Finished Reel.. finally..

Loki

Loki

Veteran
Well..I settled on a version of my demo reel that I was happy with.

it came to 5min exactly. I got in what I wanted and it looks pretty decent. Comments are welcome on it.

http://www.dreamsoftfilms.com/films/media/Reel%2006.mov

I honestly have not seen a single "directors" reel I can relate too... Most if not all I have seen are just a series of full commercials... so this is my take on it. It is trying to do a couple things, first, show some hints at different work, variety, then give a couple scenes to show some of my so called "directing" ability.

enjoy... or not...

PS: I promise I will stop posting this.. last time.. I swear :)
 
Not sure why people harp on you so much, but I don't see a problem with your actual footage. It looks pretty decent, to me.
 
Fdbk?

Fdbk?

Here are some observations:

General:

-I really dig the song being played.

-From beginning to end I think the shots are too dark. I'm not down with the "to make a film feel dark it should look dark too" school of thought. Watch the film the "Butterfly Effect." It is an extremely dark movie in terms of content, but many scenes are shot outdoors and the sun is shining very bright. This type of contrast between content and light is brilliant in my opinion.

-The leading stuff explains nothing to me about the shooting scene. maybe it wasn't supposed to..? In any event, while the music is banging, the trailer is boring and doesn't intrigue me whatsoever.

Acting/content:

-The guy with the gun is a terrible actor. I could only stand him for about 30 seconds.

-When people shoot people it is my understanding that they typically get the hell out of dodge after they have pulled the trigger. I haven't heard of too many cases where they take a seat, have a smoke and conduct a therapy session.

-The guy with the long hair who asks, "are you going to shoot me too?" is acting far too reasonable for this situation. That type of question is completely "B flick" in nature. In reality he would have either A) Tackled the dude with the gun and beat the %$#@ out of him to save his own life; B) Ran like hell; C) Went into shock. There is no way he'd be reasonable.

For these reasons I had no interest in this.

I'm a newb myself so I haven't much room to talk.. but you put it up so I thought I would weigh in honestly.

Mikey
 
I promise I will stop posting this.. last time.. I swear
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Dude don't sweat it.

http://www.reelsondemand.com/index2.html

Check that for some professional examples on reels.

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Go back through the reel and make sure every new scene/shot is within the legal IRE levels.

At 00:00:24 a new shot appears and the levels are off. Very distracting. Make your blacks black, not grey.

Make sure every scene and shot has the same IRE for highlights at 100 IRE and blacks at 0 IRE

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The 2 dudes playing chess does not work for me and appears too staged. I'd consider removing these guy's and concentrate on the actual production footage

00:02:12 There is an exchange between 2 guys in the woods. The Audio is all whacky as it jumps back and forth,. Get that fixed ! Add an Audio Layer of ambiance or something to cover up this

Something else to consider is that this reel is for your camera and director work but at this point it starts turning into an actors reel

Anyways; I'd say you have a really strong reel here and think you may be going places if you get the right break and hook up on the right productions.

Everything looks great !
 
Mikey... a few things..

1) time to adjust the gamma on your monitor, all the footage has been graded in post and calibrated for a TV using a proper field monitor. So, no it is not too dark. And I dunno what your basing your comments on since.. the film was shot.. during the day.. but too each his own I guess.

2) The "leading stuff" isn't supposed to explain things.. but then i dunno what you want explained... perhaps an opening title crawl ala starwars might better explain things?

3) Fine, if you don't like the actor, your opinion.. I think he rocks... as for the "therapy session" .. it is also my understanding that this is showcasing parts from a movie.. it isn't a movie in itself.. so I wouldn't take the cronology of this too seriously...

4) If I wanted to make a B-Movie I would have done one of those situations that you suggested.

Sorry Mikey, I dunno if I can agree with your sentiment. My film has won some awards already.. so I know it is at least above the B-Movie caliber.. it is at least E-Movie...


For Hudson: Thanks for the feedback.. I think what is going wonky is pergaps the differences between Mac and PC native gamma settings. And the audio I am looking into.. it still being worked on.. but I have already fixed er up in FCP.

As for the chess peeps.. I am debating what I can replace that with. Need some compelling from my work..

stay tuned.
 
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Oh yes

The MAC PC Gamma difference; my bad !

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And yeah, this doesnt look cheap or B or the actor sucking ? Mikey is smoking the shiz
 
John_Hudson said:
...And yeah, this doesnt look cheap or B or the actor sucking ? Mikey is smoking the shiz
Click to expand...
mikey.jpg


poo poo me.
I guess Mikey doesn't like it after all.
Who knew?​
 
Didn't look too dark to me. Everything looks good.

I really liked the song you used during the beginning of the reel. You've got some great stuff here. So far so good, Loki. :thumbsup:
 
Hmm, so this is a director's reel, huh? I like some of the stuff in there, but I gotta tell you, the montage feels a lot more like it's for a DP. Some of the stuff looks like basic studio lighting tests, not like a real scene. Especially towards the end, I'm asking myself, "What is he really showing me?" and not coming up with a clear answer.

Then the scenes themselves start, and I feel better about it. But there's something about that montage that needs rethinking.
 
In "Linus and the 5th World" the characters were drinking wine in champagne glasses.

I just thought it was weird.
 
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Zanuck, close, but they are actually just taller wine glasses.. not quite a champagne flute, but also not a standard wider Wine glass... at least looking over the varied wine glasses I own.. lol I could be way wrong..

as for your other question... I have graduated from school.. though none of my work are "student" projects.. accept the chess game scene. But that turned out well enough to be watchable.
 
Some good editing and camera work. As for directing, the acting wasn't too bad, but I would want more dialog in my reel and also more variation on themes. I'm sure producers would like to see that you can handle various situations and emotional scenes.

Just my two cents,
John
 
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