"VOICES" - Feature Film - HD/Letus35 - Comedy
- Thread starter jls4
- Start date
jls4
Veteran
If I learn about anything you can do I'll definately PM or post it. The hardest thing to do is get past the festival weirdness. I figured this time I'd at least ask first. LOL
The only thing about the movie getting completed, is that I'm talking with one guy now who wants a trailer to show to a producer to get another movie shot AND I have someone who wants to do a sit down with me on Sunday for another possible feature. So basically by the time "Coming Correct" is finished, we'll ahve maybe 9 weeks off and then it's time to start all over again. I'm excited though and ready. We've learned so much and I'm ready to see the new product!
The only thing about the movie getting completed, is that I'm talking with one guy now who wants a trailer to show to a producer to get another movie shot AND I have someone who wants to do a sit down with me on Sunday for another possible feature. So basically by the time "Coming Correct" is finished, we'll ahve maybe 9 weeks off and then it's time to start all over again. I'm excited though and ready. We've learned so much and I'm ready to see the new product!
jls4
Veteran
Well last week we had our first "test screening" - five people stuffed into the living room of my editor's apartment for the showing. Our main objective was to lock down problems if any with the storyline. I told the "test group" to omit problems with sound - as we aren't close to finishing that problem yet. And that if they saw a small 20 second black screen, it just means that we're missing a scene. Yep, a lot for a test group! LOL Luckily they were all film based people, so they weren't happy that they couldn't comment on the audio - but they had to deal with it. 
Overall the test screening went well. If anyone hasn't thought about doing a test screening you should. I was reluctant until my wife, my editor and me disagreed on two scenes of the movie. So we just decided we needed some more opinions. Well we found out my wife was right! And we were wrong. And that's the point of the test screening. Even if you have a few people 4 or more, I think you'll get enough opinions to help you figure out places in the movie that you need to fix.
Our biggest problem was one of our "new scenes" that we decided to go 100% slapstick and the movie runs more like a conversational comedy. Everyone in the room was laughing their butts off, but admitted the scene came out of nowhere and took them by surprise - so much so that they felt it should not be in the movie.
Another issue we had were the transitions. I knew this coming into the test screening - Do yourself a favor and spend 2 days just doing B-roll. Things like cars driving up to locations, leaving locations, sunrise over a house, sunset at a house, mid day location, night location, etc. But people complained that many of the transitions were rough and needed to be smoother.
Our final complaint was just a few production problems here and there that we knew about but didn't have time to fix before the screening. But the overall feel was that the movie looked good, the acting was good, the production value (from what they could see) was good, the movie was funny and they could easily follow the storyline. So I was happy. I felt like this took care of 75% of what I was concerned about. Now it's time to finish up the Color-correction, audio mix, transitional shots/scenes and rework any ADR and that should complete this movie! Yay! I'm tired and need like a 3 week break.
Funny thing though, 2 weeks ago I met with some guys who just want to give me a budget and have me to shoot their movie. AND another guy calls me on Sunday when we're out shooting because he wants to grab our team for his movie! I guess it's good when people want you! LOL I'm just tired, I need sleep and a vacation. But I digress, if I want to push the 24 Diary model I guess I had better keep moving.
Not to mention I still need the website and trailer! UGH!
Overall the test screening went well. If anyone hasn't thought about doing a test screening you should. I was reluctant until my wife, my editor and me disagreed on two scenes of the movie. So we just decided we needed some more opinions. Well we found out my wife was right! And we were wrong. And that's the point of the test screening. Even if you have a few people 4 or more, I think you'll get enough opinions to help you figure out places in the movie that you need to fix.
Our biggest problem was one of our "new scenes" that we decided to go 100% slapstick and the movie runs more like a conversational comedy. Everyone in the room was laughing their butts off, but admitted the scene came out of nowhere and took them by surprise - so much so that they felt it should not be in the movie.
Another issue we had were the transitions. I knew this coming into the test screening - Do yourself a favor and spend 2 days just doing B-roll. Things like cars driving up to locations, leaving locations, sunrise over a house, sunset at a house, mid day location, night location, etc. But people complained that many of the transitions were rough and needed to be smoother.
