).

Granted this little clip isn’t very much to go on, but any comments are welcome.

Thanks for looking, mates.

Dom

drivenbydiscovery productions

Another Short
 

Check out "Penetration Strain or Shocked" at our website www.american-ocean.com and let me know what you think... this is a short one man show and will only take 3 minutes of your time ;)

Wasn't visual enough for me, but that's just my opinion. You could have used a set of 3 stills and put down and audio track on top and it would have been the same. I would like to "see" more.

Very interesting...

The acting wasn't too bad.
I think it could of been framed a little better.

All in all it does get the point across very well.

-Nori

Man,
Now I really want to go to Australia. Some of those visuals are absolutely stunning!

-Nori

Me too! That's gorgeous!
I also miss my 4x4. Some of that driving looked really fun!
Except for the rollover. :)

He did that all by himself btw =)

Very well done and done with a ZR30 too.

James, I noticed that several shots seem to be out of sync... what methodology did you try to keep the different angles in sync with the song?

(shrug) I guess if she makes the kind of money Britney does and shuttles a little your way her emulating Britney isn't a bad thing. (G)

Sync
 

Well remember this is a screen test for a bigger production. It is mainly to see how she performs in front of the camera. What is displayed here is only the first 1.25 of the song. We shot the entire song about (almost 3 minutes) 15 times with different framing allowing a couple of minutes in between takes because of studio time. I believe part of what you are seeing is her being thoroughly worn out and using more energy to dance and occassionally slipping on the lyrics, but just a little. Overall, she did a great job. Also, compressed video isn't in perfect sync. What you saw is played at 20 fps. We shot close ups first so she would appear fresh. Then mediums and finally wides. The final, actual shoot will be shot in sections to balance the load.

The sync is maintained by shooting the entire song for each take and then finding the very first spike on the playback (set) audio and matching it with the studio mix. Once this is achieved after slipping it a frame or so, every take (track) is in sync and then each track is cut for its place in the song. This project is 13 tracks deep. This method makes it easy for cutting but wears out the performers. I have a time code slate for synced playback to be able to shoot in sections but nothing to feed the 29 fps code from a playback device yet. I know where to get what I need it's just not in the budget. I can't wait because it will be a whole lot easier on the performers and the cutter.

Check out my article in Moviemaker Magazine
 

I've written an article about my experiences using the XL1 with the Mini 35 in making my short short film The Chinese Shoes (http://thechineseshoes.com) for Moviemaker Magazine (http://www.moviemaker.com/).

The magazine is already available.

Just thought I'd let y'all know.

Thanks, Victor! I was just about to head to the magazine shop around the corner. I'll see if they have the new one with your article.

Thanks for the update Victor.

Self-Promotion Tips?
 

Anyone have any tips for self-promotion? Particularly press releases, film festivals (and preparing festival kits), contacting magazines and web site, etc.?

Make sure your biz cards say what you do on them - give them to anyone and everyone

Print up a tri-fold broucher and hand them out at fesitvals and other gatherings of potential (abreviated version of a demo reel would be nice too - cd maybe)

Pay a few bucks and get one of those website marketing places to submit your website all over

... as for newspapers - you may be able to get them to do a human interest piece anbout local talent or something

Write up a bio and abbreviated resume that can be sent to trade magazines and newspapers.

Buy parkbench advertising... maybe not, but I've always thought that was a cool idea. a little annoying, but folks remember what they see as they pass by

what are you doing now?

My contest entry video
 

Hey guys,

Each year the New England Mountain Bike Assoc. has a night out to celebrate the opening of the riding season.
This year they decided to make the event a Bike video awards night. They had local bikers sent in their videos and they picked a finalist list and played those videos on the night.

Then the videos were judged in 3 catergories. Best Production, Best Riding and Most Entertaining and then the crowd picked their favorite.

Well my entry won for Best Production and I was so excited.
Granted this was more of a fun event and fundraiser to preserve some land and not a real serious award show but it was still a great feeling to win.

So anyways, here is the link to the video
http://www.downfallproductions.com/Movies/743days.wmv

The thing that drives me crazy is this video is about 3 months old and i'm better with AE now than when I made this so there are things i would like to change and improve on but I won't do a george Lucas ;-) i'll leave it as it is.

