View Full Version : "Creature Quest" - Something different by Kurt Jewell
kurtmo
05-06-2009, 05:08 AM
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/picture.php?albumid=180&pictureid=1190
It's been some time since I last joined a fest. This entry will take a new direction for me and I really can't believe I'm doing this.
Everyone has heard stories and legends of fantastical creatures. Many people don't believe. They think these creatures are simply the product of the imagination or perhaps some form of optical illusion. But once you've seen something that you can't quite explain, something that challenges your ability to distinguish that which is real from that which is imaginary, then you too may find yourself joining the realm of believers.
Up near my cabin in northern Minnesota there are stories of a legendary creature that lives and roams the surrounding lakes and forests. I myself have never seen it, or at least i can't be sure, but others are adamant that they have.
So later this month I'm taking my HMC150 and heading north on a quest to answer the question "Is it real?"
And the cool part is that you get to come along for the ride.
kurtmo
05-06-2009, 05:08 AM
Production Log:
4/13 - Pitch sent
4/21 - Green lit
5/6 - Thread started
5/11 - Camera trap identified and ordered
5/13 - Interviews booked; field shooting dates are set for May 19th and 20th :)
kurtmo
05-06-2009, 05:09 AM
Reserved 2.
Michael Anthony Horrigan
05-06-2009, 06:35 AM
Welcome and good luck! Should be fun.
MAH
mattspat
05-06-2009, 06:39 AM
Caught my attention! Different. I like.
kurtmo
05-06-2009, 06:44 AM
Caught my attention! Different. I like.
Good. I was a little nervous about being 'different', but it's exciting too!
It'll be a while before I can start building a cast list. I have a friend who is a doctor of developmental biology and genetics at the UofM who I'm hoping will run some tests for me...if we find anything of interest.
Rodney V. Smith
05-06-2009, 07:27 AM
funkadafied! Welcome back!
And now for something a little different...
Awesome! This has some really great potential, Kurt. Good for you for pushing yourself on this one. I pushed myself last time out and it really paid off for me.
*sigh* On a personal note, I miss the Minnesota wilderness. Looking forward to seeing it in your film. :)
Blaine
05-06-2009, 01:49 PM
Nice concept. I hope you can work it out because it definitely sound interesting.
ZazaCast
05-06-2009, 01:50 PM
Welcome to the fest...and good luck on your Quest!
stinkpot
05-06-2009, 03:00 PM
Different is good. Looking forward to it.
:beer:
kurtmo
05-07-2009, 04:57 AM
I'm thinking of this for my field kit. It's an infrared flash camera with a built in motion sensor.
http://jewellhome.net/images/motion-camera.jpg
kyrre
05-07-2009, 05:46 AM
Welcome to the fest mate!
kurtmo
05-13-2009, 10:03 AM
Production log started in post #2.
kurtmo
05-14-2009, 08:20 PM
Just got back from a location scouting trip. Great weather and got some nice pics.
kurtmo
05-19-2009, 04:50 AM
Car is loaded and I'm heading to northern Minnesota. I've got eyewitness interviews this evening and then we spend the night watching and waiting in the woods.
Exciting! Can't wait to hear how it went. :)
kurtmo
05-20-2009, 08:21 PM
Two days of filming completed. Had to strike some outdoors work due to 40-50 mph winds.
Day one was amazing! i wish I could post some some footage.
I'd swear these people I'm working with are normal, then they start talking about what they've seen and I think to myself what planet did they come from...
Makes for a happy director.
Bro. Stephen
05-21-2009, 09:32 AM
Well, I'm intrigued. Hope you find it.
Bro. Stephen
05-21-2009, 09:33 AM
Can't wait to see it.
Bro. Stephen
05-21-2009, 09:33 AM
Oh, and good luck.
Glad filming went well for you (despite the wind). Sounds like it's coming together. Can't wait.
kurtmo
06-15-2009, 06:57 AM
Poster added at last.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/picture.php?albumid=180&pictureid=1190
Noel Evans
06-15-2009, 07:00 AM
Kurt I love this kind of stuff. Good luck!
kurtmo
06-15-2009, 07:16 AM
Thanks Noel!
It's been an amazing process. All my live footage is done. Editing is getting close. I'm taking my time on this to try to get it right. There is a story in the interviews and locations I shot at. If I can just find a way to weave this patchwork together...
kurtmo
06-15-2009, 01:48 PM
Pictures of my homemade 8' carbon fiber boom prior to assembly. It works great. It's ultra light. It can easily be extended to 12'.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/picture.php?albumid=180&pictureid=1195
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/picture.php?albumid=180&pictureid=1194
Rodney V. Smith
06-27-2009, 10:07 AM
News? Gimme the word. And did you find Man-Bear-Pig-Ape-Lake-Water-Man?
kurtmo
06-27-2009, 03:06 PM
Well...all will be revealed shortly. I haven't been saying much because I hate to spoil the surprise. I will say we didn't come back empty handed.
