Drug Fueled Finale

creative guys

creative guys

Member
I shot and CC'd this for a friend's project.

DVX100 B, Vegas and Magic Bullet.

It's way over the top, but the subject matter lets you go there in ways a local car commercial wont.:laugh:


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CC Version
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CC Version
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CC Version
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I like what you have turned the original footage into setting the tone with that grade, however, I prefer a little less diffusion/glow use from MB parameters. Other than my preference for less of something, which is a subjective choice, the before and after footage looks fantastic, and enhances visually, the bleak lives these people are struggling with.
 
Christopher Barry said:
I like what you have turned the original footage into setting the tone with that grade, however, I prefer a little less diffusion/glow use from MB parameters. Other than my preference for less of something, which is a subjective choice, the before and after footage looks fantastic, and enhances visually, the bleak lives these people are struggling with.
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I will have to agree with the diffusion/glow comment. It's a bit much, but the score is intriguing!
 
Soundtrack?

Soundtrack?

Can you give some details on how the soundtrack was achieved? I didnt watch all the video but its like others have said a bit too heavily CC, but saying that A strong style is not always a bad thing and is ultimately asubjective thing. Watch CSI Miami these days for example I keep thinking the colour on my TV's busted!
 
Christopher Barry said:
...I prefer a little less diffusion/glow use from MB parameters. Other than my preference for less of something, which is a subjective choice, the before and after footage looks fantastic...
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Hey thanks Christopher - but I didn't use MB for the diffusion. In fact, I only used MB Misfire for the vignette because I was too lazy to do it in photoshop, and I used a bit of MB color correction while I was there for some one stop shopping. (an extra hint of yellow)

The heavy lifting was done by Vegas.

Most of the look comes from rendering out the basic edit, pasting that over the top of the entire timeline, adding a gaussian blur and changing the blend mode. You should try it - the various blend modes are full of infinite possibilities.

I also used a variety of techniques to get closer to modern super8. I added an optical effect at every edit point to look like a bad splice and to make the edits slap the viewer a little harder (a sort of flash edit without the flash).

I also comped a layer of fog over the top to add some motion to the grain patterns, this is subtle, but you really miss it when you turn it off.

I will comment that the youtube mp4 gets a lot chewy in the blacks, and since most computer monitors are too dark, it gets downright scary in the mp4 version. The downloadable wmv has less apparent fog and more shadow detail.

That's why I was happy to shoot this film, it gave me a chance to see how far I could push the look.

I just saw "300" on an IMAX screen and they have a great CC that has some wild levels of black diffusion and saturated color, all on a reduced contrast. I think what I have done so far here might get me a long way to replicating that look. Now I need to film some guy with a sword, a red cloak and stack of bodies.

Thanks for your helpfull feedback Christopher!
 
I hear music

I hear music

jamesmallonuk said:
Can you give some details on how the soundtrack was achieved?
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Hi James and others who have said nice things about my music.

I wrote that particular piece with Acid (one loop only - a telephone ringing) and Reason. I no longer use either of those programs - not to say they are not useful, it's just that Cubase offers me a shorter workflow.

I played all the parts into reason with a midi keyboard.

I have better tools now and I'm writing more Brukheimer/Bay styles of orchestral stuff - but if anyone needs music for a film, let me know.

The director chose the music from my library of older tracks - then the student who edited the official version (remember, my version is a rough cut for my reel) to Fallout Boy and 3 other songs!! Their version clocked in at 8 minutes, and I thought my version was way too long at 5 minutes.

I scored all the other videos on my youtube page (except the music videos of course) using pretty much the same setup.

I have not had a chance to roll out the new music yet, but I'll get to shoot something cool soon I'm sure that will require a full score.

Thanks James for your questions and comments - and maybe you should watch the video all the way to the end - the music gets better.:thumbsup:
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LOVE the score.

At first, I was thinking, "oh, great... another one of these", but to my surprise, by the end, the entire piece had a nice "hypnotizing" feel to it (or maybe cause it's 2am?).

