FEATURE: Paradox Lost Feature Film

StrobelPhotography

StrobelPhotography

Well-known member
I'm very excited to announce the kickstarter for the feature film "Paradox Lost". I'm shooting this feature and I will be doing my best to document the journey here on dvxuser and I would love it if you all followed along! Here's our kickstarter and the writer talking about the feature and why people should donate. We went back and forth about this video and how to run the campaign but ultimately it is the directors film. Some of our differences were, I wanted to include a budget in the video. I wanted to relate more to the individual and I thought it was more important to highlight this directors skill. He's such a modest guy, he didn't really want to talk about himself and what he's achieved. In the end these details may or may not matter. We shall see. I'm going to attempt to post a link to it here, let's see how I do...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1859872519/paradox-lost-a-feature-film?ref=nav_search

here's our website for the film

http://paradoxlostthemovie.com/
 
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Director selfie, me in the background futzin with the camera. the light you see here was my brand new quasar 2'6bank I got for a trade. I love steve over at quasar and I've been going out there for a long time. he saw some of my comedy videos and he mentioned at some point we should do something together. I'm really excited to show you all what we did. probably one of the most fun product video shoots I've ever done. Anyway, that's the light I used and I had the diffuser on it, on a baby at full power.
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Checking the color/sound etc on several devices.
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This was me doing some initial tests, we searched for the best spot for dennis and decided on him being in the audience. the thinking being this would make him more relatable.
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This is the look and frame we finally settled on for the kickstarter video. I ended up using my 12-35pano and the micro to shoot this. I didn't have my speedbooster back yet from metabones so no contax or fd primes on this one. 800 iso 5.6f or around there. He was moving a lot and I was having a damn hard time keeping him in focus so just raised the f stop. I'm really digging my 501. I struggled with it early on but really love it now.
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We shot s'more content.

Dorothy pictured here with her favorite toy, was one of our actors this day. Keeping the content interesting? We're trying.
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This is the setup for the dog videos. I thought it would be fun to give them a little peanut butter and then do a VO to them talking about the kickstarter.
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Shooting on the deck in what turned out to be pretty challenging for the blimp, since it was so windy.
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editing the final choices
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This is our office for the day. Shot listing has begun! So great to start visualizing the film.

Dennis the director doesn't look happy today because he's so sick he can hardly speak.

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Congratulations and the best of luck to you all! I see the script on the table, well-thumbed. Oh, the journey ahead. Yes, it's great "to start visualizing the film". Making a film, for a director who has written the script, is a battle between wanting to see it on screen already, moving to the next stage of shooting and so on - on one side - and making sure the script is as ready as it can be - on the other. Once you start shooting, the script is done. Sometimes that's a terrible sinking sensation as you realize that the film is going to be underserved by the script and indeed can be sunk by it. On the other side, you can't keep revising the script endlessly, there comes a time when you've got to cut bait and go on to the next stage... often you're sick of writing anyway. How do you decide when it's ready to shoot, and when it's pointless to shoot as the script is just no good, or not good enough? And then there are those golden times, when you are so enthusiastic about the script you can't wait to start shooting to see it on screen!

A true artist is able to look at his/her own work with a degree of objectivity, rather than being hopelessly lost in "I've stared at this so long, I can no longer tell what's what".

Best of luck, and looking forward to the film!
 
Thanks OC, wise words and your not far off on your points here. What I'm focusing on now is just hearing his ideas. If I have technical concerns I bring them up and if I have a better way to communicate his point I chime in. That's it. Trying to keep it simple and not drive myself crazy.
 
2 days into our shoot and we're doing great. I'm loving how it's coming out. For most of the shots we're using a two light setup. In the first couple shots we're using a lowel light on the wall and a quasar kino convert bounced off the opposite wall. I loved the first location, really worked out ideal. On the last two the director wanted to see some home depot work lights in the shots. The location was not ideal with the white walls honestly, I would've rather shot the scene in a warehouse or a room with a darker interior but I did what I could. This film is def going to stretch my knowledge of davinci to make that final look feel the way I want. For the sake of the camera noise I overlit it a stop and a half. I'm hoping this will give me the flexibility i need in post.

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Good stuff. Between the rain coat, the work lights and the touch tone phone on a milk crate... I'm not even gonna ask. But looks like fun!:beer:
I have shot exactly one independent, low-budget film (yeah literally 16 mm film) almost 20 years ago now... and seeing your grabs instantly takes me back to that time & place. There is never anything like just jumping in & doing it! Enjoy the ride & thanks for sharing.
 
markfpv said:
Good stuff. Between the rain coat, the work lights and the touch tone phone on a milk crate... I'm not even gonna ask. But looks like fun!:beer:
I have shot exactly one independent, low-budget film (yeah literally 16 mm film) almost 20 years ago now... and seeing your grabs instantly takes me back to that time & place. There is never anything like just jumping in & doing it! Enjoy the ride & thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...

Thx mark!
 
All the footage is synced, and I believe organized. The director has been going through all the footage and marking takes. I've pulled out all the room tone and wild lines etc and we're starting our edit tomorrow! Here's a couple of quick shots of my setup. I picked up a rebuild 2010 mac tower from a guy here in LA that rebuilds them. It's got 2 3.33 ghz 6core cpus and 64gigs ram with one titan gpu. It may be a little overkill for HD but I wanna pick up a 4k rig this year so I bought it in advance. I would also like to attempt the color on our project so it should work great for that. The new Dell monitor I picked up used on amazon. It's amazing. I tried several of the um95 32" by LG and was running into all kinds of issues. Screen flickers and flashing etc and they were really slow to startup and they don't have a smart sleep mode either which means you have to turn it off and on everytime you wanna work. I was pretty bummed because I love the 32" wide screen size. Then I found this guy. Wow what a difference. Dell is just a better company. Longer warranty etc. All around a better monitor. Dell U3415W, and I mounted it to the wall with one of these ECHOGEAR Full Motion Articulating TV Wall Mount Bracket for most 15-39 inch TVs & Computer Monitors Featuring 10.5" of Extension, 90º of Swivel, & 16º of Tilt - EGSF1-BK.

ANYWAY, pls excuse my monitor rant.

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We've been editing now for a couple months while working other jobs so it's slow but we're on it. We've roughed out act one and now on act two. Here's a couple shots of us messing around with sequences. You can see my new blackmagic micro panel. I've been messing around with it for about a month now and it's amazing. I love it. This is the way coloring was meant to be done.

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