Anyone interested in anthropology and/or genetic sciences will find our results intriguing, to say the least.
Ben Sliker
06-27-2009, 04:45 PM
I will say we didn't come back empty handed.
Ah Ha! You did find him! FOR SERIAL!
http://atlmalcontent.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/manbearpig1.jpg
HALF-MAN! HALF-BEAR! HALF-PIG!
kurtmo
06-27-2009, 04:51 PM
I have three "F" words to describe our findings:
Fotos
Fur
Feces
It don't get any better than that!
kurtmo
06-27-2009, 04:52 PM
Ah Ha! You did find him! FOR SERIAL!
http://atlmalcontent.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/manbearpig1.jpg
HALF-MAN! HALF-BEAR! HALF-PIG!
Hey, I think I still have 30 more seconds of space. Can I hook you up for a last minute interview?
RodThompson
06-27-2009, 06:16 PM
What exacty is a Lake Ape?
kurtmo
06-27-2009, 06:51 PM
What exacty is a Lake Ape?
That's exactly what I set out to discover. You'll have to watch CreatureQuest to find out!
Noel Evans
06-27-2009, 07:42 PM
That's exactly what I set out to discover. You'll have to watch CreatureQuest to find out!
My spidey senses are tingling, something about a garden path and being led down it.
kurtmo
06-30-2009, 04:53 PM
Test render in progress. If it looks good, I'll re-render overnight at best rez and up she goes!!!!
kurtmo
07-01-2009, 12:45 PM
After some last minute visual and audio tweaks...Upload Complete!!!!!!
kurtmo
07-01-2009, 07:10 PM
Just uploaded...again. The first try didn't take for some reason. Hope this one works!
kurtmo
07-02-2009, 05:26 AM
Looks like the upload finally worked. Yeah!!!
On another note, anyone have trouble with contrast brightness? I've got my laptop tweaked so it uses the video card to decode my AVCHD files. The image is great. When I played it on my LCD TV from a USB thumb drive using a WD media player, the brightness was way too dark and the colors looked muddy. I ended up bumping the brightness up and finally got the image to looking good. I don't put in any pedestal, so my blacks are true blacks.
Anyone else seen issues like this? I'm just afraid that people will see the muddy version and not the high contrast version of Creature Quest. That would suck, because some of my best stuff is in the murky shadows.
Noel Evans
07-02-2009, 07:49 AM
That would suck, because some of my best stuff is in the murky shadows.
You should be ok. Check it on your NLE waveform?
Im looking forward to seeing whats in those murky shadows.. just a few days til then.
kurtmo
07-02-2009, 09:00 AM
You should be ok. Check it on your NLE waveform?
Looks good on the waveform monitor (I think). The color data is there, but on some displays / viewers the black level scrushes too much or the brightness isn't high enough.
I may try to post a short clip of something colored like my end product and see if others see it OK.
Girgej
07-04-2009, 02:42 AM
Original & Interesting ... Good Luck
Mattykins
07-04-2009, 08:36 PM
It feels like you were trying too hard. It looked good. Especially the interrogation scene.
Though I feel the characterization was too much, the voiceover was too much. It wasn't really my cup of tea. It seems like you were trying to go for the corny type show, but I don't feel as if it worked out too well for the short.
I guess the long and short of it is, not my type of humor.
Tom Marshall
07-04-2009, 09:12 PM
SPOILER
Highlight to see > I was watching it until the "feces" part started making me nauseous... so I had to turn it off. <
ramsaur
07-04-2009, 09:21 PM
haha, man this was pretty funny. When it first started I was like what is this? Then whole bigfoot story cracked me up. It was a good documentary and a funny one.
Rodney V. Smith
07-04-2009, 09:28 PM
Funny stuff dude. Good tongue-in-cheek humor all the way through. And you had some good cinematography thrown in for good measure. Thanks for the most excellent trip and good laughs.
HCPROD
07-05-2009, 03:01 AM
Nice job! Made me laugh out loud several times. Really like the end.
Noel Evans
07-05-2009, 04:34 AM
kurtmo, you played me man. Damn you! :P Kidding. Some well played characters in there, clearly defined and humorous. Yes I was one of those people who laughed when Austin Powers drank Fat Bastards ummm coffee.
~jai~
07-05-2009, 12:17 PM
Very funny stuff! This was a hilarious spoof and all your actors were very good in their roles! The special effects with the electrocution and the titles were excellent and the poop guy (fecaltologist?) was downright nasty (in a good way)! Only thing I can say is in the end, it might have been funnier to have more Lake Ape Men going by, the more the merrier or at least the whole time he's talking. However, this is being real nit-picky!
