SLIMED Sci-fi comedy feature Shot entirely on DVX100B

J

Jeff Nitzberg

Active member


Hi everyone, just wanted to post for your viewing pleasure our first independent feature, “Slimed,” which started as a senior thesis in college and ended as a 60 minute science fiction comedy. I was the co-writer, co-director, co- editor, colorist, in addition to the other hundred jobs that happen when you make a movie on this level. My co-director/writer/editor special effects wizard etc was Eric Manche, a long time friend and collaborator.

Our little film was shot entirely on the DVX100b. From the time we started writing the movie in late 2007 we’ve seen endless growth and change in the independent film world, the DSLR revolution, more affordable gear at a consumer level, but the DVX100 will always have an irreplaceable place in my heart as the ultimate low-budget dv workhorse, ever versatile, reliable and revolutionary. I still fondly recall the revelation that was the ability to shoot 24p.

Needless to say DVXUSER.com has been an inspirational as well as essential resource for both this project and my growth as a filmmaker. Though a first time poster, I’ve been lurking here since the site went up. I want to thank Barry Green for his endless devotion to spilling the beans of wisdom regarding the technology surrounding DVX and the community it has subsequently created.

A quick plot summary of "Slimed:" A Park Ranger and a Bible-salesman journey into the woods and discover, quiet by chance, a mysterious and toxic slime that threatens to destroy not just the woods, but the world. Action, laughs, camp, and special effects galore.

Eric and I like to think of the movie as a live action episode of South Park or a throwback to the good old days of Zucker Bros comedies.

It is 60 minutes long, so if you don’t have the time you can always watch the trailer and the teaser here:





If you’d like to find out more about the movie you can check our website here:

www.slimedthemovie.com

Hope you enjoy it and thanks again to everyone on these boards for years of insight, and years to come!

-Jeff and Eric
 
For a little more behind the scenes, here's the link to a thread about the poster art:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=198873

And this is a link talking about the service we used to put the movie on dvd:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=103692&page=25

We wound up up-resing the movie from standard def to 1280x720 Pro-res. The dvd was then mastered off of this pro-res file. In order to fit the entire movie on vimeo we heavy compressed back to SD. But the uprez HD from the DVX on the DVD looks excellent!
 
Hey Jeff, just want to say that I enjoyed it very much but could only watch up to 28 minutes due to me having to leave. Well done and yes, the dvx100b will have it's place in this ever changing time of filmmaking. I'll finished the rest when I get back :)

Edit: I just ordered a copy to support you guys. Good luck to you both :)
 
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jeff... this is awesome bro... its really entertaining... i havent finished it yet but from what i saw it was great... very funny stuff... GREAT JOB...
 
Sinh- Thank you! We just received your order. The first ever I believe from a fellow DVXer! We're shipping it out first thing tomorrow- hope you enjoy the bonus features!

krumpak- Thanks man, positive feedback like that means the world to us. Glad you enjoyed it, that's what it's all about!

lebroz, yep, HD is not the be all and end all of what "looks good" ;)

Kholi- YES!! Totally, Goosebumps and Zombies Ate My Neighbors are two things we hold near and dear to our hearts... that and of course every poster Drew Struzan ever painted as well as Reynold Brown.

Thanks again everyone for your support!

-Jeff and Eric
 
Funny stuff, sitting here with tears in my eyes... looking forward to watching it all later... today is valentine's day, however. if i were you I'd have DVDs for sale. I could see this model of giving it away for free to garner fans translating to DVD sales if that DVD had some added value... like a "how I made this film for under $10k" bonus feature.
 
genius... i see you DO have a dvd on your web site. ordering now.

I'm just one person, but it might be worth polling people who bought your DVD (you get their email address via paypal) to see how much of the film they watched before buying the DVD. For me, it was five minutes. I'd be curious to know how man people watched the whole thing vs only a portion before buying.
 
Just finished watching it.

I loved it. It was so hilariously ridiculous that I was laughing the entire time. I do have to admit that some of the special effects weren't my cup of tea, especially some of the green screen stuff, and there were some obvious "I can see the strings" parts. But I'll just assume that everything was done for camp value.

Both of the leads were quite good and I'm looking forward to seeing them in any future projects you guys do. The entire movie felt like a school project/direct to cable feature even more entertaining than most direct to cable movies. It looks like you guys had quite alot of fun working on the movie.

I'll definitely be ordering a dvd once I get paid soon. I'm really interested in the extra features and I only hope the first feature I make ends up being even half as decent.

..and the ending, that made me fall out of my chair!
 
Ryan Paige said:
I only watched the trailer before ordering a DVD, but aside from wanting to watch the movie, I was also curious as to the quality of the DVD disc itself (since the company that pressed them is local, and if I have the need to get DVDs pressed in the future, I'd like to support a local business if at all possible).

I haven't actually watched the DVD yet, though.
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Hey Ryan,
This is Eric - the other writer/director on Slimed. We had a great experience with the company that printed our discs (Nationwide) - fantastic customer support, affordable pricing (with the lowest bulk minimums we could find) and outstanding quality. Jeff made an entire post about them here where you can get more details about our experience. FYI - for Slimed we got silver-pressed replication, which is the highest quality DVD pressing method you can get - it is the same format major studio DVDs are released in.
 
