Hello, this is my first post here, so please allow myself to introduce ... myself. I'm 28, married, and work full time as a web developer. My real passion, however, is telling stories... through photos, drawing, visual effects/graphics/media, but especially ... film. I had made a couple of really bad 5 minute short films, when - about two years ago - two close friends and I decided to make a feature length mockumentary called "Beneath the Mask: Portrait of an American Ninja" (http://films.cubit.net).
Our initial plan was that we would each pitch in $100, and we would complete the project in 3 months... pre-production for 1 month, production for 1 month, and post-production for 1 month. Obviously, we were pretty naive. We actually stuck to the schedule, though not the budget, until we hit post-production - which took almost two years.
We shot the mockumentary with three home camcorders (all one-chip), which were of different makes and varying quality. At the time, we were just doing this for ourselves and not really intending to DO much with it - so it was very much a guerilla operation with virtually no budget. However, we knew we had a really good story - and although our production value was low, we really liked the final product.
So, we decided to have a two-day premiere and drum up some press in the local community. About 500 people came to the event, and everyone responded really well to the movie - despite it's production flaws, some of which are really bad. We actually wrote the movie in such a way as to explain it's shortcomings... that is, that it is a documentary film by a fictional amateur filmmaker. Due to the response we received at the premiere (which was this past February), we decided to submit the movie to some festivals. So far, it has been accepted to two festivals, and has won BEST FEATURE FILM at the Appy Film Fest in Huntington, WV.
The limited success we have received on this project has encouraged us to do more. However, we realize we really need to raise our production value. So, we're doing things now that we didn't have time to do before... conducting series of tests to help us craft our skills. In addition, we are going to work on some short projects, so we can practice these skills without engaging in another 2 year project. While we're doing all of this, we will be developing stories for our next feature project, which we probably won't tackle for at least a year.
We're pretty close to buying a DVX100A, but we haven't made the final decision yet. We're sort of at a crossroads, but I think we will do it. We each have the desire that if we could, we would like to make a living doing this stuff - not necessarily filmmaking, but working in some kind of production environment that would allow us to do filmmaking, at least, on the side. However, right now, we both have regular jobs, that we like, but we're not doing what we love. So, on one level, my question is, what next steps do we take to move toward doing what we love?
Also, as mentioned above, we're conducting a set of tests and I'd like some feedback on these, as well as ideas for next steps, etc. You can see the results of our first lighting test here:
http://films.cubit.net/spare/lightTest01.php
This series of tests was conducted with our next short project in mind, which is going to have a dark, film-noir style to it. So, we're trying to achieve some dramatic, dark lighting effect. I feel the series labeled "U" is the most successful in terms of achieving the style we are going for. We also did some basic three-point lighting tests. We've conducted a second test, and I should have results from that posted soon. That test also involved some split screen testing (our film-noir short is a sci-fi genre that deals with clones), and you can view a test image from that here:
http://films.cubit.net/spare/stills/jpegs/mattSmoke01a.jpg
All the test images, up to this point, have been recorded with a Sony DCR-TRV27, one chip camera. The same camera we used on BTM, although you wouldn't believe it if you compared the two. Taking time to light the scene makes a very big difference. For example, compare the images on the test pages with this still from BTM, which was shot with the same camers (but terribly exposed, and with little thought toward lighting and composition):
http://films.cubit.net/hiyah/printImg2.php?imgId=acd56658864abed8a195aa75200e82eb
So, any feedback on the tests, or just filmmaking in general and idea for next steps for us is greatly appreciated. Once we get our DVX, I definitely want to become more involved with the communnity here and learn from you'll, as well as pass along the things we learn ourselves.
Thanks,
Sledgeweb