Acting was sh!t, but I'm assuming these were friends and not actors. Directing skills could have helped the performance's, though.

The look was extreme, but I think it worked. It added to the feel to the piece. The vignetting bothered me at some points, and that first initial "outside" sequence bothered me a lot. The colors didn't really fit, and that awful zoom ruined everything. Push (or pull), but don't zoom. You'll notice the difference immediately, and it'll be a positive one ;)

Overall, the score is DEFINITELY what pulled the whole thing together. If I started that and Fallout Boy was playing in the background, I would have instantly turned it off.

eh... whatever...

-brown

*off to smoke*
 
cg, even better, you layered, blended and chained up your video effects in a certain order to achieve what a plugin like MB may produce under the hood. Cool and "creative", must go with your name.

With your new push away from Reason to Cubase, have you tried to Re-Wire Reason to Cubase? A little CPU resource intense when running a stack of tracks in both apps, yet convenient at times, assigning each (relevant) Reason track to a dedicated channel in the Cubase mixer, as Reason plays back slaved to Cubase. Then use all those other audio plugins available for Caubase in the mix. Anyway, I think it is handy to keep Reason in the loop, especially if you have extensive sample libraries, and they are assigned to the right keys. Man, dealing with samples just a few years ago was so time consuming. btw, I too like the sound track.
 
rcbrown23 said:
LOVE the score.

At first, I was thinking, "oh, great... another one of these", but to my surprise, by the end, the entire piece had a nice "hypnotizing" feel to it (or maybe cause it's 2am?)
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hey thanks dude - yeah I think it goes too long but others have said it seems to suit the material to go slow

rcbrown23 said:
Acting was sh!t, but I'm assuming these were friends and not actors. Directing skills could have helped the performance's, though.
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That's the director's ex-girlfriend (they broke up the day after shooting) and classmates - you would think for the 20k a year their school costs they would actually get some training in directing before being asked to produce a 5 -10 minute video with actors - their 8min basic black and white "fall out boy" version scored a 95% grade. Kids - be carefull what film or design school you choose.

rcbrown23 said:
The look was extreme, but I think it worked. It added to the feel to the piece. The vignetting bothered me at some points, and that first initial "outside" sequence bothered me a lot. The colors didn't really fit, and that awful zoom ruined everything. Push (or pull), but don't zoom. You'll notice the difference immediately, and it'll be a positive one ;)
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I had not paid that much attention to getting that shot CC'd fitting right, and you are totally right, it just needs to go - I have a none zoom version that would have worked better, but I got suckered by that "the zoom was in the storyboard" syndrome. Thanks for the honesty, it helps.

Yeah, I know, the CC is way heavy, and that is the point to me cutting my own version of this, to really push things hard and find the outer limits. Or fall into a black hole of vignetting that swallows any shadow that gets within a fex pixels :evil:

rcbrown23 said:
Overall, the score is DEFINITELY what pulled the whole thing together. If I started that and Fallout Boy was playing in the background, I would have instantly turned it off.
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Many thanks, I really appreciate the feedback.

</IMG>
 
Christopher Barry said:
With your new push away from Reason to Cubase, have you tried to Re-Wire Reason to Cubase?
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Christopher, I have no real need for reason anymore, as I usually just use VSTi sample playback. I could use the loops I had for reason, but I'm getting everything I need in Cubase.

I used to rewire all the time, but once you get enough VSTi running, why leave the comfort of home?

Reason is great, but Quantum Leap Symphony Orchestra and Cubase pretty much do it for me on their own now.

Thanks for you kind words

P.S. I used to live in Sydney, where are you ?
 
well... I don't know about the effect you used.
In the first two shots it looks excellent. The rest of the movie it looks too dark and the only place where it fits after that is where she has a flashback.
I think you need to ease up on that effect because you have so much black around the actors that it looks like one of those old silent movies where there was a dark circle around the film.
other than that I didn't really understand the story. her boyfriend was her drug dealer or something?
I didn't get why she killed herself...
 
cg, even better, if you have everything you want in Cubase. If you have enough VST plugs and VSTi's, perfect.

