Demo Reel (DVX, HVX, SGpro)

Steven Bogda

Steven Bogda

Well-known member
After watching Connor Hairs pretty reel, I was inspired to share my demo reel. I have been working on it for a few months, really just for school and because I get bored and don't have new footage or time to shoot. Most of the stuff in this can be found on my site, either a little project or me just screwing around outside for fun.

It is 3 minutes long which I know is on the long end for a reel, but for class it was the maximum amount you could do so I figured why not. I can cut it down easily when that time comes.

Song is Blood On The Motorway by DJ Shadow, it has been used a few times in different videos on here, and I will continue the trend to pay homage to him.

I combindededed DVX 4x3, 16x9 and HVX 720p together in a 4x3 (24p of course) timeline in Vegas, threw it all in so it was a normal full screen frame with the bars on the top and bottom. Exported a 4x3 uncompressed Quicktime, brought it into After Effects, cropped the bars off to a little more than I should have (720x340(not 360)), exported at that size uncompressed again, brought into Flash Media Encoder and made a few versions from there...if anyone is interested.

There are 83 full shots in this total
About 30 are DVX/SGpro
About 10 are HVX/SGpro
All the rest are plain D!V!X!!!

http://www.stevenbogda.com/main.html
It will auto play in that black box after a second or two, its only 11mb I think.
There is a better quality one on there too, which is 20 something megs.
 
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Thats da sh*t right ther man!
You creamed it Steven, sick sick sick!!!
Your future should be set in this game,, I know if you were Down Under with talent like that you'd get work for sure.

This kept me glued for the time dude,,,,,sick sick and sick!
 
really really sweet looking stuff steven. perfect pace, you don't get bored watching it at all. beautiful. nice colour correction. very inspiring.

can you tell me more about your flash export settings please. it just seemed to load really fast without any buffering and still looked crisp without any pixelation. i am thinking about moving away from quicktime for all my web content and going back to flash you see.
 
Thanks Shaun. If the bad economy here prevents me from getting a job, I will have to think about elsewhere. Maybe even AUSTRALIA!! I will need someone soon so I can start paying off my school loans which are going to eat me alive.:crybaby:



Jamesh - I always start with an uncompressed Quicktime file from Vegas before I compress it. After Effects, Flash and Flash Video Encoder can all export as FLV. FCP might be able to now, but I haven't checked in a while. I am pretty sure all the settings are the same for whatever program you choose. I don't know much about flash, but I used what I learned from H.264 and applied it to the Flash Encoder.

I start like this: Uncompressed 720x340 QUicktime > Bring into Flash Video Encoder:

1a.jpg


After the video is in the Encoder, I usually go to the resize tab first. On my site, I make everything half of what the original was. So if you have 4x3 video and don't crop anything like I do, it would be 360x240. Mine is 360x170.

1.jpg


The last thing I do which is the most important part, is picking the data rate. It gives you presets, but I prefer making my own. For a video this size, it could be anywhere from 400 to 750 and still look really good. I used a 400kbs data rate on the initial demo reel you get to from that link, the smaller one. It was originally higher, like 1000kbs, but it was a bigger file, and I wanted to make sure it could be small enough that it loaded quickly so it didn't lag. So I lowered it to 500kbs and saw barely any change in the quality, so I went a little more and did 400kbs and still didn't see a change. I might have been able to go lower, but I ran out of time. The lower the bitrate, the less the quality will be. But if your video is small like 360x170, a lower bitrate would work because the video is so small you would not notice.

These are the settings I use each time. I on;y change the data rate:
2.jpg


If you want a larger sized video, say full frame 720x480, you would have to increase the data rate. I usually do 1500kbs and work my way up or down depending on how it looks.

When I bring the FLV video file into Dreamweaver for my site, it lets me choose the little player skin. I think you can also do that if you import your original video into Flash. I don't think After Effects and Flash Video Encoder allow you to select thouhg. Maybe but I am not sure.

