Just what the hell have I done - TwoSurprises

M

microbob

Active member
So I got off my ass and made a short. I've only shown it to one other person which means that I've had no real feedback. I have no clue as to whether I'm waaay off base or riiight on track...probably the former.

Please feel free to rip it to shreds or take a few minutes to give me some honest to goodness feedback. I have a list of flaws that are a mile long, but I've lost perspective so I don't know what is real or not. It just can't be healthy to look at the same footage over and over and over....

A few notes:

- I had never seen a script, created a story board, held auditions, or used a decent camera or lights until September of '05. Never ever and you can tell. I was a "well, I read the book" type of a filmmaker and that doesn't get you very far.

- Besure to shoot all the shots in every scene, otherwise you'll find big holes when you get to post production. If you find yourself in this position, don't give up...be creative and make it work. Keep on polishing that turd!

- A 9 dollar Wal-Mart battery powered florescent camping light can be converted to a decent interior car light. In fact, it makes some damn good soft light.

- Setup and test. Test your ass off, see my next bullet below.

- The DVX100 in 24pa mode disables the gain switch, however the DVX100a in 24pa mode enables the gain switch. Shooting at night, with the iris open real wide, in 24pa mode, with the gain jacked way up makes for some fuxed up footage! Duuurrr. Check the gain you asshole.

- Color Correction - Heh, what is that? Seriously, one day I'll know enough to do a little CC (btw, can you fix jacked up gain with CC?)

- Care and feeding of your actors. Scrape up the cash to pay your actors a little $$$ because it will put you in a position of power. "Hey, I'm paying you, so you have to be here.". Even if it is only 10 bucks, it makes a difference. Also work with eager actors. Most eager actors will work for free, pay them a little and they will bend over backwards for you. Trust me on this, it is less hassle to find and pay an eager actor a few bucks than beg your whining friend with his "I don't want to be here" camera face to show up to the set on time. Plus your product will just feel better.

- Your crew. You can do it all by yourself if you want, but why not get some help? Here is how I put mine together. We made a deal, I would help them if they would help me. I was on 2 shoots over 6 days in order to full fill my obligation to my two crew members as they shot their own films. They helped me, I helped them. Plus I learned a lot from being on their shoots.

After you download the movie (pick the big h264 or the smaller h263) let me know if you can't play the film or if it is slow. I'll need to addresses either or both problem(s).

The total length is 3:41.

edit: I have some daytime location pics, some pics of my ghetto car light kit, and a few behind the scenes shots.

-> http://www.rm-fr.com/twosurprises/behind_the_scenes/index.html

Enjoy:

-> http://rm-fr.com/twosurprises/TwoSur...40.500kbps.mov (36mb)

-mb


(edit: a much smaller file has been posted and linked)
 
i think it was a good story man. the lighting wasn't that horrible, but it wasn't great. the more you practice, the better you'll get.

the part where she runs across the street....you need a shot of her actually running across the street......it seemed like she ran to the house next door, but then when we heard the noise across the street we had the wide shot of the house that seemed to be across the street. i was confused on this part.

also the noise of her crashing into what maybe glass.....what did she run into? i guess it needs to be set up more.

when she's laying on the floor and her husband is over her, what happened to her friends? i think they'd be reacting too. we need shots of their reaction.

other than that, i thought it was a good story. with more practice the composition, color correction and sound may be better.
 
Justin_Kirch said:
i think it was a good story man. the lighting wasn't that horrible, but it wasn't great. the more you practice, the better you'll get.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I feel as if I've been working in a cave and have completely lost perspective on what I've created here. On top of that, I really can't look at this project any longer and already started moving on to my next one! All in all, I'm having a blast.

Justin_Kirch said:
the part where she runs across the street....you need a shot of her actually running across the street......it seemed like she ran to the house next door, but then when we heard the noise across the street we had the wide shot of the house that seemed to be across the street. i was confused on this part.
Click to expand...

You are on point with this and I wrestled with what to do. I have a shot of her running across the street, but I felt it looked cheesy and took for ever for her to get across. However, I do have a POV shot of the house across the street, so when she steps out of the car she can look across the street to the house before she takes off. This just may give the feeling of distance that is missing.

Justin_Kirch said:
also the noise of her crashing into what maybe glass.....what did she run into? i guess it needs to be set up more.
Click to expand...

Big hole in the story here. Just shows you what happens when you don't get all the shots on the list. Missing is just one shot of her feet tripping as she goes through the door.

Justin_Kirch said:
when she's laying on the floor and her husband is over her, what happened to her friends? i think they'd be reacting too. we need shots of their reaction.
Click to expand...

You're on point with criticism. All but three of my extras didn't show up (like 8 people!), so I'm missing several facial expressions and all the people scattering. I ended up working with the people that I had and I feel that it just wasn't enough. Oh well, live and learn.

Justin_Kirch said:
other than that, i thought it was a good story. with more practice the composition, color correction and sound may be better.
Click to expand...

I can't express just how much I learned doing this. I figure it'll take me a good 7-9 shorts to see if I have a knack for telling a story with film.
 
