First day with T2i

Hm. Feels oddly exploitive. Maybe I'm just wicked harsh when it comes to animals being filmed in any regard, but the old west jail-style theme playing (without any note of melancholy) felt to be using a real situation and making some kind of a B-rate theme out of it.

It's like if we threw a box of cereal into crowd of starving children and then played the Benny Hill theme song as they all scratched and clawed to get some morsel of food.

The camera is fine. But the subject was handled badly, IMO.
 
Wow, thanks for your honesty. It must just be a difference of perception especially in the music. As for me, I chose the song to emphasize the heat as well as, what I thought was a melancholy feel and to hear that you feel the song does not have any sadness to it is interesting to me.

For me I wanted it to feel like almost a biography of prison inmates but in the animal world. Some of the dogs are scared. Some are optimistic. Some are just content. And for me, I felt like it reflected the scope of the animals I met that day.

And I would think to throw a box of cereal into a crowd of children, regardless of music choice would be a pretty disgusting experiment and I'll have to respectfully disagree that my video hearkens at all to that idea.

And currently this is being recut for an "Adopt a Dog" campaign, so my personal feelings on dogs in the pound is of compassion. But please feel free to discuss back my take through this thread or private messages. I am always looking to better myself as a filmmaker and appreciate all perspectives on my work.
 
I like the footage, and I don't mind the music. Not the approach I would've taken, but I don't see anything bad about the subject matter or with how you handled it.

And please don't compare dogs in the pound with starving children, it's rude and, for me, a disgusting comparison.

Animals are animals. People are people.
 
diego1235467 said:
I like the footage, and I don't mind the music. Not the approach I would've taken, but I don't see anything bad about the subject matter or with how you handled it.

And please don't compare dogs in the pound with starving children, it's rude and, for me, a disgusting comparison.

Animals are animals. People are people.
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lol

I'm assuming (as it's the logical conclusion) that you only feel that way because of some religious construct. And since that's off-limits on these boards I'll only say that what you just described in speciesism. For anyone to think that a human being is any more important to the universe than is a dog or cat or ferret is simply ego. It's unfortunate that most people can only identify with the things that look like themselves.

In regards to the op, I'd look into changing the song. Even if there's a chance that you'd be putting someone off, it's a risk not worth taking in this regard.
 
No, it has nothing to do with religion. In fact I'm not even religious. It's just that a starving child is not the same as a dog in the pound.

I love animals and am 100% for animal rights, and in the grand scheme of things, humans ARE just other animals.

But to compare a starving child to a dog isn't right.
 
What about comparing a starving child to a starving dog?

As for the video, Take out the title of "Behind Bars" at beginning and add a vocal narration with some animal stats etc, it could work. If it helps one animal out of the the shelter and into a caring home, it's a good thing.

That damn Sarah Mclachlan adopt an animal PSA makes me want to adopt the whole pound.
 
Nope.

Say your dog dies, gets run over or something. How would you feel?
Now say you 2 year old son gets run over. How would you feel?

No comparison.
 
Why the hostility an animal shelter is where dogs are taken care of because of cruelty by owners. Personally as I live in Korea I'm off to get another bowl of Dog soup. ;) Last time I checked baby soup was illegal though.


I blame Avatar.
 
diego1235467 said:
Nope.

Say your dog dies, gets run over or something. How would you feel?
Now say you 2 year old son gets run over. How would you feel?

No comparison.
Click to expand...


Right, because of ego (to use the word as generally as possible). It's the same reason the racist person doesn't feel as bad when someone outside of their race is treated poorly.

An animal can't give US what people can give US, so WE don't feel as compassionately towards them, but your argument is still based on what WE FEEL, not what actually IS. See?

Just because I would be sadder if my fiancee died than I would be if my cat died doesn't mean that my fiancee is more important than my cat, it just means that she is more important TO ME. Just as I'm sure my CAT would be more sad if *I* died than she would if my fiancee died -- because *I* am more important to my cat than is my fiancee.

