Sketch Comedy 4, the break up bet

[homer]

Here is our latest sketch. Everything got a bit tighter and felt better during production. My boom guy left to pass out half way so things started to get clutter the second day of shooting. let me know what you guys think.

editing took a long time, had to add in a lot of audio tracks and foley sounds. This was the first sketch were i took bits and pieces of different takes instead of using the last take i filmed.


http://www.shadysoap.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1

 

[Alex H.]

De-interlace!

The color is just strange... kinda washed out, but also a bit all over the place.

The audio is still distractingly inconsistent. Often, when you do have a sound guy there, one person is clearer and closer than the other. Your sound guy needs to improve skills. In the two-shot after the first girl knocks at the front door, I can see boom shadow on the wall (which was all over this sketch, by the way) and the mic keeps dropping into the frame. Watching that, I can see that the mic (which appears to be a shotgun, not good for indoors) is pointed straight at the tall guy, and the short guy is completely off-axis. No wonder his audio sounds so much more distant in that conversation.

With a boom mic, a two-person conversation can easily be covered, but the mic has to adjust as the conversation flows. The boom op also needs to be aware of shadows and frame lines. And switching to a hypercardioid can help a lot when covering two people on an interior.

The pacing is much better. I will say that the very first shot of the girl at the door is way too quick. It's just a weird edit. But the performances are good and the sketch doesn't drag.

The last line gets clipped at the end. Again, you really need to add some pad (use slug) at the end. The player should run for 1 or 2 seconds after the last frame of crucial content.

 

[homer]

Wow, thanks for the tips C2V.

a couple questions. about de-interlacing, doesn't that give me the sort of jagged lines when things move quickly? I'm using Premiere pro I'm assuming I should do this in the media encoder? Use interlace instead of progressive? I'm just a bit confused on why to use de-interlace, I thought progressive is always better


As far as the boom situation. My boom guy is really just someone with no film experience who wanted to get involved, who then spinelessly passed out on me, because I guess now he doesn't want to do it anymore since it takes actual work.

The new guy I have doing it is learning, so it will get better. He did notice shadows, but since our lighting was very limited I progressed. The aim for these skits is for the internet, possibly a pilot. So the technical errors aren't enough for me to reshoot. Its more important to produce a good story line. I think story alone I beat out most of my competition. Even the ones on tv, not to sound cocky but I hate most tv shows. they suck. So would you say in a two person conversation the mic should be higher and more generalized or constantly moving to the person talking and right above the frame?

The shadows were known. The problem is the place has such poor lighting and the extension cords for the home depot lights weren't found (again the guy passed out failed ot mention where they were) so our lighting wasn't from a high upward point angling down. it was basically waist high on appliances. We made do with what we had. And the kitchen was covered with this really reflective material, very butcher shop like. So it was a lighting nightmare. I will definitely take note of this though and position my boom guy better.

Our budget is close to nothing, so a shotgun mic will have to do. The beginning with the girl is very poorly done. I made do with the footage. In haste of getting the shoot down while sunlight was still up (chicago winter time very few hours to shoot,when the actors are 2 hours late) I must have missed establishing her being there.

Lastly, the end was clipped. I must have hit the red button prematurely. These guys improv a lot. So I wasn't expecting the "you can go blind from that" true story btw, you can go blind from herpes.
What do you mean by pad, or slug? I will work on this in the future.

Thank you again for the criticism and kind comments. I hope you found it funny? thanks again.

 

[Alex H.]

a couple questions. about de-interlacing, doesn't that give me the sort of jagged lines when things move quickly? I'm using Premiere pro I'm assuming I should do this in the media encoder? Use interlace instead of progressive? I'm just a bit confused on why to use de-interlace, I thought progressive is always better

If you are shooting in 60i, you are shooting interlaced. Watch the fast-motion shots in that skit and look at how jagged the edges are. That is badly interlaced video, and computers sport progressive monitors. Now I'm not a Premiere Pro user, so I can't guide you through the features there, but progressive settings should be used when you are shooting progressive video (24p with the pull-down removed). De-interlacing takes interlaced video (your standard 29.97 video) and removes one of the fields to eliminate the jaggies on progressive displays. Progressive export settings assume that there are not interlaced lines to begin with.

If you are shooting in 24p standard and editing in a 29.97 time line, you'll still have some interlaced frames in there. That's the nature of the 24p beast once the pulldown is added by the camera, since DV has to record it at 29.97.

So would you say in a two person conversation the mic should be higher and more generalized or constantly moving to the person talking and right above the frame?

Not higher... that will make the sound worse, considering you are using a shotgun indoors. The effective working range of a shotgun in optimal conditions is about 3 feet, though the edges of that range are pushing things. Closer is better. This also means watching your headroom in the frame... it's a coordinated dance between DP and audio. That aside, yes the mic should be moving back and forth to favor whomever is speaking. Depending on the placement, and how close the actors are to each other, it can begin with a simple rotation of the boom pole. I would highly recommend you get the audio tutorial DVD from the DVXUser shop. It'll give you some better insight to mic choice and placement that would take way too much space in this thread.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=133986

Lastly, the end was clipped. I must have hit the red button prematurely. These guys improv a lot. So I wasn't expecting the "you can go blind from that" true story btw, you can go blind from herpes.
What do you mean by pad, or slug? I will work on this in the future.

Thank you again for the criticism and kind comments. I hope you found it funny? thanks again.

Slug is a palce-holder clip that contains black video and "silent" audio. Add a couple seconds of black at the end of your video before you export it. The reason for this: the sketches you upload to Vimeo consistently end at the very last frame of critical (program) audio/video. This is really abrupt, especially since there are things that the Vimeo player displays when each video ends. A couple seconds of silence at the end before the player stops allow the viewer some time to savor the last line before the screen changes.

Yeah, I enjoyed this one. The actors are still learning... they need a little more awareness of what their bodies are doing, but they're coming along.

EDIT: Always, always, always count to five after the action stops. Do not cut recording until you reach "5." And keep your framing in that 5 seconds as well. This gives you editing pad. Likewise, roll for 5 seconds before "action."

 

[homer]

ah, now I know what you mean. My main concern has been the jagged lines from not using pull down when filming 24p. Ok I see the sort of overlapped line from not de interlacing. I just read somewhere online videos looked better when de interlaced. I'll definitely take not of this. thanks again.

and yea I have noticed the delay and do take that into account when saying action now. I really enjoy filming comedies. Sometimes we have to do takes again because I can't stop from laughing, it's a whole new level of funny when you're there witnessing it live. It's a bit unprofessional, but we keep a casual fun atmosphere.