Our final complaint was just a few production problems here and there that we knew about but didn't have time to fix before the screening. But the overall feel was that the movie looked good, the acting was good, the production value (from what they could see) was good, the movie was funny and they could easily follow the storyline. So I was happy. I felt like this took care of 75% of what I was concerned about. Now it's time to finish up the Color-correction, audio mix, transitional shots/scenes and rework any ADR and that should complete this movie! Yay! I'm tired and need like a 3 week break.
Funny thing though, 2 weeks ago I met with some guys who just want to give me a budget and have me to shoot their movie. AND another guy calls me on Sunday when we're out shooting because he wants to grab our team for his movie! I guess it's good when people want you! LOL I'm just tired, I need sleep and a vacation. But I digress, if I want to push the 24 Diary model I guess I had better keep moving.
Not to mention I still need the website and trailer! UGH!
mentatDUKE
Veteran
Glad to hear this. You're on the home stretch. Congrats!
jls4
Veteran
Thanks... yeah hopefully by end of next month, I can put another "notch" on my belt! LOL MentaDuke, do you have any new projects of your own that you're working on?
Martay
Veteran
Definitely. And ideally you want to get a blind group who doesn't know you from Adam and feel free to be completely honest. Tough to wrangle such a group, but definitely try to do it that way if possible.
Prepare a questionaire and be as thorough as possible with it to get opinions on as many aspects of the film as possible.
I was involved with a movie that was much improved by the test screening (unfortunately we had to be mercenary and drop several cast members parts completely, but it was the right thing to do for the flick) and the subsequent changes to the movie.
Congrats on the successes.
Later,
mentatDUKE
Veteran
jls4
Veteran
Thanks Martin. This first group wasn't a blind group. We hope to have something closer in the second showing. Right now we were just focused on the storyline and felt that unless we had a more technical group, we'd end up with people talking about things that are easily fixed, especially since we still had a lot of problems. But I found the techies good in the respect that they analyzed the technical aspects of the movie, which normal people either can't do or can't articulate.
But hopefully for the next set, we'll have that. So thanks for the advice.
funny about the loss of cast members, we had the same thing. That's why the movie went from "Voices" to "Coming Correct". The whole plotline changed! What movie did you have that you dropped characters?
jls4
Veteran
Definately - you have all the luck, breaking a leg you can ask for! Seems like most people wait til the summer to shoot. I wish I had done that, but I guess it freed me up since we shot mostly in Winter.
Martay
Veteran
That could get me into trouble.
It's a Cougars Film Group Feature Mockumentary called "Return of the Jackalope" www.returnofthejackalope.com
It was too long already when we tested but we found a huge trend on certain plot lines overwhelmingly (near consensus) being rated poorly, so that was proof-positive that changes were needed.
Not due to performances, just in relation to the story.
-M
jls4
Veteran
I had wanted to see it. I saw a trailer and it looked funny, especially the concept that the director didn't want to be a part of the new piece. And it was the worst grossing movie of all time. That was too funny.
We need to have an Atlanta weekend, where we put together all the Atlanta movies and just play them all back to back. And order huge amounts of pizza, chineese food and soda. It'll cost $60 at the door, but you're good for two days of food, fun and movies! LOL
jls4
Veteran
It's funny it doesn't seem like it's been 2 months, but that was the last update for dvxuser. I've been busy - so my appologies for those who have kept up with my feature over these last few months.
I want to say firstly what a great job Noiz2 did with a post and just in time for me! :beer:I'm just beginning to do the serious work in my audio and here he comes with a great post. You really need to check it out http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=172106
It goes into the layers of audio that makeup great sound. I would have never thought a punch could have 3 layers. Go fig?
Coming Correct (Voices) has almost finished the color process. This took me the longest (over 5+ months) because I'm working with HDV primarily. And for those who don't know (because they haven't studied - shame on you) HDV has about 8 to 9 stops of latitude. But I did some rework to expand my latitude towards 10 to 11 stops with lots of sky replacement and some blow out replacement in other areas. I also darkened too bright areas. I reworked as much as possible to cover the cameras limitations. But for anyone looking to shoot with a Sony V1U, it really is a fantastic camera. It worked so much better than what I would have ever dreamed it would.