It's perception and it's ego, it isn't reality. A starving child is no more morally abhorrent than is a starving dog except for how that presentation exists in the morals that have been created by the perception of human ego, the same way the racist person views other races.

That's why I mentioned speciesism.

Now, in the end, we're all beasts. I eat meat sometimes. But I understand that the thing on my plate died for me, so that I could eat it, the same as when I die the bugs and fish or whatever will be dining on me. That's why I buy all of my meat products from humane conditions and never purchase fast food, because I want the meat I eat to have lived the best life possible.

Where things get interesting, I think, and how you can truly examine your perception is when you ask yourself if you'd rather your own son or someone else's son get run over by that car. You'd pick your own, probably, even if your son might end up being dumber and of less social value than would the person who's son you let get tumbled.

So the real question is, would I want my cat to die or would I want my cat to live if my cat living meant that some nameless person I'll never know or meet or hear of died in her stead.

Hypotheticals are stupid and usually don't prove anything, but the one thing I know every day when I look at my cat is that she won't live as long as the other people in my life, so that would probably factor into the decision regarding the person dying so that she can live.

And isn't that funny? That if someone is older or single or less attractive that they should go ahead and die for someone younger, married with children who may or may not be more attractive.

It's all stupid and pointless. We're all mud. In the end, every single extra dime I have for charity always, always, always goes to animals and the disabled; because, IMO, people with all their faculties, even smallish people, have the means to manifest opprotunity where an animal cannot.

E.g. if you're a person who is not disabled and your life is a mess, it's either A) your fault or B) it eventually becomes your fault because you did nothing to manifest change in your life.

And yeah -- the Sarah ad has sad music! That's what I'm telling you: I don't think the music has any sense of melancholy, only a twisted kind of irony.

But that's just my opinion.
 
Chamber005 said:
lol

I'm assuming (as it's the logical conclusion) that you only feel that way because of some religious construct. And since that's off-limits on these boards I'll only say that what you just described in speciesism. For anyone to think that a human being is any more important to the universe than is a dog or cat or ferret is simply ego. It's unfortunate that most people can only identify with the things that look like themselves.

In regards to the op, I'd look into changing the song. Even if there's a chance that you'd be putting someone off, it's a risk not worth taking in this regard.
Click to expand...


If I had to choose between one single human life, regardless of who they are, and an entire species of animals, I would choose the human life.
 
jamesmallonuk said:
Why the hostility an animal shelter is where dogs are taken care of because of cruelty by owners. Personally as I live in Korea I'm off to get another bowl of Dog soup. ;) Last time I checked baby soup was illegal though.


I blame Avatar.
Click to expand...

Because the laws were created by man to serve man's ego. Same reason we used to have slaves and women had no rights, etc, etc, etc.

I'm sure at the dawn of mankind (and still amidst some scary jungle tribes) baby soup most definitley was "legal". I'm sure when there was nothing to eat we ate our dead and the people of other tribes that we killed. Why wouldn't we? I mean, LOL, we certainly weren't burying them. Can you imagine a more complete waste of energy and resources? Back in the day we probably would use a dead uncle's toes for fish bait.

Heck, I often feel bad that no one will be able to eat me when I'm dead, but then as I just mentioned, the bugs and worms will have their fill, so it'll all work out in the end.

;)
 
jghenderson said:
If I had to choose between one single human life, regardless of who they are, and an entire species of animals, I would choose the human life.
Click to expand...

ROFL!

Dude, what's so hilarious about this comment is that the human race is going to be extinct long, long, long before the ancestors of cats or dogs or rats. It always blows my mind when people behave as though PEOPLE are somehow the greatest thing that's ever occurred in the universe anywhere or that they're going to even be relevant a million years from now. lol

Compared to pretty much every single species of animal you see around you, we are infants.

