schleppin' productions

hey, boxer, did you mean to post that comment here? I mean I'm desperate for comments here, maybe I can help you make a movie for much less :-)

why do you say $500,000 for a feature? you must have been told by someone that?
 
well i didn't want to sound mean or cruel in a critique but i agree with Loki in his statements. It kind of looks like a home movie or something very low quality... no offense... What kind of camera are you using? do you have a lights set up? (you could always do color correction in post).

I say 500,000 because if i were to ever spend so much time to make a feature, I would want it to have "name-brand" actors, a crew of atleast 15 - lights - sound - dp - 1st ac - 2nd ac - boom - production manager - locations manager - costume designer - special effects tech - editor - etc. etc (the list could go on forever). I would want to make something worthy of cannes film festival.

I am currently starting a pre-production for my next SHORT which will be shot over the course of a weekend and I know it will eventually cost me 300-400 without paying my cast or crew (because they will be doing this out of the goodness of their heart). Had i payed them, it would cost me anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 for the weekend. (7-12 actors crew of 6... this price tag is very modest).
 
u c that's my style, it's not home movie, it's felliniesque -- a slight difference there ... but thanks for the comment.

ok now about your short, how short is it? 3 minute? 5 minute? If it's really short you should consider shooting 35mm, especially with a crew like the one you're assembling.

Short ends are 15 cents per foot, developing is 10 cents per foot. You can shoot a 35mm short for less than your budget for the digital camera. Well, it depends on your camera.

I shoot digital with the Sony Z1U -- a present :-) I shoot my 35mm movies with my Arriflex camera.

Digital is okay for experimental films, because I can shoot by myself, without crew or anything -- no money and only talent that needs something for their reel.

But thanks again for the comments. I need the comments to improve the look of my movie. I'm really going for the Youtube look. LOL Which is now mainstream :-) Except for the encoding of course, but that could change.
 
It's your style to make it look like a home movie? I've refrained from posting in this thread, but now I have to.

What are "Felliniesque Players"? I have to say I did some research on this type of movie and it is rather odd. I guess I just don't understand it. You talk a lot about shooting on 35mm...as if it will make their film better in some way. The YouTube look? To be quite honest with you, it sounds as if you're TRYING to make a bad movie and justify it as being a particular style.

So you don't want to IMPROVE the look, so much as WORSEN it?

The Z1u should look 100x better than it does in the trailer. Is it bad compression?

Good luck with what you're trying to do. I think the reason you don't have many comments is because nobody really knows what's going on.

-Kegan
 
Thank you, Kegan! I appreciate your commenting. I've suspected for some time that I'm not doing good compression. I see a lot of terrific stuff on the web, even on youtube. Of course there are some very bad compression jobs on youtube, but then there are those that are clearly superior.

I'd love to get the kind of sharpness some users in this forum get on their web clips. Hopefully, I'll get a few suggestions as to how to encode my trailer for the web.

As for my trailer. I wish people would say what they don't like -- specifically which shots, what aspect of editing? Just saying "home movie" and "worsen it" doesn't tell me anything.

If you're asking me about story, there is no story. It's just shots. Tell me what you think, if you care to.

From comments about my trailer I will be able to discern if what I'm trying to do is working. I work alone because I want to make a movie without collaborating with anyone. I want my audience to tell me what they think and whatever they think will be a reflection on what I wanted them to experience. This is how I like it.

I appreciate any and all comments. By the way, I'm not trying to sell this movie. I will release it myself on DVD. It will sell what it will sell. This is a personal movie. I really enjoyed making it and I enjoy watching it. This is the major reason why I made this movie.

Also that's why I shot it with a digital camera. When making movies for mass audiences, it's best to shoot in 35mm, because then you have something. 35mm is a professional product. Digital is a consumer oriiented product, transient and temporary. It's a waste of money and talent to shoot on digital, unless the production calls for it and then the final result is mastered to 35mm for preservation and future exhibition.

This is just my opinion. I know everybody loves digital :-)
 
filmman said:
If you're asking me about story, there is no story. It's just shots. Tell me what you think, if you care to.
Click to expand...

The shots are poorly composed, and lack any kind of visual identity. It looks like you pointed the camera at you subjects without much thought as to where the camera was located and why. Compression aside, it doesn't appear (to me at least) there was much thought given to camera placement.

This is not a trailer, and you even said so. If it is just a set of random clips thrown together it is a montage. A trailer should give you a basic framework for the story of a film. Something to latch onto so you can get a sense of whether or not you're likely to enjoy the film itself.
 
filmman said:
ok now about your short, how short is it? 3 minute? 5 minute? If it's really short you should consider shooting 35mm, especially with a crew like the one you're assembling.

Short ends are 15 cents per foot, developing is 10 cents per foot. You can shoot a 35mm short for less than your budget for the digital camera. Well, it depends on your camera.
Click to expand...


I am not shooting in 35mm because I definately do not have the money for that. I will be shooting on an HVX200 with 35mm adaptor. It is an 11minute short but i will have atleast 10:1 (minute) ratio because of the complexity of this story. Had i an investor willing to pony up 25,000 I would definately shoot in 35mm.


Suggestions i can give -- tighter shots. lower camera to give the feeling of power. raise camera to give the feeling of submissive or feeling "small" Front close ups give very emtionally strong image. Side shots give emotionally neutral image... Just some basics.... Like when the lady walks, if the camera were lower it would give her greater presence maybe? i don't know. I don't think I like this style very much.
 
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Ok, boxer. Thanks for the comments. I appreciate the specific references to the shots.

And, yes, Loki, you're right, I shot more documentary style -- no rehearsals -- cinema verite -- avant garde -- let it all hang out :-)

You're discussion on the trailer is limited. There are all kinds of trailers and many theories and practices of current trailers.