Great job sir, thank you for sharing!
kurtmo
07-05-2009, 02:53 PM
Just got back into town! Gotta start downloading!!!
kurtmo
07-05-2009, 02:54 PM
Only thing I can say is in the end, it might have been funnier to have more Lake Ape Men going by, the more the merrier or at least the whole time he's talking. However, this is being real nit-picky!
Great job sir, thank you for sharing!
Thanks ~jai~! I wanted more bigfoots too, but I only rented one costume and rotoscoped the two shots together. Originally I wanted to have the lake ape playing tennis, but the temp was 94 degrees out that day.
FYI, in the final shot Chuck Bigs is greenscreened.
Thanks for the comments!
kurtmo
07-05-2009, 02:57 PM
SPOILER
Highlight to see > I was watching it until the "feces" part started making me nauseous... so I had to turn it off. <
Tom - Sorry you couldn't make it through, but...that scene seems to touch young and old alike!
Feces recipe for those who care or have weak stomachs...
Heat a Snickers in the microwave, mix it up, add peanut butter and some corn...mmmm tasty as long as you don't look at it.:-KnockedOut(D
kurtmo
07-05-2009, 03:08 PM
haha, man this was pretty funny. When it first started I was like what is this? Then whole bigfoot story cracked me up. It was a good documentary and a funny one.
Ramsaur - Glad you liked the humor. I was hoping to pull a few people along wondering where I was going.
Funny stuff dude. Good tongue-in-cheek humor all the way through. And you had some good cinematography thrown in for good measure. Thanks for the most excellent trip and good laughs.
Puck - Glad you laughed. I was happy with some of the shots. I learned a bunch in the interrogation scene.
Nice job! Made me laugh out loud several times. Really like the end.
HCPROD - Thanks! I'm happy you liked it.
kurtmo, you played me man. Damn you! :P Kidding. Some well played characters in there, clearly defined and humorous. Yes I was one of those people who laughed when Austin Powers drank Fat Bastards ummm coffee.
Happy that it meshed with your humor. I tried to push the limits a few times while keeping true to my mocumentary theme.
Original & Interesting ... Good Luck
Girgej - Thanks for watching!
funny stuff, well shot and great audio. disturbing fecal matter material but hey, when you gotta track down a furry ape you gotta do what the dodo they give you .
well done with all the different looks.
HAHAHAHA! Yes! Fun film. Great spoof of the "In Search Of (insert name of legend here)" shows. From the digital cameras in ziploc bags, to the fecal matter analyzing, to the obviously re-enacted right then sighting it all played the parody well. I especially liked the bit about running a smothing filter on the shaky cam footage to reveal the Lake Ape. That's one bad a** filter!
DarkElastic
07-06-2009, 11:07 AM
Hi Kurtmo,
I enjoyed this, a really good spoof. I loved the steriotypical characters and the poop bit made me laugh. A really nice looking Production as well. Well done.
Susanne G.
07-06-2009, 01:01 PM
This was completely nonsense. An funny, entertained an enjoyable film. I loved the teeth :zombie_smiley:.
Susanne
kurtmo
07-06-2009, 10:11 PM
Glad you all seemed to enjoy the spoof. It's the first film I can honestly say turned out very close to my original vision. Thanks for watching!
funny stuff, well shot and great audio. disturbing fecal matter material but hey, when you gotta track down a furry ape you gotta do what the dodo they give you .
well done with all the different looks.
I had a hard time filming the poo without LMAO!
HAHAHAHA! Yes! Fun film. Great spoof of the "In Search Of (insert name of legend here)" shows. From the digital cameras in ziploc bags, to the fecal matter analyzing, to the obviously re-enacted right then sighting it all played the parody well. I especially liked the bit about running a smothing filter on the shaky cam footage to reveal the Lake Ape. That's one bad a** filter!
Hi Kurtmo,
I enjoyed this, a really good spoof. I loved the steriotypical characters and the poop bit made me laugh. A really nice looking Production as well. Well done.
This was completely nonsense. An funny, entertained an enjoyable film. I loved the teeth :zombie_smiley:.
Susanne
The teeth are sweat. Now I gotta pay for some corrective dental work :grin:
Michael Anthony Horrigan
07-07-2009, 11:19 AM
I had a really fun time watching this one. There were some pretty amusing bits here and there. Great spoof all around. I think I would have liked to have seen the Lake Ape a little more here and there but that's about it.
Fun little movie.
MAH
ZazaCast
07-07-2009, 12:00 PM
This was really funny stuff....I'm still laughing as I type! The interrogation scene was BRILLANT! LMAO. (again, I laugh just thinking about it) I totally 'get' this one and I wouldn't change a thing. Thanks for the laughs! I look forward to your next film.
