May Status Report Thread

Thats the worst when someone makes it a poor working environment like that with attitude. I was just recently on the other side of the fence where I decided not to come back to a production for the same reason. I think its key to make sure everyone is happy and treat them with respect.
 
That's the one major thing I want to keep in mind on my next project, since I'll have a bit of a crew, which I have never had before...
 
Those are the nightmares that make me willing to fly across the country on a shoe-string budget, just to work with my tried and true friends. Folks who've come through in the past are worth any effort to work with again. Professional filmmakers do the same (same crew, favorite actors), and I can see why.
 
Yeah keeping the same crew means everyone knows each other and feels comfortable doing what ever job they do. Even if they make a percieved mistake, theres no reason to sh!t all over them in front of other people, thats just ass wrong. Doing that you wind up having a crew that will do the least they can if they still show up ever again and will never go out of their way for you when you need it. Then you get the old speech "dont you want to make a great film and be part of this?" uh, yeah, but not at the expense of respect. No one like sitting there holding a boom, camera, or whatever thinking to themselves "this suuuuucks".
 
we finally wrapped shooting. we are very happy with all of our footage (a total of 10 shooting days!)....now we just have to do all the post....in three days. wish us luck!:Drogar-Evil(DBG):
 
Today is our last day/night of shooting. I am so anxious to see all of the entries, I am going crazy!

We are still way over 5/6 minutes (currently around 9.5). Poor planning on my part. Trim, trim, trim.

I looked into the Palm Spring Short Film Festival regarding the "entries must not have been previously viewed on the internet" issue. The person I spoke with (email) said that if the short version (5-6 minutes) had a different name and was actually shorter, then it shouldn't be a problem. The fest in Palm Springs is pretty great by the way. They have a huge variety of shorts.

Good luck to everybody finishing up!
 
Aram Bauman said:
Thats the worst when someone makes it a poor working environment like that with attitude. I was just recently on the other side of the fence where I decided not to come back to a production for the same reason. I think its key to make sure everyone is happy and treat them with respect.
Exactly I said it after the shoot and say it now. "As long as everyone is smiling and feeling good on set it will show through on film." Being happy and making time to help others makes the situation all the better. It makes a better product and a better experience. Reaction to stress at the end of the day, is what determines your weight in salt.
I couldn't have been more pissed at the guy for acting like that pulling out old emails our connection sent him etc etc. Live and learn though.
 
Well, I finally got a cut sent off to my composer around 1:30 this morning (didn't have to be up until 5:30 for work :grin: ). My post audio guy got the audio cleaned up as much as possible.

Scheduled the actors for pick-ups this Saturday, just a few shots, no more than 3 hours (I hope). Working on color correction, and special effects the next couple days. Got a lot of sound design to do still.

Should be done by August 1st...hope that's a REALLY soft deadline (j/k - I'll be in on time, one way or another).

Peace,
Larry
 
Sweeeet dude. I still have a lot of sound design to do still but im going to do that after its sent to the composer.

I was able to get my latest rough cut down to 5:37:11 So I think I am going to even have a title and credits in this one. I still dont have a name for my flick or a name for the Hero yet.
 
How about Puffin man :cheesy:

hey ... i just realized, in light of that test I help you shoot and what the actors characters were smoking ... Puffin Films could have two meaninges, lol
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ok cool ... so you are doing credits for your online version also

i wasn't sure if i was going to do them at first -- I'm at 5:24 without and then 5:45 or so with them, but was worried that would be like hogging bandwidth
since the extra minute is a grace minute. But how much can twenty seconds add? Only a megabyte or two I'd imagine.

So then I was like screw it and put them on. Everyone did a great job on my filck and worked hard and its cooler to see your name scroll by than just read it on a list stuck on the first post of my films thread so i put it on there -- but you have to read fast!

With my other fllicks, no one envolved knew about or cared about DVXuser so it didn't matter much if they were on there for the online version or not, but like six DVXusers helped me build this particular barn so the online credits matter more this time.

I figure its the internet, so people can pause and frame through it if they really want to read it, but at least I got them on there.
 
Well... it sounds like all your projects are going to turn out fabulous! Just be happy I'm not entering or it would already be over ;) J/K!
 
Well, I just finished a rough edit. A few days ago (or was it weeks), I had a 10 minute rough cut version... but now that I have spent a few days chopping, hacking, and trimming; it is at least down under 6 minutes. I'm not sure how much more it can take. It is sort of like taking a large painting and cutting it in half, just doesn't seem to work as well.
:)

Anyway, if it does okay here, then maybe I will fine tune the 10 minute version and submit it to a festival. If not, then that's okay because I have learned a ton. I think I'm going to need a bigger crew than 2 next time.

I'm sorry to hear that a few have had to step out. Nothing wasted.
 
Congrats on getting your cut down.

Now that you've excised some big chunks and cut material altoghter, if you feel like doing a second pass, I focused on my editing in a different way this time.

Maybe everybody does this all the time, but its something I learned new this time.

After I finished the rough cut (6:04) I then went back and sort of questioned every cut within a few to several frames with the axiom that we need very little time to percieve and understand something.

Scrubbing back and forth I found I could loose 1, 2, or as much as 10 frames from a cut.

My quick cut actiony scenes got significantly "actionier" and my talking slowerpaced slice of life scenes (yes folks in a hero movie) just tightened up a bit with out affecting what I wanted to be a contrasting pace to the wham bam scenes.

My rough cut of 6:04 was now a locked picture at 5:24.

Sorry if that seems obvious but its teh first time I've done this rather than cutting when someone is almost out of the frame rather than having just crossed the left or right third, or if cuttinng from wide to medium as someone picks up a phone - rather than matching the continuity perfectly in where the hand is in each shot, cutting out a little bit or a lot on both sides that we'll never notice.

Of course I don't want to sound like this is the best thing for every film everry scene evey cut. If you can cut 4 minutes out of your fick and Norm can cut 15 out of his I could obviously cut and additional 24 seconds out of mine, but my film would plays better at 5 and some change rather than 5 minutes because it allows me to better pace some relationship scenes.

I just didn't want to rush these relationshippy scenes for the sake of rushing them. So while the above was a revaltion to me as opposed to just cutting it so "it looked right" or continous ... pacing is of course crucial ... you could apply the above in reverse and add time to a scene perhaps to create suspense by drawing something out, and add a few frames beyond perfect continuity in the cut of a guy picking up the telephone for exanple. But i think micromaniging the frames would have less of an impact in eleogating things as it does making them snappy, since there's a bid diffrenece in a 40 frame cut cut down to 30 frames but not as huge a difference in 10 frames shaved of a 6 or 7 second cut.

Just some stuff I'm thought about on this project.

Jack
 
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Jack Daniel Stanley said:
its teh first time I've done this rather than cutting when someone is almost out of the frame rather than having just crossed the left or right third

I'm in the same boat, Jack. I'm used to cutting docs and educational material where a clip might be up for a minute or so. I had to retrain myself to not feeling like I'm doing something wrong to have a clip up for only 8 frames or so. Weird for me, but a good lesson learned.
 
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