Show Your Work 2008

[Joe Desmond]

Hello all. I suppose I never really developed any sort of rapport here at the DVi forums but I still feel like I owe a lot of thanks to a handful of you who gave me quite a bit of advice when I was starting work on my first ever film (which just happened to be feature-length)...

You guys helped me on issues such as What to do first with my newly-arrived XL-2, 16 vs. 12 bit audio in post, and oddities such as the safety of pointing the XL-2 at the sun.

I suppose I'd just like to point out that I knew nothing about cameras or filmmaking or video or anything. I figured it out by reading the XL-2 manual (there's a PDF around here somewhere), reading posts here on the DVi forums and website, and by asking questions (and having them answered by all of you)... And I'd like to sincerely thank you for that.

Having said that, I just wanted to post that my feature film, Oceania which premiered to a sold-out audience at the 2008 Cinequest Film Festival this past March is now available for FREE under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/).

A captivating drama that explodes with an intense visual style and sharp storytelling, Oceania is a rarity for such a young director. At 17-years-old, Dehal wrote and directed a film that reveals a talent and a cinematic eye far beyond even the most seasoned Hollywood directors, and based on his debut film, there is no doubt that Dehal is one of the big discoveries of the year (by Tamee Tanoor, 2008 Cinequest Film Festival).

You can download it via BitTorrent (the kind folks at LegalTorrents.com are hosting us at the moment):
http://www.hdehal.com/oceania/download

View pictures at: http://www.hdehal.com/oceania
Download .torrent: http://www.hdehal.com/oceania/download

Once again, thanks for all of the help! Please enjoy!



P.S. The quality isn't great as I had to shrink it down to 700 mb via XVID. I have a properly-encoded DVD ISO in the works and will be posting that soon. And please feel free to email me or send comments/critiques at harrydehal@gmail.com. Cheers!

[James Hooey]

Andy, thanks for the response. The reason it was free was really a trade of services. He did some modelling work for stock footage for me, I shot and edited a performance for him.

I agree completely about crowd shots. I wish I had some. Actually there was no dancing crowd. Honestly all I remember seeing was people sitting or walking to the bar. (Mabey people were worried about getting smacked with the spinners. :)

Thanks for the vote of confidence in the finished edit. I want to mention some of your points to the artist.



Craig - thanks, I appreciate it.



Bubba - The artist had a choice and he was hooked on using the original live recording which was simply with a Olympus digital voice recorder and a Sony ECM-ZS90 stereo mike facing front of house. I offered to edit to one of the artists mixes to the footage.

Thanks for the thumbs up on the video.



I really appreciate the comments from everyone, I will be sending the link to the artist today (if he doesn't already know it's online) so it will be great to hear his opinion of it. I'll post again when I get his feedback for interests sake.

James

[Martin Labelle]

I was at the free Quebec city show with my Sony A1u, and I was in the 6th row(more than 200 000 people).
I recorded with the audio unit(XLR) not on the camera(look less pro).
just a short video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvdeIFLSH3o&fmt=18

[Joel Brooks]

Hello To all. I have a new website that I want to make available.

www.mitvideoproductions.com

[Jonathan Richards]

Is this site about your passion for making films or your passion for your EX1?!

[Oren Arieli]

Ack! This will be harsh and you will not like it one bit, but I can promise you that if you heed my advice, the business will do better (and you'll attract a higher paying clientele).
First. NEVER show your camera on your home page, unless you are SELLING it. Are you in the business of equipment or making images?
Two. Stick with one or two fonts, a harmonious color scheme and a no-scroll website (whenever possible).
Three. Each page should be like a poster; eye catching, informative. Don't expect more than 30 seconds of page view...if you're lucky!

Take a look at any professional photographer's website, especially the high end ones. That is what you want to emulate, whether you're in Boonsville, or Beverly Hills

I used to build my own sites, and regretted every second of it. I know that I'm not a web-designer, so I left it to the pros.

Surf the web a bit more, check your competition's websites (in major metropolitan areas, especially).

Good luck.

[Jeremy Doyle]

This was made last weekend as part of the 48 hour film project in Des Moines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE22AD9FazQ

Our genre was Political Drama
Character - Alan West, door to door salesman
prop - roll of painters tape
line of dialogue - What's it to you pal

[Christopher Ruffell]

Hello everyone! This is my first posting in this section. I’d love if you were able to offer some feedback, both on what I’m doing right and what I should/can do better.

http://fmw.teack.net/lullaby/lullaby_01.html

I was asked by the band to come out and be a B Camera - I've never shot a music video before, but I've seen many and know what I like, or what I'd like to try and do at least. The last video production I did was *very* controlled and stable: always on sticks, slow pans, no zooms, good exposure, tack sharp focus.