And you know what they say about the flame that burns twice as bright.

;)
 
I know what everyone is saying. Speciesism is indeed an interesting phenomenon.

Something I might add to that, and it's a bit disturbing. When I see a war photo or some king of human gore (which is not often), I never seem to have the reaction that I should. In fact, it's sort of sobering to see that we are indeed just made of skin, meat, and bone, just like everything else.

Like I said, in the grand scheme of things you could say we're even nature's biggest mistake. After all, it's not animals who are destroying the world.

It's also fascinated me that there are people on the other side of the spectrum. People who would never dream of hurting an animal, but who couldn't care less about hurting a person. Why is it that we turn away at animal violence in films (Amores Perros), but not at human violence?

It's all extremely interesting stuff.
 
jghenderson said:
If I had to choose between one single human life, regardless of who they are, and an entire species of animals, I would choose the human life.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I give you the choice of saving one human child or saving all of the plankton in the ocean. Now choose.

Choosing the child would be disasterous and set in motion a sequence of cascading events that would not only devastate the planet but cause the suffering and death of untold millions of the least important mammal in the ecosystem: humans.

Sorry little, Johnny. Time to die.
 
diego1235467 said:
Nope.

Say your dog dies, gets run over or something. How would you feel?
Now say you 2 year old son gets run over. How would you feel?

No comparison.
Click to expand...

Tell that to my wife. We lost a dog. It was equivalent to losing a child to her and very painful to me as well. I don't think she would have been anymore devastated if it had been our son.

Now we have a cat. I keep telling her things happen to cats. Don't get to attached. I hope I go before that cat because I don't think I could go through that again with my wife.
 
Wow. Talk about a thread jack....

Yeah, animals rock.

ANYWAY.....

I liked the video. For your first day with the T2i, it was very good. How did you color grade it?
 
jghenderson said:
If I had to choose between one single human life, regardless of who they are, and an entire species of animals, I would choose the human life.
Click to expand...

having lost a few pets, and a few close friends among others, i would favor your argument.
 
Wow guys, wow.

Never did I expect my little camera test would incite such a discussion.

David, I used Magic Bullet Looks with the Bronze aggressive and then tweaked each clip from there.

And thanks for the other critiques I did receive on the video. I will definitly rethink the music for the actual "Adopt a dog" ad. I would certainly not want to make a mockery of what is I think a serious issue. I wholeheartedly believe in adopting a dog, and both dogs I have ever owned were rescues.

My Hunter died after 16 years. It was devastating. I will keep you guys posted as I recut the ad. I appreciate the feedback.
 
Sure Shott said:
Wow guys, wow.

Never did I expect my little camera test would incite such a discussion.

David, I used Magic Bullet Looks with the Bronze aggressive and then tweaked each clip from there.

And thanks for the other critiques I did receive on the video. I will definitly rethink the music for the actual "Adopt a dog" ad. I would certainly not want to make a mockery of what is I think a serious issue. I wholeheartedly believe in adopting a dog, and both dogs I have ever owned were rescues.

My Hunter died after 16 years. It was devastating. I will keep you guys posted as I recut the ad. I appreciate the feedback.
Click to expand...

That's why critiques are good things, because while *I* might see my work one way, others might see it differently. Now, does that matter as it pertains to artistic endevours? Probably not so much. But in a message-based more commercial setting, I think it's pivitol that whatever your specific message is that it comes across in pristine fashion.

Again, though, I'm the only one thus far that had any issue with the old west jail twang kind of music choice. I thought it was a (unintended) cruel irony. If you were to see a film today that played that music over a serious scene where the hero was being tortured and kept in a dusty jail cell, you'd be searching for the funny -- because it must be funny if they chose that music. It's like transition music from Hee Haw,like PAN ACROSS to reveal old drunken uncle Jed sitting in jail the next morning...

That was *my* feeling when I saw it. But I'm only one critique.
 
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