Show Your Work 2007

[Phil Kay]

Most of this footage is shot on a Canon XH-A1 in a homemade underwater housing. The music is by a local Manx band called Audio Wok(Christian Clague)

I intend to use this and other footage in a documentary about sea life on the Isle of Man.

Let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaAC48myZM4

[Merlin Vandenbossche]

Looks promising to say the least. I did recognize the sound effects from videogame warcraft III though :-)

[Joseph Hutson]

My new website! I bought iLife '08, and a .Mac account yesterday. COOLEST THING EVER!!!!!!!


nearsightedproductions.com


Joseph

Let me know what you think.

[Chris Knight]

Ladies and Gentleman, let me introduce to you, Charles "The Cheek" Chesterson. He's an ex-mobster who now writes children's books. Enjoy!

http://www.fmpfilms.com/movies/chesterson.mov

[Hyun De Grande]

Not one comment !?

C'mon, you don't have to write down books, I'm just asking for a little feedback, because mainly the only insight I got 'till now was the 'nice job', 'good film' -blabla from friends & relatives... So a little more would be nice. And if you do, espacially on my latest work would be helpful!
->

'Om De Hoek 2'
(longtake, a girl is being raped in front of her boyfriends' eyes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAhSKEMIGrY

or

'Om De Hoek 1'
(this was the first attempt, so the 2nd one has some improvements)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZgB7ebXsHo

'Slapen' (has some dutch dialogue)
(hollywoodian drama, woman tries to bury her dead husband in all secrecy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLw0Aew1NAI

'Imprisoned'
(minimalistic, silent drama)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxhh3NrbKhQ

'Imago'
(Comedy, silent longtake)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLzAAxp_Ad0


Thanks!

[Brian Duke]

here are my comments on Slapen:

1. As a practical matter you may want to consider doing the films in English to widen your audience. At least put subtitles in.

2. Technically it looked fine, lighting, camera angles etc. However, I wasn't sure what genre it was supposed to be. A bit confusing. In other words, I had a hard time following what was going on. At the end I really had no idea what this movie was about. There seemed to be no beginning , middle or end.

3. The acting was good, but the choice of the girl playing blind wasn't convincing. Blind people that I know or have seen don't look around with their eyes. Maybe that is just a character flaw, but it threw me off to maybe thinking she wasn't blind, which in turn made it more confusing.

4. Next time spend more time developing the story, characters and genre of the movie, so its more clear to the audience, otherwise you lose them.

5. Overall, it just seemed like a bit overly dramatic with no real story to follow and music to intensify moments that weren't clear or defined.

In summary, after watching it I read your log line of "woman tries to bury her dead husband in all secrecy" however none of that was clear. We really never saw the body, or that it was a body. We had no idea who the girl was or the man coming in at the end. There was no set up to anyone being killed, or dying. Or any reason why the woman was trying to bury someone in some abandoned room/warehouse. I.e your intent of the logline just never came across to me.

Hope that helps.

Continue

Duke

[Hyun De Grande]

I'm glad you saved some time to give feedback.

I'll try to answer in overall:
It was supposed to be a drama, but in an overblown & Hollywoodian kind of way. I can understand that it's a bit confusing since indeed, there is no real beginning-middle-end structure, because it's just an excerpt from, a grab out of a hysteric situation. Not understanding the language will have also played its toll in not completely understanding the short. I will pay attention to such things in the future!
The acting on the blind part was the hardest thing to achieve from the girl, and I must admit that I didn't do enough research to have it played fully convincingly.
But I do think that it is somewhat clear that it's a human body she's dragging around, considering the shape... Off course, you never really get to see it, but I didn't think that was necessary, but that's just my opinion...
Plus, indeed you have no clue on who the man is. I admitally should've worked that out a bit more. But you do know who the girl is, since she calls for her mother just before we get to see her the first time.
I intentionally didn't focus on the 'why did she do it?', 'how has that happened' kind of things. I did focus on a tension-packed short piece where there are lots of things happening at the same time, without going deeply into the matters. That's why I think it's more a Hollywoodian 'entertainment'-like drama, than a real drama...

Also, what you say about it is supposely located in an abandoned room/warehouse is something I heard twice before, even though it is actually a really dirty, old outside court.

But I did hear those two same comments before I've done any color-correction, and the footage had an overall yellow look. So, after that I color-corrected everything in a cyan/blue look, to make it have more an 'under the moonlight' feel...

Apparently turns out that that still isn't clear.. :p
Any suggestions that I could've done here...?

Sorry for any incorrect spelling, English is not my first language. :)

[Bert Smyth]

I liked it. The shooting and editing was really well done. I thought the transition from the pool to the ocean was great. Not just a good little "trick cut" but actually really good visual story telliing.
The only thing that concerned me was the amplitude of what was being shot. The action lacked enough intensity to be an engaging "surfing" movie, but it sounds like you're not trying to accomplish that at all (documentary about sea life).

