SHORT: Legend of Mr. Winters

Here's the big explosion in Baltimore, note the set is made to look like Manchester:
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Swat teams on the set:
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Helicopter shot, was pretty damn cool!
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Ridley Scott is in the white shirt under the tent in video village
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I was hanging out in video village with Ridley Scott for a while:
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Body of Lies set! Video village for the win!
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It was pretty nifty :)
 
Yeah it was pretty cool, these were taken back in September, 4 days into production I do believe. It has some big names in the film, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russel Crowe are in the film (they weren't there for that shoot though)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0758774/

It's in post production right now, should be out in October 2008

Was primarily shot in Maryland:

Annapolis, Maryland, USA
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA
Rabat, Morocco
Washington Dulles International Airport - 45020 Aviation Drive, Sterling, Virginia, USA
Washington, District of Columbia, USA
White House - 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
 
Cool shots, thanks for sharing them ... I'd love a chance to sit and watch on a real set. One of these days :)


Back to "Legend of Mr. Winters" ...

I have one of the actors coming Saturday to record some voiceover which will help fill in the gaps created by re-working the script. Then plan to spend the whole day Saturday editing this down to a complete film.

We are just cutting a quick version which will be turned in for the school project. After wards we will re-visit the project, do some pick-up shots (if necessary), get a custom score, sound design, dialog sweeting, coloring, etc, etc for the cut which will get submitted to festivals.
 
Hey Larry! Congrats on this project! I had no idea. (I need to hang out in this forum more often)

Great bts. And I enjoyed your story about the drive-thru. That must have been cool.

And Charlie, what a way to jack this thread! Nice stills. You can jack my thread ANYTIME! :thumbsup:

Finally, Larry... I love the shot for the poster. That is a great shot. Did you take that?

Very nice.

Best and good luck!

-Ted
 
Glad you found it Ted ... hope you like the film.

I added a couple screen grabs to post #4 on the front page. Here's a link:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1220476&postcount=4

So, with all the unbelievable challenges we faced on this shoot, not the least of which was the limite amount of time available, we did not get everything we wanted. However, we did our first rough cut and got, what we think, is a decent 8:30 film.

On major bummer though, when looking through all the footage, it appears the camera AGC was on, or the manual gain was turned up very high, as all the night exterior footage is EXTREMELY visually noisy. There was plenty of light that these should not have such an appearance, but that's what we have and there is no time to re-shoot ... at least not now (we have discussed the possibility of re-shooting later this year, but that'll depend on whether or not we can raise enough money to support bringing David Fine back and also shooting 4 full days (two full day time, two full night time) ... we'll see.
 
Larry R said:
Glad you found it Ted ... hope you like the film.

I added a couple screen grabs to post #4 on the front page. Here's a link:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1220476&postcount=4

So, with all the unbelievable challenges we faced on this shoot, not the least of which was the limite amount of time available, we did not get everything we wanted. However, we did our first rough cut and got, what we think, is a decent 8:30 film.

On major bummer though, when looking through all the footage, it appears the camera AGC was on, or the manual gain was turned up very high, as all the night exterior footage is EXTREMELY visually noisy. There was plenty of light that these should not have such an appearance, but that's what we have and there is no time to re-shoot ... at least not now (we have discussed the possibility of re-shooting later this year, but that'll depend on whether or not we can raise enough money to support bringing David Fine back and also shooting 4 full days (two full day time, two full night time) ... we'll see.
Click to expand...

Want to send a clip my way so I can throw on my Stricken Noise Reduction method?
 
The problem is, this is a tremendous amount of noise/grain/stuff/whatever ... but you are more than welcome to try ... if it would help, I'd be very greatful. and if it softened the image some, that's still ok since I'll be downrezzing to SD for the DVD anyway.

I don't have any footage on hand, I'm at the office right now, but I have a couple stills you can try it on if you want. Here are the links to the image files:

http://www.day7studios.com/mrwinters/photos/grabs/legendofmrwinters_1.jpg

http://www.day7studios.com/mrwinters/photos/grabs/legendofmrwinters_2.jpg

http://www.day7studios.com/mrwinters/photos/grabs/legendofmrwinters_3.jpg

Let me know how it works out.

Thanks,
Larry
 
Wow! Pretty impressive ... so what'd you do?

Robbie Comeau said:
Wow, why so grainy?
Click to expand...


Not sure, but someone in another thread mentioned that it looked to them like either the camera's AGC (automatic gain control) was turned on, or the manual gain was turned way up to compensate for the low light.
 
I Brought the still into After Effects 7.0 and applied the Remove Grain effect. I then went into the settings and changed the Noise Reduction Level to 1.6 After that I set the Preview Region to Final Output and Mission Accomplished!!

This same thing with the gain happened to me with the Stricken Graveyard sunset scenes. Larry, Remember the little girl with the flower turning and looking up at the older gentleman. That was totally noisy before this method.:2vrolijk_08:
 
Nice, thanks a lot ... I'm definitely trying that tonight. Even if it only removes part of the grain, it'll be a great improvement.

:thumbsup:
 
Well, I used Matt's noise reduction trick and it did help, it's still not as clean as if the gain had been properly adjusted on the camera, but it's livable.

I've been forced to rush this project to completion because there is a drop dead deadline of this Friday (tomorrow). So I was unable to utilize the people that were originally going to help with sound, score, and cc/cg. So instead of 4 people working on the project, each getting a specific part done. I have been forced to do it all myself, in just 3 days.

So that said, it's got a lot of flaw, but considering the struggle this project has been from the outset, I feel it's a fun little short. I'll get a cut online in the next couple days, and then over the next few weeks work on improving the audio and get a better score (Justin Durban kindly let me utilize some of his existing music, but I don't have a knack for the music part. I did my best to find appropriate music and lay it in the right places, but I know a composer could do a far better job).

We are also talking about setting aside time later this summer to reshoot this, the right way. Allowing the extra time to get more coverage and to get some of the scenes that had to be cut either because of time, or because of resource issues (actors unable to come at the last minute, in the middle of the shoot, etc).
 
Larry, i really like the picture you used in the poster. Very cool stuff. It suits the film well. Looking forward to seeing the finished film.

the guy walking with the chainsaw in the dark is classic!
 
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