Hope that helps.
 
very good stuff. i didnt have audio on (as im watching it in a boring class) and i still stayed very interested. i may check out your flash encoding process, it works really well and thanks for showing the step by step.

also, did you create your webpage portfolio in flash. i really like the simple straightforward design, it is something similar to what i am looking for for my online portfolio.
 
Thanks banksie, its good to know it is still watchable even without the music.

I made my site in Dreamweaver (I hate Flash because I don't understand it). If I knew Flash, I would be using it though. Dreamweaver is pretty simple for doing simple stuff, which is all I can do. When I first got a site I made really intricate designs and roll overs and colors and all this crazy stuff, but it was such a pain to keep it updated with so much stuff all over the place. So I drew this thing up in Photoshop (background & buttons), exported them as web PNGs and brought them into Dreamweaver and told them what to do and where to go. Very easy to take care of, especially now that I realized I can just makes templates like "SD video template" and just swtich out the video file and title and hit save as and give it a new name isntead of making a new page from scratch that is identical to all the others.
 
ya man really impressive reel. You have some serious talent there. If I need a dp in the future and I happen to stumble upon what some some people call a budget, you will be hearing from me haha. Great work man.
 
hey steven GOOD STUFF man!! i always admired ur stuff. i checked out "the message" on ur site. really liked it. what was it shot with ? gonna watch it again now in fact :D

really like ur colour grading

edit: just dun watching the message again. man i like it. luv the message from the stars part, u wrote that?

that wud have been a nice entry to twilightfest
 
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Thanks guys!

Jambredz - That video was a group project I had to do for a class. I didn't write it, but I did shoot and edit it all. I think it came out looking pretty good for being a group project (which I hate doing). It was done all with my DVX and SGpro.
 
Great stuff Man! everything is super crispt.
The grading is also really nice. Do you have a link to that film with the low shot over the road thats driving through the forest?
I would really like to see the film.
 
Thanks Connor, your reel is also excellent. SG POWER!!!

I think this is the clip you are talking about. http://www.vimeo.com/2255085

It is from a short 3 minute scene I had to write and shoot that comes after someone else's scene they had to write and shoot. This is the first half of mine. The rough version, some stuff has to be reshot this weekend along with the ending scene.
 
Steven that last one you linked, the ruff cut is very good,

When you zoom in and focus on your GG, can you tell me what is the numbers you zoom to and focus to?
Also that last video how did you get it to be HD?
 
Hey Mr Joe
I usually tape the focus ring down at 18 (closer to 19) I think. I am pretty sure I still don't set the focus correctly. I just zoom in until I can't see the adapter on the sides, then focus. Are you supposed to zoom in farther than that to do it? I just wing it and I always think its crisp.

When you upload a 1280x720 video in Vimeo it automatically makes it HD I believe. But if you are using the free account, you can only do one a week or else it just plays it as SD not HD.
 
I'm not sure about how far to zoom, I usually zoom to around 75 which is farther than the adapter black space just to make sure no vignetting happens, then I usually have the focus at 33-36 I can't remember, but I still can't tell if i'm doing it right, because it seems your clips are very very crisp and mine seem to still have some grain and a hint of fuzziness, I'm not sure if that's just because of the way you compress your clips for the web or if its the focusing of the GG. 18 or 19 on the dvx focus you say? I will have to try that out.

So do you just export your 720x340 clip as 1280x*whatever the ratio is = to*? then upload it?
 
I thought you were referring to the HD video on my Vimeo. HVX I usually do 18. DVX its 33 on the dot. Both of them I zoom in till I can barely see vignetting.

My reel was uploaded at 720x340 (HD clips were downsized to SD size to match the rest of my DVX footage

My HD video was uploaded at 1280x720, Vimeo reads the dimensions I guess and makes it HD
 
Ah ok, thanks, I didn't know that the HD video was shot on the HVX, I thought it was the dvx and you made it bigger.

Thanks Steven.
 
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