96 and 456 mb for under 4 min of content..and on a slow as dog butt server?! i hacent watched the film yet, but as a seperate word of advice,if you want people to watch your film you need to compress it reasonably so that downloads are not too long. theres thousands of films to watch out here on the web and nobody likes to wait to watch someones 1st film after redaing a book.. now if it was a short by opeter jackson or M. Night.. well they might wait for that. this film should be able to come in at least under 20mb ..that said i like your attitude about filmmaking and if you were to recompress it im sure i and others will gve it a view. all of course just IMHO.
 
Wow ... huge file (the small one!)

While I wait for this to DL, you might want to play around with the following ... should help you with compression:

(I'm at work, so this is all from memory .. or lack of memory)

- Reduce your data rate from default 6400 to 1000
- Reduce quality (slider) from Best to High (or somewhere in the middle)
- Make your export custom sized at 320X240 (def big enough for us to view)

Those few adjustments should dramatically reduce the file size while still producing a sharp, clean movie.

Peace man .. keep on rockin!
 
Toaster said:
Wow ... huge file (the small one!)

While I wait for this to DL, you might want to play around with the following ... should help you with compression:

(I'm at work, so this is all from memory .. or lack of memory)

- Reduce your data rate from default 6400 to 1000
- Reduce quality (slider) from Best to High (or somewhere in the middle)
- Make your export custom sized at 320X240 (def big enough for us to view)

Those few adjustments should dramatically reduce the file size while still producing a sharp, clean movie.

Peace man .. keep on rockin!
Click to expand...

Good tips man, that is *exactly* what I needed to know. I'll see if I can get some smaller files created and posted.
 
Sorry man, it is bound to be a dissapointment now. I have a 50mb file, but let me do some more exports to see if I can get it even smaller.
 
50 mb isn't so bad .... most of my music vids that clock in around 3-4 minutes are about 45-55 MB (H.264).
 
cool cool. i liked it. the lighting in the car was good (there was a point where girl leaned up to the glove box and the light was a bit harsh). good framing. i listened w/o audio .. so i'm not sure .. but what was the red light/hue when guy gets out of car? was that the interior light? and the only flow issue i saw was when she turns at the house front door ... you do it in 2 clips, and i think just one should be fine .. now it looks a bit disjointed.

also, and most importantly: i am SO glad that I'm not the only guy driving around with a random knife in my car. My GF thinks I'm crazy, but hell ... you never know, right! lolol! Don't look in the trunk...

Seriously ... well done .. and good job on the compression bro!!!

-K
 
Toaster said:
cool cool. i liked it. the lighting in the car was good (there was a point where girl leaned up to the glove box and the light was a bit harsh).
Click to expand...

You are correct, it blows out her face. My main mistake with the car scene was not having any close up or extreme close up shots. This made it a little hard to edit/cut out the flaws. All I had to work with was an over the shoulder and the mirror shot.

I ended up leaving out a lot of other takes because of this. I have one where she tries her cell phone, but the battery is dead. I didn't think there was a graceful way to weave it in without having a bunch of slash/jump style cuts.

Toaster said:
good framing. i listened w/o audio .. so i'm not sure .. but what was the red light/hue when guy gets out of car? was that the interior light?
Click to expand...

That was the interior car lights. I had white balanced against the slightly green and really blue fluorescent, so those lights showed up really, really red. I suppose I could try a little CC to try and fix this.


Toaster said:
and the only flow issue i saw was when she turns at the house front door ... you do it in 2 clips, and i think just one should be fine .. now it looks a bit disjointed.
Click to expand...

Point well taken. I also wrestled with the cuts on this. I think I had too much footage to work with! I have her coming across the driveway, coming up the steps, to the door, to the steps (yelling Carl!), and back down the steps. Heh.

Toaster said:
also, and most importantly: i am SO glad that I'm not the only guy driving around with a random knife in my car. My GF thinks I'm crazy, but hell ... you never know, right! lolol! Don't look in the trunk...

Seriously ... well done .. and good job on the compression bro!!!

-K
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback! I plan on killing the main character in my first 5 shorts...it gives me a framework to work within and a concept to try and perfect. Plus it isn't so friggin boring.
 
Great potential! Not bad acting either...

Take out the "stock" girl screaming sound bite and replace it with
a "real" one, and you're on your way.

Good job,
Adrian
 
good story with lots of potential. Would have liked more closeups, acting was pretty decent too. Nice work!
 
Golly, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Just a curiosity, if he took the key to the car, how did she turn on the radio?
 
I always wanted to be the continuity person in movies. It's like a habit ya know. Like pointing out when peoples arms are one way when they're facing you and another when they're looking away.
But seriously, I found the film to be a riveting masterpiece paced to keep one on the edge of their seat. The building suspense and the wrenching ending leave the viewer exhausted and thankful it is only a film, or is it?
Dude, I'm sorry. I thought I was talking about the film Coffee shot.:grin:

Just playin, at least you guys are making stuff.

-Will
 
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