"Berlin" - A Norm Sanders Film - DVD NOW AVAILABLE

"Berlin" DVD's are finally in!

"Berlin" DVD's are finally in!

DVD's arrived today, as well as some 18x24 posters I ordered for cast/crew & festivals, etc. WOW .... everything looks absolutely incredible. I'm extremely pleased with how it all turned out, to say the least.

This new job is beating me like a rug, so I'll package up all the pre-purchased DVD's, as well as cast & crew that are out of state/country that contributed to the film, and get those out in Friday's mail.

After that, I'll be pretty much useless for the rest of June as I'm out of town for weeks at a shot with travel, but will again begin heavily marketing the film in July, as well as hitting additional festivals with it, and having the cast & crew party that month as well (announcement coming soon, for those cast/crew reading this).

Oh, and the final printed poster is NOT the one on the front of this thread. Jeremy went above & beyond, and with using some design ideas from David, the one who created the splash for the website, he really knocked it out of the park on the final poster! Thanks, Jeremy!!!!
 
Norm!! I just got your Berlin DVD. Holy smokes what a first class production on the marketing. Very nice presentation.

"Gary, pull back for a wide angle..."

I really dug the film! After seeing the footage, I think i'd like to have seen a little more DOP in some of the shots. (specially the bar)

The circle pan shot was ACE! Definitely one of the coolest shots in the film.

Herman... You kicked arse on the score! I was thinking, "Damn, i've gota get my hands on those strings..."

Looking forward to seeing it's success in the festival circa.

/justin
 
Hey thanks, Justin, nice to hear you liked it! What do you mean by "DOP" in some of the shots?

Like any project, there are always things you'll learn you wish you could have done differently, improved, etc., and this was no exception, though it's the only project I'm still fairly proud of even months after wrapping production on it. :)

Also, when you're talking about the marketing/presentation, are you talking about the cover, or the contents/menu/transitions as well? Really wanted to step it up on this one....

Thanks again! Spread the word on your MySpace for me! :)
 
EDIT* DOF. not DOP. :)

Norm, DOP(F) is the 'depth of field'. I think a small DOP(F) helps force the viewer to look at the subject matter and nothing else. A greater DOP(F) enables you to see more on the screen so for a person like me who's A.D.D. to the screen, I hyperfocus on things not pertaining to the subject matter. Perfect example is in the dressing room and many of the shots in the bar. Everything was in focus leaving the viewer's eyes to wonder around the shot, which; is great for the establishing stuff. i'm rambling. :)

What i'm trying to say is that i liked the look of Where the silence falls short because of the extreme out of focus'ness. An example are the photographs your photographer took on the shoot:
http://www.eefilm.com/berlin/images/berlin-dvxuserpics2.jpg

I'm not saying all the shots were like this, but just a general observation.

As for marketing package... ya man, your DVD artwork and DVD menus are top notch! OOh, only thing I would have made different is your dvd menu font size. For people like me who still have an archaic SD TV, I had to squint my eyes to see what the menu selections were. Aside from that, everything was definitely pro... The animations, the music looping... ahh, the music. I let that loop for a good 30-45 minutes last night.

Like every project you work on, you learn as you go and I know this was a great experience for all you guys. I enjoyed seeing the final result.

Cheers!
/j
 
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*smacks head*

I'm officially king of the speeling be.

Sorry, I feel like an ass. Yes. DOF. Shite. :)

/j
 
Cool, thanks again Justin! Yea, I wondered if you meant DOF last night, but it was late & I wasn't about to question you ... so thought DOP (aside from Director of Photography - and that wasn't making sense in the context) was some new term I was behind on, lol.

We shot straight HVX on this due to time constraints and the heavy shot list I had. We started out with the LetusExtreme, which we LOVED, but found out within the first hour (barn scene was 1st shooting day) that we needed every ounce of light we could get, and couldn't afford the additional light loss. That, and the continued changing of lenses depending on shot, measuring for focal distance, etc. We decided to change & go straight HVX. The nice thing was that you can't tell the difference, so it all cut together just fine.

More DOF would have been nice, but we would have ended up sacrificing more in the long run to get it.

Font size! Yes, I'm used to everything on larger TV's now, so I should have been more sensitive to the smaller SD screens. Oh well, at least it's future proofed! :)
 
Norm Sanders said:
Cool, thanks again Justin! Yea, I wondered if you meant DOF last night, but it was late & I wasn't about to question you ... so thought DOP (aside from Director of Photography - and that wasn't making sense in the context) was some new term I was behind on, lol.

We shot straight HVX on this due to time constraints and the heavy shot list I had. We started out with the LetusExtreme, which we LOVED, but found out within the first hour (barn scene was 1st shooting day) that we needed every ounce of light we could get, and couldn't afford the additional light loss. That, and the continued changing of lenses depending on shot, measuring for focal distance, etc. We decided to change & go straight HVX. The nice thing was that you can't tell the difference, so it all cut together just fine.

