"Passing Lane" short film shot with DVX + Mjolnir35 adapter

mentatDUKE

mentatDUKE

Veteran
Hi guys. I'd love feedback on a short film I recently completed. It's called "Passing Lane".

I used a homemade 35mm adapter I call the Mjolnir35, an Arri kit, Octava & Audio Technica mics, and of course the trusty DVX.

We wrote and shot it over the course of two days.

It's my first actual "non-home movie" project. I'm really proud of it, but know that there is still a lot more to learn.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Feel free to comment on the technical stuff as well as the more subjective story/performance issues.

Thanks.

Here's a link to the movie. Screengrabs are below:
http://www.mentatduke.com/films2.htm

Hit%20on%20Kids.jpg

Tire.jpg

THANK%20You.jpg

Thinking.jpg

Gas.jpg

Gimmie.jpg
 
wow, great piece there.

Some of the actors were stronger than others. But overall, i thoroughly enjoyed it.

Can you share with us some of the details of your adapter? Lens type? focus screen? Picture of it? Designed after?

There was alot of grain apparent in the car scenes. Is this due to how much you can stop down before grain becomes very visible?
 
I dug it :)

There was defintely a wide range with the actors. I think a few of the weaker
performances could be cut down without really affecting the overall beats.

Visually it was neat. Leaving the camera locked off and letting your actors move
in and out of the frame was interesting. Added a nice cinema varite quality.

Audio was spotty. Please go back and foley the cardoors :) You've got some
music breaks that are pretty obvious and texturally different. Felt a bit like
having the hallway carpet clash with the carpet in the room. The amount of
music and those transitions intruded for me. I was very 'aware' of your
soundtrack.

Overall, I did like it quite a bit.
 
Thanks for the input. I definitely need to work on getting better sound. Despite expensive audio equipment, our field practices need to be tweaked.

The grain was probably caused by a mixture of my stopping down (so as to expose human faces against a winshield in the early afternoon) and pushing/pulling during color correction which introduced some video noise.

The Mjolnir35 design is based on the ThorLabs tube adapter design. I use a Beattie for the focusing screen. It's a static adapter. I wish I could build a shaker/vibrator but I think this is as far as I'll go until I get a Guerilla35.

As far as lenses go, they're all Nikons. I have a pretty full Nikon kit. 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 105mm and more. Ebay was a great resource.

I generally stuck to 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm lenses for wides, mediums and closeups.

I think I got a bit indlugent as far as the soundtrack goes. Our music guys sent us a LOT of great tracks. I wanted to use as many as possible. It gets a bit noticeable when working within the confines of a 7min film. I really feel the music added a lot to the production value though.

All in all, I'm encouraged by this. The short was part of the Houston 48Hour Film project. I can't wait to see what we can accomplish when shooting on a normal schedule with proper pre-and post production.

Thanks again for the feedback.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top