I live on the Gold Coast, just down the road from the studio. Working in with long time friend who has audio (and video) post facility on the lot, DSV, aiming at our own feature to be shot later in the year.
 
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dangal said:
well... I don't know about the effect you used.
In the first two shots it looks excellent. The rest of the movie it looks too dark and the only place where it fits after that is where she has a flashback.
I think you need to ease up on that effect because you have so much black around the actors that it looks like one of those old silent movies where there was a dark circle around the film.
other than that I didn't really understand the story. her boyfriend was her drug dealer or something?
I didn't get why she killed herself...
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CS Lewis once complained that even during his lifetime people misinterpreted his work without consulting the author.

Dangal, I mostly agree with you, but please take into consideration that this is an "experimental" student film.

Non actors, 1st time director and not a real story, more a partial event.

I jumped at the chance to do some over the top CC to see what happens at the extremes. Many fashion designers do this at their shows, then sell a more modest version in their line.

The dark circle around the film is called "vignetting" and was the result of poor projector lenses (a very long time ago). I use it all the time, I like the closed in feel it provides, but yes, that's a lot.

The original brief was for the film to be silent. I recorded sound anyway. The only complaint the students got in their final grade was "we wanted to hear some of the dialog".

Lesson 1: Always record sound.
Lesson 2: When people say "silent film" they still want music - so it's not silent. I like silent radio, but it never caught on

It's interesting that people assume they kill themselves, because only the title suggests this. If I had call it "Getting Stoned" I think most of you would not assume an overdose. The pictures are just people getting loaded, but I planted a seed with the title (my own title, not the student's title) that affected the way the footage was interpreted.

I'm curious as to how many others think there are flashbacks in the film, as we never wrote any. It must be once again a perception that something I did created.

This is why we all should shoot student films (even those of us who got out of film school years ago) because you can not make a mistake. You can over CC, you can write your own music, you can cut your own version. In short, you can try all the extremes you could never do in a client's film or commercial. And from there, you can back it off a little and use what you have learned in your regular work.

So thank's Dangal for your comments, they have provoked some interesting thoughts at my end, and made this experiment even more interesting.
 
Christopher Barry said:
cg, even better, if you have everything you want in Cubase. If you have enough VST plugs and VSTi's, perfect.

I live on the Gold Coast, just down the road from the studio. Working in with long time friend who has audio (and video) post facility on the lot, DSV, aiming at our own feature to be shot later in the year.
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hey neat Christopher - I lived in Toowooba for a few years and got out your way all the time.

Let me know if I can help with your film.:smile:
 
the flashback or memory is when she remembers buying the drugs. and yeah it looks real good as a memory. I took something from that
 
[SIZE=+0]Ok - the drug dealer is a third character - it's the boyfriend buying the heroin and it's shot from his POV as he is still a little high. [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=+0]I can clearly see now how you could assume it's different as the 2 male actors look too similar in the dark.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=+0]We have shots of the drug dealer together with the boyfriend to better illustrate what's going on. I took a shortcut that may not have worked for everybody.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=+0]I was at a test screening for a couple of new TV shows last night and one of them did the usual flashback as a black and white with a flash edit and loud pop as the character's memories come rushing back. [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=+0]As dangal points out his thoughts, I realize that our memories are usually fuzzy and indeterminate - just impressions. Thanks, I've taken something new from that myself.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=+0]Given the great response (over 300 views) and really good questions, I will definitely test all my films on DVXuser.com before releasing them. This is the best kind of test screening.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=+0]Many thanks to all.[/SIZE]
 
Yes, keep experimenting! We can't all be perfect right off the bat like some here. lol I'm going to try your method since I use Vegas too. I thought it was interesting, though the "actors" bored me.
 
Thanks Bionicpix - remember that apart from trying different blending modes, you can get new looks by adjusting the transparency of the top layers too. That's going to net you more subtle looks (which I totally ignored for the most part).
 
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