More DOF would have been nice, but we would have ended up sacrificing more in the long run to get it.

Font size! Yes, I'm used to everything on larger TV's now, so I should have been more sensitive to the smaller SD screens. Oh well, at least it's future proofed! :)
Click to expand...

norm... Aaahhhh, that totally makes sense. In the BTS interview, you said you had alllll these shots to pull off in a small amount of time. I bet with the Letus, you would have been there AAAALLLOTTT longer. Frustrating everyone in the process. I suppose to compensate would to put the camera as far away as possible and zoom in, but I'm sure there's only limited room in those locations.

Regardless, looking forward to your next project.

/j
 
Aww... no fair... I wanna see it! :tongue:

And after hearing Herman's score for our short, I can't wait to hear his Berlin score, too!
 
Great work on the design Norm... awesome to give it the look and feel, also the interviews were good, watched most of the special features...

Regarding the film... the art design, WOW... blew me away... you had a wonderful team working on that part of the film... I also felt the look was good, and really suited the time period...

Nice work Norm! Hope the film does well out on the circuit!
 
Just ordered the Berlin DVD!!! Super excited to sit and watch the film as well as all the BTS materials. We are working on getting a WWII feature off the ground and I am sure the quality of this piece will inspire/challenge me!

Norm, did you do the design/animation of the DVD interface yourself? What about the DVD packaging etc.? The graphic design on the DVD/website/etc. if phenomenal!

Great job...look forward to more!

Daniel Piatt
 
Thanks, Daniel! I'm about to head to the post office to get the DVD's that have been ordered out in today's mail, so I'll catch yours too in it. :) After that, I'll be out of the country for a week on a long planned vacation with the wife & kids.

I heard someone else say it once, and I repeat it as well; "The secret to success is surrounding yourself with people more talented than yourself". So while I can have input on what I like, don't like, etc., the actual design/layout of the DVD Packaging & Poster are all thanks to Jeremy Tuttle.

The website background/splash is thanks to David DeVere (emptyflower.com), whom I met on MySpace, and was inspired by the BTS shots of BERLIN, and on his own accord put that splash together. The guy's amazing. Only later did I learn that this guy has won the Key Arts award for his work on Miami Vice, is involved with the new WANTED with Angelina Jolie, etc.

Same thing with the art design that Brandon & others have raved about. James Eubank and his team did an incredible job!

So ultimately what I do is I take things others have done amazing jobs with, and try to put them all together, or tweak for other purposes. The DVD menu, for example, was taking many of the photoshop elements that David had in the splash, and then worked with it in Vegas the best I could for a nice looping background, sync'd of course to some of Herman Witkam's amazing music (what Justin/Edgen was talking about a few posts ago). I did do all the layout/interface/transitional videos with Sony's DVD Architect 4.5 It's a pretty robust program, and extremely user friendly, as I'm all self taught on it. It also allowed me to fit a DVD Rom section on there that has HD files of the film & trailers, as well as a PDF of the original script.

The website was simply using David's splash background, and some PNG images for the menu selection, with some additional PNG's from Photoshop, and/or that FLASH player on the trailers page. I wanted the website to be pretty clean, simple, and load as quickly as possible. The only regret I have is that I didn't make it smaller perhaps for the older monitors still out there, but since my target audience for this is mostly the Indie community, they tend to have nicer/larger monitors, so hopefully it carries well on most of theirs.

Thanks for the feedback so far, and look forward to your thoughts on the film/DVD when you get it!
 
Thanks, John. :) Looking forward to your thoughts.

Before heading out on vacation tomorrow, just sent copies out to two more festivals: AFI Fest, and Chicago Underground. Man these fest fees add up!

Only other MAJOR fest I can think of at the moment I'm wanting to submit to will be Sundance and/or Slamdance ... unless anyone knows of some other serious ones that should be sent to. This whole fest circuit is new to me.
 
Norm,

Thanks for the great, in-depth response! I think getting all of those talented people to believe in and work on your project is....a talent in itself! :-)

Hope you do well on the festival circuit! If it plays at AFI Dallas (don't know if you submitted to that one or not) I'll definitely got out and support it!

I'll give you my thoughts on the film once I've seen it!

Ciao.

Daniel
 
Norm Sanders said:
Thanks, John. :) Looking forward to your thoughts.

Before heading out on vacation tomorrow, just sent copies out to two more festivals: AFI Fest, and Chicago Underground. Man these fest fees add up!

Only other MAJOR fest I can think of at the moment I'm wanting to submit to will be Sundance and/or Slamdance ... unless anyone knows of some other serious ones that should be sent to. This whole fest circuit is new to me.
Click to expand...

Another vacation? Sheesh, I wish I could take time off like Norm :cheesy:

Have you submitted to Bend Film Fest?
 
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