I went for grit on this one. I wanted to do everything to get away from the orderly style, just to try it out. This was all hand held, arm-extended swooping in-your-face shots with aggressive colour grading (which is also used to hide the grain in the blacks). I was only on sticks for two takes - one when with the singer's face is up close, and the other was a wide.

I’d really appreciate some constructive feedback, thank you.

[Perrone Ford]

Well,

It felt very organic. The camera moves were good, and it "felt" like a music video. I only have two issues with it.

1. Structurally, there was just nothing. It's a shoot of a band. There's no story at all. I think what separates pro music videos from the rest is that pro videos tend to be mini movies. They have a story line that gives you some reason to care about the band or the song or both. Here, we have some guys playing on a stage. Or at least we assume it's a stage because there is no audience, and nothing of a "space" is shown around the band.

2. Lighting. Yes it's gritty and heavily graded. And it works. In fact, I think it looks terrific! But, on the closeups of the lead, and for some of the others, you have no eyes. And I think in order for us to make any kind of emotional connection to these people playing, we need the eyes. I found myself paying far more attention to the technicals of the shoot, than the artists, and I don't think this is what you want for the average audience.


Now don't get me wrong. This is certainly a cut above most of what I see. I thought it was really well done. And other than those two nit-picks, I've got nothin!

Good stuff.

[Jeremy Doyle]

I'd love to hear any feedback.

[Mark Ganglfinger]

Wow, I just finished my first music video today. It looks nothing like that!
What size room did you have to shoot in. I would love to be able to shoot on a stage big enough to do selective lighting with a black background.\

Great job.

[Mark Ganglfinger]

I run a small recording studio as well as doing wedding videography.
I don't get too many chances to combine both for some reason, but here is the result.
We were just going to do a very simple 1 camera, in front of the mic shoot, but as we were doing it we came up with some other ideas and decided to run with it.

http://www.vimeo.com/1436889

It's not metal, hip-hop, dance, pop or anything else. It's just what you would expect from a small town songwriter.

[Christopher Ruffell]

Perrone, that's exactly what I wanted, honest feedback, thank you. I agree with everything you said, and have some answers for you. Glad you like it overall, means a lot to me, especially since your feedback is so balanced.

1) Totally agree - stories are so important. There was/is a story that's been shot, but it was done with out me, several months ago. This was more of a pickup shoot - just the band playing, and it was the only shoot that I was involved in on this video. The story starts with a young girl, being left alone in front of a TV as the song says, then shows her later in life as a gorgeous in-her-early twenties doing a photo-shoot but living a jaded life, and continues on from there. My shots will edited with the story, but all I have to show are my shots, and from the DP/showreel perspective. This isn't the final video that'll be shown, rather, I'm using this as an experimental piece to show my colleagues (you) to get perspective on if I'm doing it right or not :D I also had fun shooting + editing it.

2) Again, totally agree, - gotta be able to see their eyes. Next time, I'd demand a bounce/eye-light be used in addition to the overhead lights. In the raw footage, you kind of can, but crushing the blacks removes eye-detail. I've tried using a spot vignette to raise the exposure on the singer's eyes, but since I shot this with HDV, I've already pushed it to its max. Next shoot I do, location permitting, I'll bring along the Mac Pro and shoot uncompressed, and properly light the eyes. Thanks Perrone!

Mark, thank you, that's very kind. I'll admit, the raw footage looks pretty bland - spending time with the 3-way Color Corrector then some time in Magic Bullet Looks can really do wonders, even with HDV. And yes, I lucked out with being invited to a stage with black drapes and a full lighting setup - lighting from overhead really looks pro.

Some Specifics: I shot this with a single-chip camera with the addition of a 35mm lens adapter with the HDV codec (this is the best low-light footage I've seen this rig produce since these setups aren't known for doing well in darker situations). It was fun, and good learning - thank you for the feedback; if anyone else has something to say I'd appreciate it too.

[William Mager]

Hi there

First time poster - just made a new short film which I'm quite pleased with. It's called Stiletto, and I've made a website for it:

http://www.stilettofilm.co.uk

There's also a short teaser trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/billster1977

Please do have a look and let me know what you think!

Regards

William Mager

[Mark Dawson]

Hi everyone, recorded a High Def vocal piece using sony XDCAM HD, feedback welcome and enjoy.

can be found at

http://www.londonmarkfilms.co.uk/kingjohn.htm

or

http://www.vimeo.com/1391012