Also must have programs
Neat Image, Colorista, Reel Smart Motion Blur (for when you need it), and definately After Effects.
So far my software has been:
Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Neat Image, Colorista, Reel Smart Motion Blur, Particular, and Trapcode Form.
But I can't rave more on Neat Image without a doubt this simple and render intensive program is worth every penny - more than any other program it worked bug free and did exactly what it said it would do. Because the V1U needs a lot of light most of the movie we shot about 1.5 stops too low. And many times we were more like 3 stops. So when we boosted the signal via exposure or curves or levels - whatever you like - we boosted some serious noise. Neat Image could clean up the noise without a problem and leave the detail!!! It was amazing. I had several shots of an actor with lots of noise and I would think the program would blur the detail in their faces when it runs, but it doesn't. Neat image looks for the pattern of the noise and removes the pattern - not the detail of the image. This is a must have program.
We even had a scene where some dust got onto the interior lens of the Letus35. (One of my actors thankfully spotted it after we shot the scene) but unfortunately I thought the scene was ruined because it had a haze over the whole thing. Neat image actually found the pattern of dust and removed that only. Amazing! It left detail in the furniture, skin, clothing. I can't rave enough about Neat Image.
Then there is Colorista made by Red Giant. The problem with this program is that it runs off of drivers that the company hopes you have installed. If your video card is not perfectly compatable, it'll crash. I changed out my video card to something more current and it still crashed. It only likes a small set of cards that you can't buy in the average computer store - so it crashed on me all the time!
Once I got past the crashes it's a great program. Colorista's best feature is the ability to saturate properly. Most saturation programs simply look at a RGB value and increase it based on the amount you desire. Colorista examines how close each RGB value is to itself (i.e. to grey) and colors based on that.
Example:
If you have a tanned person and they are wearing a grey shirt, if you use normal sturation their skin will go towards orange and their shirt will go to something weird, if the shirt is slightly blue you may end up with a purple shirt instead of a grey looking one.
With colorista the tanned person will look a deeper tan and the shirt will still be grey! Awesome!
Colorista also lets you selectivly light people in post. This will not help you that much and is painstakingly long to do, but you can relight your scene in post. I did it for at least 3 scenes because we were in a rush. And Sam-I-Am if it doesn't look like we lit it that way.
Colorista also has the base features of Gamma, Brightness, Black point, White point, tint, etc. But I found myself not using them (even though most will argue this is the best of the system) because I like having numbers and colorista uses "wheels" to do these calculations which I don't like.
My coloring workflow for those who are following along was:
Load edited scene in After Effects (import premiere project)
Color Each cut individually
Layer on any effects
Render out movie into Tiff or Cineform AVI
Reload movie and make an adjustment layer
Apply Neat image over adjustment layer
Figure out how much grain I want removed, then bring the Adj Layer back about 15 to 20% to allow a little grain to pass through.
Also just FYI we used 3 - 1000Ks, 3 - 650s, 3 - 300s, 2 - 150s plus 2 small 4 Bank Cool Lights all tungsten. We used reflectors when outdoors, but unfortunately didn't have any butterflies or large scrims. If anyone is working outdoors in direct sun you need this. Believe it or not it's harder to light outdoors than indoors because you can't control the sun. So get some tools to control the sun's light.
We also did some greenscreen and other small effects most of which I hope people don't pay attention to because you shouldn't pay attention.
I'm beginning to get a myspace page ready along with a few other websites so people can check out the work. So I'll post those soon.
I want to say firstly what a great job Noiz2 did with a post and just in time for me! :beer:I'm just beginning to do the serious work in my audio and here he comes with a great post. You really need to check it out http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=172106
It goes into the layers of audio that makeup great sound. I would have never thought a punch could have 3 layers. Go fig?