Cheers! :beer:
kurtmo
07-07-2009, 01:25 PM
I had a really fun time watching this one. There were some pretty amusing bits here and there. Great spoof all around. I think I would have liked to have seen the Lake Ape a little more here and there but that's about it.
Fun little movie.
MAH
MAH - I'm glad you enjoyed CQ! As for the Lake Ape shots, I wanted those to show up only at the end. That way the question "will you find it or is it a hoax" remains until the very end. Beyond that, I only rented one Lake Ape for one day. Thanks for the comments!
This was really funny stuff....I'm still laughing as I type! The interrogation scene was BRILLANT! LMAO. (again, I laugh just thinking about it) I totally 'get' this one and I wouldn't change a thing. Thanks for the laughs! I look forward to your next film.
Cheers! :beer:
Wow! Wonderful praise from an esteemed film-maker. Thank you, Zaza!
ZazaCast
07-07-2009, 01:57 PM
Wow! Wonderful praise from an esteemed film-maker. Thank you, Zaza!
Ha... yeah... esteemed.... that's the word! :)
Brandon Rice
07-07-2009, 02:33 PM
Funny stuff! The guy with the poop was kind of annoying... it was a little in my face... and didn't come off as funny as it could have IMO :)
Great effort though, very creative!
ConspiracyPenguin
07-08-2009, 03:07 PM
Original concept, very well put together, highly entertaining. Great work.
Brian Parker
07-08-2009, 08:32 PM
Entertaining piece and interesting concept. Good production value as well. Got some laughs from me. Nice job!
Girgej
07-09-2009, 01:06 AM
Hey .... Great Documentary Emulation .... and it was too funny .... the quest was a bit off ... but great comedy ... Keep it up ...
Jeff Anderson
07-12-2009, 06:32 AM
Love the announcer voice!
Really pretty footage too - nice soft light on the interviews. Love the whiskey in the jar.
Wasn't sure if I bought Chuck Biggs character - felt like he was too used car salesman.
Love the variety of characters. What a great way to tell a story where you cant show the "lead".
Score was great - very comical but not too in the way.
Great ending - so glad you didnt let them succeed, but we did get a glimpse of the creature.
Nice work! Really enjoyed this - totally felt like some of those discovery/pbs shows.
kurtmo
07-12-2009, 10:31 AM
Thanks Jeff!
I'm glad you used the phrase "used cars salesman" to describe Chuck Biggs 'cause that's how I wrote the part and how I described the part to my actor. The green ring, the sports coat over the loud shirt. For good or bad he hit the role.
Thanks so much for watching and for the feedback!
kurtmo
Love the announcer voice!
Really pretty footage too - nice soft light on the interviews. Love the whiskey in the jar.
Wasn't sure if I bought Chuck Biggs character - felt like he was too used car salesman.
Love the variety of characters. What a great way to tell a story where you cant show the "lead".
Score was great - very comical but not too in the way.
Great ending - so glad you didnt let them succeed, but we did get a glimpse of the creature.
Nice work! Really enjoyed this - totally felt like some of those discovery/pbs shows.
Richard J. Johnson
07-13-2009, 06:13 PM
Bo Ditch and Poop Guy were effing hilarious! This one had me dying throughout. The fact that dude was walking around the woods with a suit jacket on was great. I enjoyed this one. The glasses guy was the only one I didn't like. other than that it was just a funny film. Good job on this one.
glibzorbnik
07-14-2009, 08:07 AM
I too enjoyed the used-car salesman and the poop-ologist. The nearly-toothless eyewitness was also funny, but not quite as polished. The glasses guy was over-the-top funny (especially if you know him). The whole cast was well chosen.
Overall: I've watched many of the questfest submissions and I can whole-heartedly give "CreatureQuest" a two-thumbs-up recommendation.
That's one awesome video camera you've got there Kurtmo.
Glen (a.k.a. "Bo Ditch")
kurtmo
10-26-2009, 11:29 AM
Well I thought I'd make an update to Creature Quest's status as it got some recent attention.
After Creature Quest finished 9th in the fest :embarasse and thereby narrowly missed the big screen cutoff I was pretty happy for my best placing, but bummed to be missing out on the fun at the same time.
I put CreatureQuest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_R5n5bTWrE)up on youtube a while back and have had moderate traffic. But in early October I got contacted by Sony Creative SW. One of their project managers had found it on youtube and really enjoyed it. He was interested because it was edited with Sony Vegas Pro and he asked if they could link to it from their Twitter, Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=228318725117), and Youtube accounts.:thumbsup: The link made it up on their facebook acct. on Oct. 6th.
So even though there were no free t-shirts in the offer, it was still pretty cool!
ZazaCast
10-26-2009, 11:50 AM
VERY cool! Congrats!!!!
MadHMC150
01-20-2010, 07:05 AM
Really funny... nice job Kurt!
elsmama
10-04-2010, 05:10 PM
Loved this! So did the fam!