"Spin The Bottle" Short

Hey! I thought it was very cool. The first thing I thought (only at the beginning though) with regard to the camera movement was Guy Ritchie. I enjoyed it, it was funny, well edited and good acting too. One really impressive effect (simple to the narrative, yet technically, seemed as if it might have been complicated) was when the antagonist male placed the bottle on the table and the camera took on the P.O.V. through the bottle.. Was that after effects?

Enjoyed, thanks for sharing,
Brett
 
This was a really cool short! Great take on the pressures of "spin the bottle," and I enjoyed the camera work. Pretty good dialogue as well.
 
That was really good. I loved it. Really funny. Well done. Camera work was good, script was funny. BIG THUMBS UP!!

Keep up the good work, JIMBO
 
That was great! I love the camera work. The guy who was spun to that was drinking from a blue bottle looks like a funny guy.
 
Thanks everyone for the positive comments... :)

- BrettHickman: The bottle effect was a mixture of color corrected video, a key-framed shape mask, and a CC layered photoshop file. I just animated them together on the FCP timeline. The video behind it was speed ramped in After effects and was originally 60i.
 
How did you film this with the DVX? Any DOF adapters or anything?

J/W.

Nice job overall. I'd hate to be one of the people in the background doing nothing.
 
Great film. Simple premise. Well executed. Congratulations.

I'm wondering how you accomplished the in and out "snap" zoom effect at the beginning. Was this in-camera or in post?

Congrats again.

Peter
 
how

how

very nice short, i liked it. i just got a dvx100b and i got some questions though... since you were moving teh camera real fast and people were different lengths from the camera, how did you have everyone in focus right away?
 
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Pretty good. It was funny and the bottle idea was cool. One thing I noticed was that the opening title was rather dark in comparison to the rest of the movie. I was almost expecting noir from the visual (music fit though).

Liked the ending.
 
-zach- How did you film this with the DVX? Any DOF adapters or anything?
Nice job overall. I'd hate to be one of the people in the background doing nothing.
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I filmed the short on my coffe table with the DVX100 (original) on my mothers lazy susanne. :) I had the zoom set to manual and the actors all sitting on marks at the same eye level. (some had to kind of slouch) There was markers I taped around the lazy susanne for that coresponded with my subjects... they moved a little every now and then, so those didn't quite work out. I would manually snap the zoom ring and turn the lazy susanne as a buddy of mine would read the script in the corner. I have a Letus35 FE and really wanted to use it for this but the zooms and 360 degree bright lighting needed made it not the thing to use. I especially wanted to use the adapter with my fisheye lens to add to the bottle effect... but the 2 cut rule and the zooms also kinda made that idea difficult. Also when attempting to film at a 120-250 shutter speed and slowing down the footage doesn't really mix well with a vibrating GG adapter.
And the people in the background were mostly a bunch of my friends. I gave them pizza, beer, and playboys and they were happy :)

Me Myself & I - I'm wondering how you accomplished the in and out "snap" zoom effect at the beginning. Was this in-camera or in post?
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It was both in camera and post... obviously there is added sound effects. I tried to do my best at snapping the zoom right to where I needed it as well as aligning the camera with my subject on its rotating axis. Some were super perfect and others... well almost perfect. I simply speed up each "zoom - pan - zoom" to give it that solid effect.

Logan LeBlanc - Just wondering, was this inspired by that Converse ad? Good work. Very entertaining.
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I'm visual to start with so when our teacher said we needed to make a 3 min short with only 2 cuts, I tried to think how it could make it fast paced and different than 3 boring static shots. So this came to mind. As I was searching for ideas on how I was going to mount the camera and create the spinnng effect I ran across that commercial online and loved it! I knew i wouldn't be the first to do it, but had fun running around the table so as not to get caught in the shot. I kicked quite a few people legs and I'm sure everyone had a nice view of my ass at one time or another.

bobbylong - very nice short, i liked it. i just got a dvx100b and i got some questions though... since you were moving teh camera real fast and people were different lengths from the camera, how did you have everyone in focus right away?
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Well shooting in 24p on an original DVX you have no option of autofocus so that was out. I simply set everyone around the table at the same distnce and told them to try not to move too much. I set my focus at my zoom setting and shot the thing. Shooting with that thing for over 4 years now I've kinda got used to pulling its focus. If I noticed it a bit off, I did my best to tweak it back without bumping the DVX.

BlueWaveProducer - Got your question on PM.

Gohanto - Pretty good. It was funny and the bottle idea was cool. One thing I noticed was that the opening title was rather dark in comparison to the rest of the movie. I was almost expecting noir from the visual (music fit though).
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You're totally right... that was the one thing that I got to do way before the night I shot this. It's definitely a mix of styles and visual techniques that I like. If you watch closely there's "Can't Hardly Wait/Garden State/The Office" stuff.

So here's a little quiz... It's supposed to be only 2 "visible" cuts... but yes, there are many... can you find them all? any guesses on how many cuts? The title screen doesn't count.
 
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Great work. The composition, lighting, and pacing is all great and I love the title sequence. Also a great idea for a short. How many takes did you have to do to get all the actors to hit their marks and for you to get the right camera movements? Also what did you use to light the set. I see that you live in Newport. What film school are you going to? I went to Chapman University down there for two years. Anyways keep up the good work.
 
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