There was a really bad movie a while back, "Blue Crush" but it might give you some ideas for great surfing shots. One of my favorites was the under water shot where you are seeing the bottom of the surf board riding through the swirling water which is the curl of the wave.

Nice work.

[Mike Horrigan]

Om De Hoek 2

Not bad. Once he was let go I didn't find it all that convincing. The hit didn't look like much and he didn't appear injured enough to need to be crawling on the floor.

The sound effect at the end also needs work.

The lighting was also quite obvious, as were the shadows on the wall.

But! The mood you created was excellent.

Still, it seems like you are just creating scenes as apposed to actual short films, if you get my meaning. Your movies will have a lot more impact if we get to know and care for the characters first.

Good job though!

Mike

[Phil Kay]

Thanks Bert,I appreciate your comments.

[Hyun De Grande]

Om De Hoek 2

Not bad. Once he was let go I didn't find it all that convincing. The hit didn't look like much and he didn't appear injured enough to need to be crawling on the floor.

We really had trouble in hitting this off correctly, and I just didn't know how to do it, and I still don't... So, my question: in acting, how do you punch or kick someone, without hurting 'em, and make it look realistic without the use of a montage ??

The sound effect at the end also needs work.

That's because I don't know any good website that has good sounding sfx for free..!? So I looked in my Soundtrack Pro fx-library (which has very good quality fx sounds), and even there they didn't have what I was looking for. So I chose the sample that came the closest to what I needed..

The lighting was also quite obvious, as were the shadows on the wall.

Is this a bad thing? :)

Still, it seems like you are just creating scenes as apposed to actual short films, if you get my meaning. Your movies will have a lot more impact if we get to know and care for the characters first.

The reason for this is because all these shorts were class asignments, and mostly they are very specific in their tasks...
For example, with this one, we had to make a short consisting out of one longtake of minimum 3 minutes in length, without the use of dialogue/monologue, voice-overs & music...

That's really the most difficult part in my school/studies: making something that's yours whilst still staying between the boundaries of the assignment..!
Also, they all come at the same time so we had to make 4 films per semester this year. One moment you find yourself jumping from one project to the other. Really frustrating. That was really hard to pull off, and somewhat the reason why I couldn't always spend more time in developping the charachters/story a bit more...

Time IS a precious thing! :)

[Klas Persson]

Maybe they've bought the same cd's then. ;) Some of the effects where done at a friend's studio, taken from commercial effect collections.

Glad you liked it!

[Mike Horrigan]

Originally Posted by Hyun De Grande

We really had trouble in hitting this off correctly, and I just didn't know how to do it, and I still don't... So, my question: in acting, how do you punch or kick someone, without hurting 'em, and make it look realistic without the use of a montage ??

Cut the punch into multiple shots from different angles, including closeups and wide angle shots. Splice one or two shots together with a good shot of the guys facial reaction as he is getting hit. That might have more of an effect.


That's because I don't know any good website that has good sounding sfx for free..!? So I looked in my Soundtrack Pro fx-library (which has very good quality fx sounds), and even there they didn't have what I was looking for. So I chose the sample that came the closest to what I needed..

No problem, just thought it was worth mentioning.


Is this a bad thing? :)
That depends, were the shadows intentional? If not, then it's a bad thing. ;) They didn't seem to be needed and just added a distraction from the focus point.


The reason for this is because all these shorts were class asignments, and mostly they are very specific in their tasks...
For example, with this one, we had to make a short consisting out of one longtake of minimum 3 minutes in length, without the use of dialogue/monologue, voice-overs & music...

Aaah... understood.

Hopefully that makes sense...

[Hyun De Grande]

Well.., your explanation about the punching/kicking technique didn't come into consideration for that movie, because we weren't allowed to do any editing on that one... It had to be just one shot. I wonder if there are other techniques that would work in such a shooting situation..!?

My goal on the lighting was a bit of a dilemma. On one side I wanted to make it look as realistic as possible, because that was what I wanted to achieve with the whole movie. On the other side it looked a little dull and too boring if done completely natural, so we worked it out a little until it had a more stylish, yet still realistic feel...
So, ultimatly, the shadows were intentional.

[Charles A. Smith]

Hello everyone. These are the six most recent shorts I've made. Any comments, criticisms, questions would be great. The longest one is 8 minutes. The shortest is 1 and a half minutes. The are in order of when they were made.

"Waking Up"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoPBpgoMrA

"The Runner"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqgWxWPoP7c

"Mercedes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72MDuuXMf-A

"The Lemon Seed"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqhaz0UK0Ng

"Maroon Lizard"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxxx38h_uIk

"07-27-07"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jicA3mufYS8