Coming Correct (Voices) has almost finished the color process. This took me the longest (over 5+ months) because I'm working with HDV primarily. And for those who don't know (because they haven't studied - shame on you) HDV has about 8 to 9 stops of latitude. But I did some rework to expand my latitude towards 10 to 11 stops with lots of sky replacement and some blow out replacement in other areas. I also darkened too bright areas. I reworked as much as possible to cover the cameras limitations. But for anyone looking to shoot with a Sony V1U, it really is a fantastic camera. It worked so much better than what I would have ever dreamed it would.
Also must have programs
Neat Image, Colorista, Reel Smart Motion Blur (for when you need it), and definately After Effects.
So far my software has been:
Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Neat Image, Colorista, Reel Smart Motion Blur, Particular, and Trapcode Form.
But I can't rave more on Neat Image without a doubt this simple and render intensive program is worth every penny - more than any other program it worked bug free and did exactly what it said it would do. Because the V1U needs a lot of light most of the movie we shot about 1.5 stops too low. And many times we were more like 3 stops. So when we boosted the signal via exposure or curves or levels - whatever you like - we boosted some serious noise. Neat Image could clean up the noise without a problem and leave the detail!!! It was amazing. I had several shots of an actor with lots of noise and I would think the program would blur the detail in their faces when it runs, but it doesn't. Neat image looks for the pattern of the noise and removes the pattern - not the detail of the image. This is a must have program.
We even had a scene where some dust got onto the interior lens of the Letus35. (One of my actors thankfully spotted it after we shot the scene) but unfortunately I thought the scene was ruined because it had a haze over the whole thing. Neat image actually found the pattern of dust and removed that only. Amazing! It left detail in the furniture, skin, clothing. I can't rave enough about Neat Image.
Then there is Colorista made by Red Giant. The problem with this program is that it runs off of drivers that the company hopes you have installed. If your video card is not perfectly compatable, it'll crash. I changed out my video card to something more current and it still crashed. It only likes a small set of cards that you can't buy in the average computer store - so it crashed on me all the time!
Once I got past the crashes it's a great program. Colorista's best feature is the ability to saturate properly. Most saturation programs simply look at a RGB value and increase it based on the amount you desire. Colorista examines how close each RGB value is to itself (i.e. to grey) and colors based on that.
Example:
If you have a tanned person and they are wearing a grey shirt, if you use normal sturation their skin will go towards orange and their shirt will go to something weird, if the shirt is slightly blue you may end up with a purple shirt instead of a grey looking one.
With colorista the tanned person will look a deeper tan and the shirt will still be grey! Awesome!
Colorista also lets you selectivly light people in post. This will not help you that much and is painstakingly long to do, but you can relight your scene in post. I did it for at least 3 scenes because we were in a rush. And Sam-I-Am if it doesn't look like we lit it that way.
Colorista also has the base features of Gamma, Brightness, Black point, White point, tint, etc. But I found myself not using them (even though most will argue this is the best of the system) because I like having numbers and colorista uses "wheels" to do these calculations which I don't like.
My coloring workflow for those who are following along was:
Load edited scene in After Effects (import premiere project)
Color Each cut individually
Layer on any effects
Render out movie into Tiff or Cineform AVI
Reload movie and make an adjustment layer
Apply Neat image over adjustment layer
Figure out how much grain I want removed, then bring the Adj Layer back about 15 to 20% to allow a little grain to pass through.
Also just FYI we used 3 - 1000Ks, 3 - 650s, 3 - 300s, 2 - 150s plus 2 small 4 Bank Cool Lights all tungsten. We used reflectors when outdoors, but unfortunately didn't have any butterflies or large scrims. If anyone is working outdoors in direct sun you need this. Believe it or not it's harder to light outdoors than indoors because you can't control the sun. So get some tools to control the sun's light.
We also did some greenscreen and other small effects most of which I hope people don't pay attention to because you shouldn't pay attention.
I'm beginning to get a myspace page ready along with a few other websites so people can check out the work. So I'll post those soon.
Martay
Veteran
Yeah, been awhile.
Kely McClung uses Adobe as well and he's a masterful colorist. I'm sure he's got all the tools you mentioned because I've seen him do all the things you mentioned during my time working with him on Kerberos (which is actually nearing completion) which will look AMAZING y'all. He's posted here before but is likely too busy to be regular about it.