Zak Forsman said:
might be worth polling people who bought your DVD (you get their email address via paypal) to see how much of the film they watched before buying the DVD. For me, it was five minutes. I'd be curious to know how man people watched the whole thing vs only a portion before buying.
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Hey Zak - this is Eric, the other director of Slimed. I'm curious about the same thing - a poll is a great idea but I think we'll wait until we've had some more orders to do so... :happy:

On that note, I'm also curious to know how many people are actually watching the entire movie on Vimeo, and how many people end up turning it off mid-way. I know in this day and age asking people for an hour of their time/attention span is ludicrous, esp. when they could fill that time for 50 ADD-enhancing youtube videos. I do think those who end up watching the whole thing generally tend to enjoy it - but getting someone to do so isn't as easy as you'd think.

Thanks so much for all the positive comments and the DVD purchase. Knowing someone enjoyed the movie, or even better - cried with laughter over it - makes me feel like the 3 years of work was totally worth it. Cheers!
 
RockmanX3 said:
..and the ending, that made me fall out of my chair!
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Thanks Rockman! So glad you dug it. Yes - many of the effects were intentionally campy... especially the "attack butterflies" sequence. I'm ashamed to take responsibility for that particular prop but at the end of the day I think the total fakeness of it is funnier and has more character than had we used CGI or real butterflies... we considered removing the strings in post but both of us kind of developed a fondness for it as a kind of wink-wink moment.
I'm glad the ending struck a chord with you... when we first came up with the idea for the movie we had only one scene in our head: the ending. Making it become a reality was the fuel that kept us going.
 
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Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know SLIMED has entered its first film festival! Woohoo! We just received notice that we'll be playing in the Boston Underground Film Festival as part of their feature line up later this month. I don't have the exact date and time yet, but I believe it's going to be on the 26th of March, Friday night.

http://bostonunderground.org/schedule/

If any dvxers are going to be in Boston area and want to see the results from the DVX100b on the big screen then come on down! From initial communication I believe the projection is going to be digital and sourced from a hard drive... which means we MIGHT be able to project directly from our uprezed Pro-res 4.2.2 hd master. Needless to say we're crapping our pants with excitement to see that on the big screen.

Eric and myself will be making the trip to Boston and hopefully bring our two lead actors with us cost/time willing. I'll post when I know the date/time for sure when the final line-up schedule is released. Thanks again for everyone's support of Slimed and hopefully we'll see some of you in Boston!
 
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In general it's great to come to such a movie.

But.... I can hear some differences in dialogues levels (difference in "color" of sound)... OK I do sound, so maybe I hear those things faster ?

Does the ranger had a wireless mice ? And the others not ?
 
Thanks dre83, yeah, sound was definitely an uphill battle for us... we used a shotgun mic AND wireless lavs (both thoroughly abused film school gear we'd checked out) and the lavs pretty much stopped functioning correctly the first day of the shoot and got worse from there... especially in the cabin scene where we had to split the difference between takes with either echoing boom, or blownout interference-ridden lavs, yikes. There is actually a funny outtake on the DVD where the sound on the Ranger's lav totally fails and we're cursing our heads off trying to trouble shoot it. But yeah, anyone who is a sound-pro will have a field day ripping our movie apart.... it was a low-budget sound mixer's nightmare.

To answer you question though it's really a mix of all of the above... some lines from Jordan (Ranger Rockerson) we used lav, some boom, sometimes it changes from line to line, and sometimes you can REALLY tell. Alas, we did as best we could to EQ it all in post.
 
Jeff Nitzberg said:
Thanks dre83, yeah, sound was definitely an uphill battle for us... we used a shotgun mic AND wireless lavs (both thoroughly abused film school gear we'd checked out) and the lavs pretty much stopped functioning correctly the first day of the shoot and got worse from there... especially in the cabin scene where we had to split the difference between takes with either echoing boom, or blownout interference-ridden lavs, yikes. There is actually a funny outtake on the DVD where the sound on the Ranger's lav totally fails and we're cursing our heads off trying to trouble shoot it. But yeah, anyone who is a sound-pro will have a field day ripping our movie apart.... it was a low-budget sound mixer's nightmare.

To answer you question though it's really a mix of all of the above... some lines from Jordan (Ranger Rockerson) we used lav, some boom, sometimes it changes from line to line, and sometimes you can REALLY tell. Alas, we did as best we could to EQ it all in post.
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The most important thing is that you've learned from it. It was "only" a schoolthing... OK it has become a feature film with dvd release... But still... Your lives won't become a hell .... I hope ? :-p
It will be a funny remembrance.

And next time I'm sure you will check gear 54514745603753 times before renting or buying.

I'm sure if you had good gear, sound would be 7564534504 times better. Because the things that were good...were good.
 
Just a quick update on our screening at BUFF. The official showtime is FRIDAY MARCH 26th 3:00pm. There will be a short film playing before ours called "STONEY." For more info you can check out: http://bostonunderground.org/about/ Eric and I will both be attending as well as our two lead actors. The final projection had to be downresed from our pro-res master but is still an HD file at 1280x720. Should look very good, fingers crossed!
 
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