BOUNTY ON A DEAD MAN'S HEAD - By Matt "Defcon" Harris

yeah he's cool but he's never acted before. I tried to get him to do a table read and his response was "sean connery doesn't do table reads, so neither am I." he's kind of like chuck norris circa 1989.
 
Thanks Mike, I needed a kick in the arse. I usually make my film the final week so i'm not used to updating my thread.

But here goes:

1. I'd like to thank Mike Baiardi (soundfileproductions.com) for composing the score.
Usually I compose my own music but real deal cinematic western music is beyond me.
Mike composed 10 tracks for a new big budget western remake coming out, and was nice
enough to license me the leftover tracks for free. They sound great, thanks Mike!

2. 90% of my edit is locked and loaded. I have a 30 second finale that i need to shoot, but otherwise I'm in good shape on this one.

3. 90% of my edit is scored, looped, follied and ADR'ed. It was long and painful but for the most part I am mildly satisfied.

4. I have 2 vfx shots I'm still working on, but nothing too intensive.

5. I have color corrected everything, i may add an anamorphic lens flare or two.
 
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Marlonn CC-ing is the funnest part, i agree! I used to CC everything before editing when i shot on the HVX 720p because it was such instant gratification. It made editing more fun because the footage looked great already. But now that im shooting 1080p on the 550D, the COLOR files from FCP are huge and take a up a gang of space. So I did in fact CC after the edit.

On a side note, CC-ing on 1080p footage is WOW. Hue gamma range compared to 720p. I was able to control exposure like never before. There was a lot more to dig from in the dark areas, and more details in blown out highlights I was able to rescue. It was a big step up.
 
Yeah, it's too much fun and then the trouble gets to be deciding which grading looks the best. LOL! I've never messed with the gamma or hue too much. Maybe I should start.
 
Zaza,
After numerous location scouting trips to state parks, i folded. I was flat out afraid to get an entire crew, actors in costumes and show up to a state park to shoot without a permit.

5 weeks ago I was staying at my cabin in New Hampshire with my father and my cousin.
I figured it was now or never, so we plowed through a 9 hour shoot over the course of 2 rainy days.
We 50% improvised and 50% followed the script.

I really put the 550D and indieslider to the test with a rode video mic which worked very well with the leaves and trees of the forest acting as a natural sound proofing.

All my posters and promo materials here on this thread will be updated asap, as I ended up shooting something more "out of the box" western style. I ended up going for a "mental power genre" movie ala Scanners, The Fury, Firestarter etc. That was my intention, whether I was successful melding that into a western is another story.
 
Marlon you are so right. But gamma and hue are simple, wait 'til you start (if you haven't already) using secondary colors, that really opens up limitless possibilities color-wise. You can do stuff like desaturating the entire look of your footage but then pumping up just the reds, or just the greens. It's pretty amazing.

For the most part, I used to push my footage green as a personal taste. It just seemed to work well for HVX/Letus and Canon HV30 footage.

For the Canon 550D stuff, i noticed you can really push saturation without artifacting, which is something I have never done. I don't know if my compressed short will look this way in the end, but i saturated the hell out of certain colors and they pop like crazy while maintaining realistic skin tones.
 
Defcon said:
Marlon you are so right. But gamma and hue are simple, wait 'til you start (if you haven't already) using secondary colors, that really opens up limitless possibilities color-wise. You can do stuff like desaturating the entire look of your footage but then pumping up just the reds, or just the greens. It's pretty amazing.

For the most part, I used to push my footage green as a personal taste. It just seemed to work well for HVX/Letus and Canon HV30 footage.

For the Canon 550D stuff, i noticed you can really push saturation without artifacting, which is something I have never done. I don't know if my compressed short will look this way in the end, but i saturated the hell out of certain colors and they pop like crazy while maintaining realistic skin tones.
Click to expand...
That's what I've been wanting to do. Saturate some colors while leaving skin tones as is. Do you just move the gamma or hue slider to select the color and then adjust from there?? I'm about to go freakin' crazy nuts on this sh*t now!
 
Are you about to CC? If so, don't be afraid to experiment with gamma. Hue you don't need to touch too much. But if you are using COLOR from FCP studio, after you mess with your curves and find what you like, go to the SECONDARY colors tab and then start playing with that. It's like a whole 'nother level. You will love it. And You are rockin' a 7D right?
 
Rockin' the T2i right now. Man, I have color, but haven't even used it. I've been using a little magic bullet. I know Color has it going on though. I've been meaning to try and get back into it, but the older version I did have seemed to take for freakin' ever. I guess I need to get back in there, because I do have the newest version. Does it take long to render and preview?
 
T2i... welcome to the family! An amazing camera.

Don't be intimidated by COLOR. Nothing wrong with Magic Bullet, I have never used it but if it gives you a cinematic look then that's all that counts. But COLOR is like Photoshop, it's incredible.

You do need a 2 or 4 core mac and at least 6 gigs of RAM. But No, it doesnt take long to render, and previewing is in real time.
 
Defcon said:
Zaza,
After numerous location scouting trips to state parks, i folded. I was flat out afraid to get an entire crew, actors in costumes and show up to a state park to shoot without a permit.

5 weeks ago I was staying at my cabin in New Hampshire with my father and my cousin.
I figured it was now or never, so we plowed through a 9 hour shoot over the course of 2 rainy days.
We 50% improvised and 50% followed the script.

I really put the 550D and indieslider to the test with a rode video mic which worked very well with the leaves and trees of the forest acting as a natural sound proofing.

All my posters and promo materials here on this thread will be updated asap, as I ended up shooting something more "out of the box" western style. I ended up going for a "mental power genre" movie ala Scanners, The Fury, Firestarter etc. That was my intention, whether I was successful melding that into a western is another story.
Click to expand...

Nice, looking forward to the film!
 
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