Your Very First Movie

Brandon Rice

Brandon Rice

Distributed Producer
Well... here's a thread I thought would be fun to start... it's fun seeing where we came from... this is my very first short ever, called Star Hunt: Adversary. I don't remember exactly when I made it. I think I was 12 or 13. It taught me a lot though. I learned the concept of angles and cutting... though I didn't know anything about "the line" or anything, I still got the idea of cutting and not doing things in one long master shot... these are some of the things I learned on my very first short ever... please post your first shorts and things you learned...

www.noaricedigital.com/shfullst.wmv

:beer: :beer: :beer:
 
i made a psychological thriller called: PSYCHOGENIC when I was in high school (92-93). it was shot like a Tony Scott movie of that era and scored with Hans Zimmer tracks, mainly from True Romance. and I stole the plot from two places: Shattered starring Tom Berenger and a short story called The Seventh Victim. the story began with a man waking up on train tracks. He had psychogenic amnesia and through a course of events learned that he is a member of a federally sponsered "assassination game". in the end, there is a twist of course. two actually, first he discovers the person he was assigned to kill is himself and then, we learn he was faking the amnesia. i'll see if i can't dig out some material on it at some point.
 
Somewhere on ZIP disks, I made a High School fight movie with a Sony Digital Mavica Still camera (the ones that put video on Floppy Disks?) called "Fighting over a girl". It had all sorts of cuts and angles that did nothing for it. One day when I find it I'll post it up. I don't think it's a movie...

It's pretty much just people fighting.
 
Zak Forsman said:
i made a psychological thriller called: PSYCHOGENIC when I was in high school (92-93). it was shot like a Tony Scott movie of that era and scored with Hans Zimmer tracks, mainly from True Romance. and I stole the plot from two places: Shattered starring Tom Berenger and a short story called The Seventh Victim. the story began with a man waking up on train tracks. He had psychogenic amnesia and through a course of events learned that he is a member of a federally sponsered "assassination game". in the end, there is a twist of course. two actually, first he discovers the person he was assigned to kill is himself and then, we learn he was faking the amnesia. i'll see if i can't dig out some material on it at some point.
Click to expand...
Uhh.....my friends and I tried to make a "mob" movie and it sucked.

PS-Brandon, watching your movie had me in hysterics. Funny on so many levels. Great idea for a thread. If I can find anything worth uploading, I will.
 
Deepfocus88 said:
PS-Brandon, watching your movie had me in hysterics. Funny on so many levels. Great idea for a thread. If I can find anything worth uploading, I will.
Click to expand...

HAHA! Nice! Yeah, I just like looking back at where I whence came from...
 
It's kinda hard to watch older stuff. One quickly realize some obvious things and how much one has grown.
 
I havnt made my first film yet.

ZOMG SHOCK!

But Im working on it, its coming along pretty cool. [Course, i would say that.] Should be finished late Febuary.

[About to watch Brandon's]
 
jgastelb said:
It's kinda hard to watch older stuff. One quickly realize some obvious things and how much one has grown.
Click to expand...
i'm at the point where i dont compare me now to me then. it's simply nostalgic to look back at these. and I should amend my post. PSYCHOGENIC was the first serious attempt at a feature. but the very first short I made was called The Nerd and it was about the different people he met on his first day at college. it ended with him finding another nerd and they became friends. i made that in 1986 on a Hitachi "Cam-n-Cord".
 
Ki-Ki said:
I havnt made my first film yet.

ZOMG SHOCK!

But Im working on it, its coming along pretty cool. [Course, i would say that.] Should be finished late Febuary.

[About to watch Brandon's]
Click to expand...

Keep at it. I wouldn't call what I made official, either. Good luck.
 
Zak Forsman said:
i'm at the point where i dont compare me now to me then. it's simply nostalgic to look back at these. and I should amend my post. PSYCHOGENIC was the first serious attempt at a feature. but the very first short I made was called The Nerd and it was about the different people he met on his first day at college. it ended with him finding another nerd and they became friends. i made that in 1986 on a Hitachi "Cam-n-Cord".
Click to expand...

For me it has been a very fast, crazy, crash course of technique and skills with a long way to go. Having said that, I had no clue on how to cut scenes, shutter speeds just a few months ago. This is what's so cool about web sites like this. If one wants to learn something then do the search or ask a question and you'll get lots of support. It's also nostalgic for me but I'm a very harsh critic of my work so that's why it's hard to watch and not say why didn't I do this instead.
 
For my first film I wrote and directed a romance film starring myself. The result is just what you expected.

But then I'm planning on making a remake of it, so maybe I'll have better luck this time.
 
well.... speaking of the first things we ever did....

I just finished a shot for shot re-make of the very first film I shot called "Interstate 49", I shot it on the HVX in SD mode to minidv tapes..... this is an exact re-make, I even waited for the exact time of year and a day that was closest to the weather when I first shot it, same vehicle, same camera moves, same song, I really tried to re-make it as faithfully as I could..... the only thing "new" are the titles I added in FCP and some mild CC

mind you, I made this film when I was a sophmore in high school (1997) and it was shot with a sony super 8 handycam.... its nostalgic and meaningful to me.... even today, brings back sooo many happy memories..... enjoy

http://www.roadwerkpictures.com/interstate 49.mov
 
I have my first couple somewhere. Man it was difficult back then. I started shooting using the family VHS cam, back when it was a cam that hooked to a seperate VCR. There were no editing systems back then, just VCR to VCR, but no floating heads so the cuts were horrible. I never did this, though, as only a couple other houses on the block had VCRs. So we shot all in camera, pausing and resuming for each shot. The real pain was that the pause/rec had a couple second delay so in between each shot we had to give it a couple seconds before anticipating actual action. Plus, you couldn't stop-review-resume or it would F the whole thing up; and you couldn't stop at all - so no unplugging the machine and switching locations. What a pain.

I might dig them up and digitize them. I think I'd mostly like to foget them. They wont be special features on a DVD... ever.

I am much happier with today's technology.

-GageFX
 
Monkey And The Freeway

Monkey And The Freeway

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LUY3URWkh-w

Ok Brandon, you've inspired me. I got off my butt and got this up on YouTube. Now this isn't the first video or movie I've worked on, but it is the first thing that we tried to put together with shots, a storyboard and proper editing. (Oh yeah, did I mention it sucks? I don't want to oversell it)
We made this sometime in 2000. I'm a late bloomer to this whole filmmaking thing, as I am 35 now. So we did this when I was 28 or 29? Anyways, the original version really drags, so I cut it down to make it a bit more tolerable to watch. If you check out my other videos, "Falling Down" is kinda funny.
 
B-man, this is the best idea for a thread in AGES. I will dig that **** up tomorrow and post. Damn, what an awesome idea for a thread.
 
Good stuff, Brandon. And we all remember Timur's. :)

My brother was into filmmaking before I was. He had one of the first camcorders (back in 1985). It was a VHS that had the deck seperate from the camera, which you carried around on a shoulder strap. We would make a lot of music videos (Phil Collins, Mr. Mister, etc.). My brother was pretty inventive and was probably the first one to come up with the snoricam (where the actor wears the camera). One day we looked outside and saw him running around the backyard with the camera and tripod strapped to himself. Recording himself running around. We thought he was crazy. But, in fact, he was the first indie filmmaker. :)

Here's the first movie my friends and I made. It's a mockumentary about a squirrel documentary that goes horribly wrong when the squirrels start attacking people. It's a full hour.

When the Acorns Fell... (Rick Click, Save As):
http://www.laundryday.com/videos/when-the-acorns-fell/wtaf_mpg4.mp4
 
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