"The Stars Above" - Edgen

Edgen

Edgen

Veteran
edgen_the_stars_above_poster.jpg


The Stars Above


View it Here (New Version)


Duration: 5:12
Camera: DVX100a

"Some powers are gifted at birth.
... Some are not.
Some of those with powers are considered heros...
... Some are...

It's what you do with your gift."


 Credits:

Written
Directed
Performances
Camera
Edited
VFX
SFX
Music Score

(Justin R. Durban)



ScoreA (first half)
ScoreB (second half)

Old Version:
View it Here (old): (mirror1)
View it Here (old): (mirror2)
View it Here (old): (mirror3)


edgen_the_stars_above_p1.jpg


edgen_the_stars_above_p2.jpg



Special Thanks to everyone @ www.DVXuser.com
​


enjoy!
/j
 
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Progress Sigs:
edgen_dvx_tsa_banner01.jpg

edgen_dvx_tsa_banner02.jpg





VFX Shot List:
The first check is exported. The second check x is FX completed, and the circled number is completed and dumped into the final video mix.
The doubled circles are the composites of both the man in white and black within a scene. (stupid fyi stuff)

edgen_the_stars_above_shotlist.jpg




Additional BTS ... Analyzing ...

Stay tuned... until after the polls have closed...



 
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aye.

1 dude. 1 camera. 2 shoot days (few hours each day/night). 1 week of effects (when I had the time). :)

/j
 
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quite impressive... the story was a little weird for me... I still don't get it, but I liked the shots and the feel of the film...
 
This was really neat man. It was dark. I liked the overall tone and the music fit it well. It had an isolated feel to it. Your grapic design skills carried over into your film. I'm also impressed by how little time you conjured this one up, or at least executed it.

Great job!
 
you did it.! nice work, especially since you pulled it together so quickly. i thought the effects were great. the ending was a bit confusing but besides that it liked it. How did you achieve the glowing effect? What programs did you use?

i loved how the super magical object was a clip on light for books. that was awesome!


Alex
 
JimtheJib said:
How did you achieve the glowing effect? What programs did you use?

i loved how the super magical object was a clip on light for books. that was awesome!


Alex
Click to expand...

heheheh :) glad you noticed that. I was a Radio Shack night light. I thought it looked like a secret weapon or something. Ooh well, My imagination kicked in. :)

Glows, rotoscoping, split screens, green screens were all done with After Effects.

thanks Noct! Yea, I was going to work on this thing since day one and dally lagged around till the last minute to make a film and i'm glad I did. At least I submitted something. :)

Story? I think its one of those where you've gota watch it again.

/j
 
Wow - nice work pulling this off on your own!

Lighting was great - would ge great to see even more of the tungsten vs. daylight stuff. Liked what you did with color. Great outdoor shots.

Story was very hard to follow/pay attention to. Perhaps because it was entirely done in voiceover, which makes my mind wander. The voiceover was also kind of hard to listen to - a little abrasive.

Good work!
 
Thank you conrad.

yep... VO was a tough one. I wish I could have done more with it and made it Longer to explain more as the story takes place. Its just one of those things you don't notice till after its finished. :)

OOoh.. aaron(noct) did you mean dark as in lit or just dark/creepy in nature?

/j
 
I'm gonna agree with Conrad (I've done that a lot lately). The audio filter over the VO is a little unfitting to be used the whole time.

Good camerawork, lighting...the score is very appropriate.
 
I have a rather unusual comment, so forgive me. The thing is, I have that book light, and it was used as part of the costuming in our short! :) More relevent/helpful comments later.
 
Edgen said:
Thank you conrad.

yep... VO was a tough one. I wish I could have done more with it and made it Longer to explain more as the story takes place. Its just one of those things you don't notice till after its finished. :)

OOoh.. aaron(noct) did you mean dark as in lit or just dark/creepy in nature?

/j
Click to expand...

I mean dark like creepy in nature. I agree I think it's one of those films you have to watch a couple of times.
 
WilderWorks said:
I have a rather unusual comment, so forgive me. The thing is, I have that book light, and it was used as part of the costuming in our short! :) More relevent/helpful comments later.
Click to expand...

HA!! AWesome! It took me the longest time to figure out what it was and how to turn it on. I wish now that I superglued something else to it, but oh well. Its my showcase. Love to hear the feedback. Good or bad. How else can I improve and be better for the next one? (besides having more than one person)

/j
 
HA! Yes, more than one person could help. That said, Justin, I'm AMAZED at what you were able to do yourself. Really, really talented guy ... are you sick of me saying that yet?

I was confused some on the story, and will probably have to watch it again ... and who knows, I may still be confused & then ask you to spoon feed the story to me in a post here (haven't read through this yet, maybe you already have?).

Oh, and for someone who's "just learning After Effects", you did an amazing job. Nice composition work ... blended very nicely, as well as some GREAT motion tracking.
 
I think I'll explain more story later on. I'd like everyone to see it first and see if they have the same reaction. If so, I may just go back and revisit the VO. I wrote that on the spot and I lost the camera 3 days before I even got to start editing it so I couldn't go back and re-record anything unless I used my rinky dink computer mic. So, matching that up with the DVX would have sucked.

I put a flange on my voice just to try and hide the aweful in-mic on the DVX too. Plus.. I guess to give some away, its an entire back story. When the voting is over, i'm going to put the entire process and how I came up with everything while I was shooting it. House to myself and the way I was cussing talking on the Behind the scenes footage, you'll get a good laugh. Plus, I recycled my tape stock cause I was a cheap bastard and didn't want to buy anything new. :) Hope I didn't tape over anything important!

AE's not too bad. once you learn it, all the tools are there, just named differently across the board. All boards. music, effects, editors, mixers, plugins.. etc.

I want to post my progressive signature pictures, but I don't know if I'm allowed. Is that OK? I've got 15 of them :)

/j
 
I think the sigs would be fine, since you've had them all up at one time or another anyway, why not just put them all on the same page (in your 1st or 2nd post).?
 
The sig changes were cool, I think i mentioned you changing them often.
Dude you did a good job for a one man band. I thought that was the same guy in the background. The last shot is hard to see that there was someone there at first, no separation from the background. The shots were nice and i liked the use of shadow. The VO was hard to hear on the little speakers at work so I have no idea what went on.
That was very ambitious.
 
Edgen, let me start by saying what you created BY YOURSELF was amazing. I think if you had a crew, you could have done a lot more with the story. As it was, it had more of a music video feel. By that, I mean the pictures were there to serve the music and not the other way around. For me, the story didn't really seem to go anywhere.

I liked the silhouetted images against the bank of windows but felt there needed to be more lighting with your main character seated at the table with the case. btw, finally, we get to see what's in one of those cases...:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
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