UKP - an Ignatius Fischer motion picture
- Thread starter ignatius
- Start date
Robert Eldon
Well-known member
So have you 'shaved' the 8 seconds yet? Man, I know how tough that can be when you think you've trimmed as much as you can.
It's interesting, looking at other threads, that almost everyone has a similar issue, and that is that when it comes down to the 5 minute limit, the movie starts to suffer when you have to edit to that time limit. (Unless you're Brandon Rice, and create a 3 minute flick, like he did for Horrorfest).
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
RobertE said:
HEHE yep... it is true... if you ever saw my sci-fest entry you'd know... I had a 12 min. film that I cut to 6, and it truly suffered... so I vowed if I ever made another DVXfest flick that I'd write it way below whatever time limit I had...
I tried to be very conscious of writing something to fit into the six minute bracket, but I knew it'd be super tight ... and it is. You'd think six minutes wouldn't be a tough sell, but damn, it's a struggle to make every frame interesting - if a viewer becomes bored within the span of sixty seconds, game over. Very tough to tell a story in a way that keeps an audience in its collective seat, so six minutes is a fantastic exercise. Puts "feature length" in hard perspective.
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
mm...I am so used to writing shorts, it's been hard for me to allow scenes to kind of develop more in the feature script I am currently working on...
jontuttle
Well-known member
ignatius said:
We seem to be the opposite. This whole time we keep asking, "Are we going to be able to get all of this stuff in in six minutes?" It was tough. We kept cutting and cutting and making shots shorter. We had to cut a couple of scenes out just to make it. They were not super critical but they helped develop and idea that is important so we will see if it works okay without them.
jontuttle said:
Hey Jon - I think I misphrased something in my last post. I did have a hard time keeping the story down to it's six minute mark, even though I tried really hard to write something for that time frame. But when I mentioned six minutes being hard, I was referring more to how hard it is to keep an audience member interested for even just six minutes, let alone an hour and a half, haha.
I almost alwasy overwrite (of course, first drafts are intentionally overwritten - much easier to cut rather than add), but the more experience I get with seeing my writing translated on screen, the closer I'm getting to hitting the mark. It's all about learning, gaining the experience, I guess.
Will you be putting your cut scenes back in post-fest for other fests or anything?
jontuttle
Well-known member
ignatius said:
I see what you mean. Yeah tell me about it. Keeping people entertained these days is tough. Some of my favorite movies are the real slow burners but a lot of people I know think they are boring.
We have been planning on a longer cut the whole time. I think we knew from the get go that we would have to have one.
How about you. Is there and extended edition in UKP's future?
jontuttle said:
Hahaha, yeah, about eight seconds!
I like slow burners, too, if they're interesting. I'm trying to think of an example and am having a hard time ... how about Barton Fink? That's a slow one at the start, but it's so visually interesting and the characters are so weird I can't help but watch ... the wallpaper ... peel ...
And then, of course, you get John Goodman barreling down the hallway with his friend the axe.
Robert Eldon
Well-known member
I know during the last DVX fest, there were a lot of entries and I watched them all and that takes a lot of time, but...
I must admit that I did fast forward through the ones that didn't keep my interest, even if they were only 6 minutes long.
RobertE said:
That's what I'm talking about. I click off of stuff on short film websites all the time in the first sixty seconds if it hasn't grabbed me, and the first time it becomes "not interesting" (not "slow", 'cause a story can be slow and still interesting), I've clicked on to something else.
I forgot to add something to my "extended version" comment - I'll most likely be adding over a minute and thirty seconds of relaxed credits with muisc that won't feature in the dramafest version.
jontuttle
Well-known member
ignatius said:
Us too. That is one of the things we really want to add to ours is good credits. There are a lot of people we want to thank and give the proper credit to. Without their contributions none of it would have been possible. That and we promised copy and credit. Can't have a copy without the credit.
Robert Eldon
Well-known member
Ignatius,
How are you doing with the compression specs now that Jarred has released them?
And are you ready to submit? Fine tuning the fine tuning?
RobertE
How are you doing with the compression specs now that Jarred has released them?
And are you ready to submit? Fine tuning the fine tuning?
RobertE
RobertE said:
Well, I found a great setting in Quicktime Pro for the H.264 codec, it outputs a 33meg file that looks great. I do need to fine tune a bit of CC, it gets dark in the compression, so I've got to make a version to accommodate that. The sound is okay, but the more I watch it, the more I realize how "made for the contest" it is. I think it could have another minute chopped out of it, but I'm too close to it to be able to see how to do that, so it's going out as is.
I'm not sure how to make an mpg in QuicktimePro, however, so I need to research that.
Robert Eldon
Well-known member
Ignatius,
I believe that the mpeg2 that is requested is for the Dramafest DVD. So, it's basically an mpeg2 render as if you're rendering for DVD. The file size could be BIG, if I remember the last fest correctly?
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
AmbassadorTex
Active member
A-ha!
Getting the mpeg2 out of FCP (or QTPro) is precisely what we're trying to figure out now (details at http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=85677&page=3 )
Basically, we're in Compressor and don't know which of the many mpeg pre-set options to try out...and now I'm harassing various people here to find out (and feeling like a complete tool for doing so...but if we weren't stubborn, pig-headed people, we wouldn't be making - completing - films, right?!).
Getting the mpeg2 out of FCP (or QTPro) is precisely what we're trying to figure out now (details at http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=85677&page=3 )
Basically, we're in Compressor and don't know which of the many mpeg pre-set options to try out...and now I'm harassing various people here to find out (and feeling like a complete tool for doing so...but if we weren't stubborn, pig-headed people, we wouldn't be making - completing - films, right?!).
Ted Arabian
Member with Ladder
Great conversations here. I'm a bit late in commenting about that 6 minute mark but I feel all the pain that was discussed here.
It is so challenging to create a short in six minutes. A great practice for us all.
Good luck!
It is so challenging to create a short in six minutes. A great practice for us all.
Good luck!