Hope you guys enjoy some mountain bike action.

Jim,

It looked great, a question, how did you do the title at the start, the Downfall productions one where it breaks up and flies toward the screen???where there any particular plugins required or anything?

John.

thanx John,

that effect was doen by Shatter in AE.
I followed this tutorial to learn how to get it to look like that
http://www.creativecow.net/index.php?forumid=1
and then I went custom with the settings.
it's an awesome tutorial, a definate read.

Jim,

I liked it.. good pacing for the song and I liked that last sequence after the song ended.

Good stuff.

Did you do that final animated logo shot (the circular logo) in AE as well?

thanx Kevin

The logo was created by a friend of mine in photoshop from a picture of a mountain biker crashing and then we put the circular text around the logo.

I then took the logo and made an alpha channel for it in photoshop and then brought it into AE to do the rest.

Good production. Very entertaining.
THe only weak part I found was the footage itself, the camera angles could have been much better for most of it, but that probably wasn't a concern at the time. I'd like to have seen less shots overall, but more in slower motion to bring out the feeling that these guys are really in the air.

thanx alot guys

Dylan:
Yea we kinda knew going in that the footage wasn't top knotch.
The Contest was announced after winter started so we had to run with alot of old footage from the past couple years, Hence the title "743 days of half-assed footage"
Also mountain bikers aren't a patient bunch so sometimes you just gotta pick an angle and go with it, Not much time to eye a shot and plan it.
I don't like over doing it with the Slo-mo. thats atleast my style for now.

Alex:
Yea, i'm very for editing to the music and having the footage flow at the same speed as the music.
Half the footage was shot with a Sony PC5 with a .6x WA on it.
and the other half was shot with my GL2 with the Canon WD-58 on it and a couple shots were shot with a Canon Elura (can't remember the exact model, it's my friends camera that he got a couple years ago.)

I just got a new WA/fish eye for my GL2. It's a .25x lens it's alot of fun but more work than the wd-58. Can't zoom out too far or else you hurt the shot.

I really appreciate you guys liking the video, esspecially since it a 16 meg WMV and looks rather crappy.

Just read it -- hooray, the Watchdog gets a plug in Victor's article! Many thanks!!

Still going...

Post-Process slowed down considerably because I was cast in some television, a feature, and selected by a director to d.p. a feature. I'm exhausted and need a vacation...

Cheers to All! Soon...real soon...

Hey man, can After Effects be used alongside Vegas 4 or do you have to use Adobe Premier. I ask this because that title in the beginning does rock. It's like movie looking.

Great footage. My favorite stuff is the wrecks. Wish it had more wrecks.

Question about After Effects and Vegas???
 

I've been seeing some really cool effects implemented into videos. If you have a project made with Vegas 4, can you still use After Effects or do you need something else???

AE seems like it's tight if you know how to use it.

I can imagine you can always export your movie uncompressed
as an AVI (or any other AVI codec that suits your needs) and
load that up into AE, it might even understand Vegas' DV Codec.
Try it out!

Bob, I've put a reply to this in the other thread

Yea, saw that, I did this one before I saw the reply. Plus, having a seperate topic helps others find it easier.

Yea, I just got Adobe 5.5 and it seems to work with avi's so I guess it will work. Seems that will simply eat up HD space, which I need more of. 80 gigs don't do it no more. I'm going to be getting a 160 or 200 drive soon.

The Uninvited
 

I thought I'd post a couple links to trailers for a short I worked on to see what you guys think. I would like to note that I can't take credit for much of any of this, I was little more than a general crew member, though my camera (XL1 - stock 16x lens) was used for some of the shoots. I think Greg, the director has done amazing things with this and I think most of you are likely to agree. For those of you who are curious, editing was done in FCP 2 and 3, also not by me.

http://www.theuninvited.net/Uninvite...elentless.html
http://www.theuninvited.net/Uninvite...journal_I.html

(Quicktime req.)

-Shawn

Looks very nice indeed. Especially the Relentless trailers has
a real professional trailer feel to it. The other one was okay too,
but a bit slow for my taste.