I hope when he slows down and is near completion he'll make some posts here because his work is incredible and I hope to lean on his color correction/post image enhancement skills on my next project.
We use Final Cut Pro so I hope we've got the ability to access the same tools for the more complex stuff.
Anyway, glad you're making progress.
I'll be putting up a thread soon that I hope at least a couple people follow.
Shooting for a new feature to begin in August.
Anyway, can't wait to see more from Coming Correct.
later,
-M
mentatDUKE
Veteran
Great post as always, jls. Glad to have ya back and look forward to your posting more images and footage (maybe a trailer?).
jls4
Veteran
Yeah I'm looking forward to seeing Kerberos I'd love so much to do an action film, but it's difficult for me to see how when I had to push so much just for locations for a comedy - let alone locations for action which may incur some serious damage. But hopefully I can make the Atlanta premiere when you guys have it.
Funny I think we'll be starting something up in August/September. Don't know what yet. I've been talking to over 4 different groups. Everyone's trying to raise at least $200K. The good thing is that many have seen clips from Coming Correct and they feel very confident in Red Collar's Ability to shoot their movie. But even if all of them fall through I have a new idea I'm developing for a small comedy and I've been talking with Peter (Troopercooper - Operation Chasity - Halo Fan Film) about a new idea that I just came up with over the weekend for an apocolypitic type of movie sort of Underworld meets I Am Legend. Can't say much more than that or somebody might make the movie before me. LOL I just think we need at least $500 to $750K to do that one because of the stunts involved, but I think it could be one of those rare indie gems that grosses $20 mill or more easy.
Thanks mentaDUKE. I've been back here and there. Just didn't have much to say. And from the looks of some of the threads (and the drama) I might have been better off just viewing a few things and leaving. I just figured it may be better for me to finish this thing! LOL
I'll try to post some images next week and you're right I need to get a trailer up. My friend out in LA who told me she'll shop the trailer for me to fests and other producers has been pushing me for one for the last 2 months. I just don't want a trailer that doesn't have good audio and good images. I've learned many times it's best to wait and put your best foot forward than to rush and loose a potential connection. But next week and the week after I'll be 100% on the trailer side of things. The whole movie looks to be done maybe right before July 4th - so I'm hoping for the best.
How are things on your end, any new projects? If not, you can always come down to the ATL.
LOL
mentatDUKE
Veteran
July 4th? That's right around the corner. Fingers crossed.
We're gearing up for a 48 Hour Film then we'll start prepping a trilogy of shorts we have planned. Hopefully we'll have something cool to post soon.
We're gearing up for a 48 Hour Film then we'll start prepping a trilogy of shorts we have planned. Hopefully we'll have something cool to post soon.
jls4
Veteran
I'll definately be looking for it. The July 4th date is not that hard for us "I think" - we've got over 85% of the movie colored and now were pushing to get more of the audio clean and mixed. We've already got over 70% of the score and the sound track. So I think we can make it.
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mentatDUKE
Veteran
Sounds good man. Best of luck!
jls4
Veteran
New Stills - Spent some time gathering lots and lots of Ambient Sound this weekend. Walking around the park, neighborhood, and a few city streets with a huge furry covered microphone got a lot of stares. I think people were like "What the heck is he doing?" Funny thing though, even though I live WAY up in the suburbs of Atlanta (over 30 miles from downtown) Wow is it noisy. I couldn't find any spot where I couldn't hear cars in the track. I never noticed it before.... hmm go fig. Here are some stills as promised
James (Stan Lackey) looking at Randall
Val (Dawn Michele) on the phone with Dena
Hannah (Ayanna Recording Artist "Girl Talk") wondering what's going on.
Mark (Shaun Mixon) confused by James.
Rachel (Tabitha Stallings) stalking Randall (Miko DeFoor, Soul Men, Bolden!)
James (Stan Lackey) looking at Randall
Val (Dawn Michele) on the phone with Dena
Hannah (Ayanna Recording Artist "Girl Talk") wondering what's going on.
Mark (Shaun Mixon) confused by James.
Rachel (Tabitha Stallings) stalking Randall (Miko DeFoor, Soul Men, Bolden!)
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