There are some trailers that 'cheat' the audience to go and see a movie. There are trailers that tell the story. There are trailers that give a hint only. There are so many approaches. It would take a lot of space to list them all. Your criticism is very myopic ..

but thanks anyway. I wish you success with your short film. Apparently your server isn't fast enough -- I only managed to see a few seconds of it. I have SDL. I wish you could tell me more about endcoding and how to get better quality.

My movie is in final stages of editing. I'm trying to promote it on the web, so every bit of advice is helpful. Criticism whether constructive or not is useful. Thanks again.
 
I was wondering whether or not to continue this thread (on account of few people offering help or technical assistance -- none of my technical questions regarding compression have been answered here) but then I started reading my entries from the beginning and discovered the value of keeping a log ... well, blog :-)

Okay, so I continue a while longer. Yesterday I started encoding the rough-cut of the movie (98 minutes). I wanted to see the whole movie on my TV monitor so I figured I'd make a DVD today, but alas that was not in the cards :-) I had 130 GB left in one of my internal hard drives and the result was that this morning the encoding overnight had failed -- not enough disc space! I was doing an 8 bit uncompressed QT movie. It must've been bigger than 100 Gigs! Of course, that might be because the project is 1080i HDV.

This is where some technical help would've come in handy. Ah, well, I will spend this morning looking at the whole movie on my 17 in computer monitor -- I can't waste another day on a rough-cut encoding for DVD.

Thanks for those fellows that commented on this thread. The comments show that there are still some diehards who want to make movies like in the old days. This is good to know. But frankly I think the new digital technology is not being used in enough innovative ways. The fact that digital is cheap to shoot should mean that people will try to find a different way of looking; but instead most people are still hung up on framing, lighting, blocking, storyboarding, endless planning -- as if they're shooting 35mm and every frame is precious. Of course, classical filmmaking will still have its adherents, but in the new digital world it's still going to be publish or perish.

Now is the time to stretch the envelop. Keep those comments coming :-)
 
I don't have much time to post compression tips right now, but do a search on this board and its a HUGELY discussed issue. You should have no problems whatsoever finding compression tips.

-Kegan
 
Thank you, Kegan. I understand about time; I'm trying to finish my feature for festival submission.

I tried "compression" in "advance search" but it produced too many posts. I'd have to read for hours to find how to encode a 3 minute trailer for best results on the web.

I've done over a hundred compressions of trailers for the web, but I can never get the sharpness of the best compressed clips I've seen on some websites.

I know the subject must be vast. Also, one of my friends told me there are new programs that do wonders, and he wasn't talking about programs like Sorenson Squeeze. That's nothing compared to these new programs that he was talking about.

I'm waiting to hear what they cost. It's possible they're thousands of dollars and might even involve hardware.

What I'm after is if it were possible to compress a 3 minute trailer in, say, Compressor and get better results than what I'm getting.

For example, is h264 better or worse than mpeg-4 ? At their best?

Thanks again.
 
H.264. 640x360 - 2Mbps video bit rate works great. 128Kbps AAC audio.

That'll get you a respectable size and decent quality.
 
Thanks, Loki.

I wrote it down on a card. I'll be using it next time I encode the trailer. I'm going to edit a new trailer for the movie sometime next week.

I wish I could come up with a super concept for editing a trailer for a movie like this. I have a feeling that in order to make an impact and sell some DVDs I have to make the trailer very flashy.

The movie is primarily about dance in a fantasy environment. I have great music in it. I'm not good at writing trailer narrations, but I have a feeling the trailer would've been better if I had a narration and some titles to explain what the whole craziness of this movie is all about.

I don't think that would work: you gotta see the craziness of this movie! Felliniesque Players, the crazies are out there to get you :-)

Oh, well, back to editing tomorrow.

I started doing color correction. I'm using tri-color mattes to do some fancy frame coloring.

Thanks again for the encoding specs.
 
I'm encoding the mpeg2 now so I can see the DVD sometime today. I don't have a good monitor for color correcting, so I have to do it this way. Also, I get to watch the whole 98 minute movie uninterrupted.

What's the best encoding for a DVD to send to festivals? Should I have compressed the 1080i via h.264? I hear that gives a nice lookng result without generating a huge file.

My QT movie was 16 Gigs Usually I end up with 20 Gigs for this length film.
 
My DVD looked terrible! I was way off on Color Corrections and Density was way off too.

My sound was okay though.

I looked at the DVD on my regular TV monitor. My computer monitors are Sylvanias. They are dark compared to my TV and the colors are different. The colors are much harder.

I have an HDV and I went to mpeg2 at current settings. There was also an extra line that was flimmering on top of my frame. What is that?
 
I went back and deleted all color corrections -- "delete attributes" in FCP -- and then made a DVD of only the dark sections of the movie. Well, lo and behold, it looks great just the way I shot it; the Sony Z1 did its job -- much better than my monitors :-)

So now I'm encoding a new mpeg2 in Compressor and tonight I'll watch the whole movie again.

I'm also having some of the music re-recorded in a different key.

Hopefully I won't miss any festival deadlines. I'm very anxious to finish this film. It's the most entertaining movie I've ever done -- so far :-)
 
I'm trimming down the movie from 98 minutes down to 83 minutes. I couldn't encode the whole film -- not enough space on disc. Ah well, I'll do it later after I've finished the entire film with music and credits. I'm on a tight deadline now.
 
I managed to cut down 5 minutes today. I finally did away with some of my favorite shots :-) It was hard to do but alas they had to go.
 
I want to find a festival or two to show it in. Then I will have a better chance to sell it through one of the international markets.
 
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