The Birdcage

disjecta

disjecta

Lucky Duck
So my daughter just celebrated her 13th birthday and I decided to make it a "movie theme". Basically, 8 kids got about 3 hours to write and develop a story around an object of my choice (kind of like the competitions here) and the object in this case was a large bird cage.

We shot for about 2-3 hours and I spent the night editing. The party was a sleepover so I had the movie edited and burned to DVDs for the girls (and guy) by the time they got up this morning :) The challenge was to write, shoot, edit and produce a DVD in one day.

They were thrilled when the movie "premiered"...some of them have theater experience but zero film experience. I thought they did pretty well and, one of the restrictions I posed, caused some problems with continuity in the film. The black and white flashback is meant to be the main character but, of course, she's not and looks completely different but I told them they had to write themselves into the film with no exception :)

Anyway, it was a fun challenge and it looks pretty good but I have to say I danced on the line of breaking the 180 degree rule on more than one occasion. All in all I think they did a great job given the limitations.

Enjoy it: http://www.pinelakefilms.com/birdcage.html
 
Beautiful. very well shot, and I believe a great concept for making a short film. You must be the coolest dad in the world.

Two things I really liked about the film.

1. the shot of the water with the feather, and the girls pink shirt in the water's reflection. very nice.
and 2. how the girl walking on the street just happened to be carrying a bird sans-cage in her hands. hahaha. excellent.

as always very well done.

oh, the third thing is how you call action and the duck gets up. haha...excellent.
 
HA!! Very cool... How late were you up editing?

Nice colors. Your house plays warm very well. Good chance to use the dolly too. Got a little confused with the two dolly shots going the same direction. Not sure why it caught my eye...

Oh -- did you use the dolly to 'push' on the girl's face? Or was that just a zoom?

Also, dbl check the credits at the end. You lost a bit on the matte.

So you gave up on splitting them into two groups?

Enjoyed the film.

Thanks again.

CaptM
 
Thanks guys,

There's a post at the top of the Technical Section that explains the method I use to achieve the 2:35:1 aspect ratio.

Mike, I was up till about 4:30 editing and back up around 8:30 to burn DVDs so I'm pretty tired today. Not everyone RSVP'd to the party so I decided to go with one group instead of the original plan for two...and boy am I glad it didn't end up being two films!!

I'm aware of the credit cropping problem and I'm repairing the original as we speak. Not sure why the two dolly shots didn't sit well with you...weird...looks okay to me...maybe it's subjective.

That was a dolly shot to push in on her face. I never use zooms for that kind of effect.

Thanks again, everyone...glad you enjoyed it.
 
Looks like you shot in squeeze mode with an anamorphic adaptor and then adjusted the aspect ratio in post. Looks pretty good, I accidently shot a lot of footage this way when I first started shooting with the anamorphic adaptor, but I ended up croping it anyway to fit 4:3 and lost a bunch of resolution.

Ah well.. live and learn.
 
Disjecta,

Always love your stuff, and this was no exception. Honestly, other than the bird morphing into an angel-like human once caged, I'm not really sure I understood the story. But it sure looked great.:-)

As usual, I thought your musical choices were excellent. The first sounded like it could have been Mahler (?) and the second sounded like an Ennio Morricone attempt at an Italian folk song. Would love to know the actual composers.

Disjecta, with HDTV looming closer and closer to the masses and a new aspect standard of 16:9 with it, I'm wondering why you consitently use a wider aspect (2.35:1?). Is it simply a personal preference?

It looks great on the computer, but I've never liked viewing that wide an aspect on a conventional television, even with 35mm (or bigger) film transfers. Something about the sense of wasted screen real estate, I guess, and the shrunken size of everything. Assuming you occasionally use a television to show or view your work, what type is it . . . 16:9 or 4:3? Will you continue to shoot render to a wider aspect if/when you get the HVX with its native 16:9 CCDs? Just curious about your thoughts on this.

Elizabeth
 
To be honest, Elizabeth, it's going to be a long time before I will be in a position to shell out more cash for a whole new system, as appealing as the HVX sounds. I'm happy to stick to the DVX for the forseeable future unless Panasonic gives me an HVX for free... :)

The 2:35:1 aspect is my preference. I love it and I watch and show my films exclusively on a widescreen TV so the letterboxing is minimal.

I'm adding the music credits to the original and will upload the fixed version of the Quicktime file soon. In the meantime, here's the info on the composers...(interesting observation about the Mahler-like feel to the first piece. Mahler happens to be my favorite composer and I guess I'm drawn to that kind of feel in music):

All these tracks are from the online library I am part of: http://www.bmgmusicsearch.com/us

1. Divine Life - Brian Lock (the Mahler like piece)
2. Evening of Life - Kordes (composer just goes by that name..the Italian/French sounding piece)
3. A Serious Doubt - Jean Yves Rigo (the creepy insert just before the end credits)
4. After the Rain - Philippe Lhommet (end credit music)

Thanks for taking the time to leave your comments.
 
The only part I didn't like is that when it was "4 years earlier", that girl had one of those Armstrong bands and they weren't made back then. :)
 
Disjecta, what kind of lights did you use?

Give us a clue of how to capture such crisp images. It has anything to do with the uprezzing procedure?
 
For the opening shots, I used a softbox 500w and lit the girl's face from above. I also used a 250w spot above the cage to make it more dramatic.

I mainly used the softbox for the interior shots. For the exteriors, I relied on natural light and a reflector to make maximum use of the sunlight.

The uprezzing procedure really does help with the "crispness" of the images but good lighting and composing in a way that highlights and separates subjects helps. I really try to keep my compositions as simple as possible and that keeps the image looking clean.
 
Interesting work, It's good to see you show something different in your work. I loved the opening dolly shots, very dramatic. Outstanding job considering the time frame. Oh and thanks for posting that uprezzing bit under "Technical" I hadn't noticed it before, I'm playing with it now.
 
I'm very impressed with your ability to wrangle that crew together and be able to produce a great little short. Looks like your directing skills on the quackers translate well to we non-feathered actors. :cheesy:

You set a high standard around here. Always a joy to watch your work.

Cheers,

Hans
 
wow, I'm a new fan of yours! The look is awesome! Where can I find that "uprezzing bit"?
I was looking but couldn't locate it.
 
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