Watch my first short film in my life

S

Slava

Member
Hi, guys!
Sorry for my English. English language is not my native language. Originally I'm from Russia but now I'm living in the USA. This forum is a cool forum! Unfortunately, in Russia there is no forum like this one. A month ago I bought a camera for the first time in my live. Of course it was a DVX100B. Please, watch my first short film in my life (6 min.). I know I have made a couple of mistake as a cameraman. But now I'm very interested to know your opinions about my film-making skills. The film which I am talking about is an attempt to "transmit a musical mood to the cars". Please, listen to the music (composer Argiris Torvas) attentively and watch. What do you think - does it indeed feel like there is a rhythm and a relation between the music and the scenario?


Extension of file is a wmv. Size of the film is a 25Mb. Click right mouse the link
and select "Save Target As". Or, of course, you can watch the film directly here (requirement browsers IE or Firefox and Windows Media Player 9).

I will be grateful to you for any comments. :)

P.S. The camera is DVX100B, Settings is F4 (with my own settings).
Editing - PC, Sony Vegas 6 and Magic bullet.
 
Slava,

1) I'd start by congratulating your for getting your camera to work and start rolling. If you wanted to just make a point about how the music play with the transit, yes, mission accomplished; there is relation between music and the traffic speed. I must say that it was not of my taste though but it worked.

2) Then, I'd say... you cannot call that a short film because it is not. There is not story at all, I could not finish watching the entire video because it was too long and pointless... so I ended up fast-forwarding through the video to see if where you were taking in to.

Here is my advised, there is a lot a area for improvement. Although, I have to give you credit for having an initial goal (which was to create something with cars that will play along with music...) and you got what you wanted. You need to work on the editing, I think that piece could have been more interesting if it was done in 15 to 30 second max... and yes you would still have time to experiment with music. The first shot was just too long and the dynasty that followed was just the same. A good practice will be to cut to the beat of the music and use editing to support the pace and speed of the cars. Also try experimenting with time-lapse, at least speeding some of those clip.

About the cinematography, I would assume that you have not had enough time to play with your toy... so I won't comment much on it rather advise to shoot and shoot as much as you can and get Barry's book and DVD if you do not have it. If you do, then read it as many time as necessary to understand how the camera work best at its limitations.

For being your first "short", you make me look bad with my first one which never left the drawer... if you know what I mean.

Keep trying and please do not call it a short film if it does not have a story of some sort.

Cheers,
 
more cuts man. i don't really know the purpose of this. you say it's to set a mood, but the only mood i get in is i get bored real fast. try editing with the music a little more. maybe on the beats of the music.
 
"Hey, here's a camera"

"What do I do with it?"

"I don't know, go film something."

"What?"

"I don't know, go film some cars or something."

"Yeah, cars, sounds good. I'll make a movie about cars."

"Don't you need a story line or a plot or something?"

"Naw, people don't need a story, just some bland images should be just fine. I'll put a little music to it and presto! A short film."

"Sounds good to me, but one problem...."

"What?"

"How are you going to film it while wearing that straight jacket?"


Reality check:
Just because it can be filmed, doesn't mean it should be seen.
 
Justin_Kirch said:
i don't really know the purpose of this. you say it's to set a mood, but the only mood i get in is i get bored real fast.
Click to expand...
Ditto.

Slava, try making something with a story next time, even if it's incomplete, it'll be better than just cars. :) A lot of people said my first short ended before it did (i.e. not a full enough story, which I was expecting people to say anyway), but nobody (yet) ever said it was boring; this is probably because I did have some sort of story going on.

If you can tell a story with cars, try to do that; but all I see is a bunch of shots of cars...I got bored so fast I scrubbed through it after 40 seconds.
 
Hi, guys!

First of all I should say to all of you thank you very much!
Unfortunately, I called my first experience with my camera "My first film". You thought that it will be a story about the cars or something like that. So, you expected watch story, but saw cars only. Why? Because I mean another thing - just music and just cars. That's it. Maybe I should have called it differently... :(

Secondly I am grateful to all of you for your comments and advices - I'll definitely take it into account. Thanks. Nevertheless I think that some of the long shots are suitable, because some phrases of music are long and continues and they suggest long and continues shot - as if you are expecting something to happen but it doesn't. But according to your comments it seems like it's only myself who felt it. Maybe I failed to express this. :(

I wanted this to have "trance effect". If you think that it was just a few car shots you are wrong. I have spent ten hours shooting this which resulted in 30 minutes of material and I've picked only 6 minutes = the music length. :cool: :)
 
Well, I think this goes into the 'experimental' category, and if this is your first shoot and edit, I think you have done a nice job and im sure you have learnt from it. You can only improve from here my friend.
 
Hey Slava,

I wonder what you would come up with if you followed some of the comments here. If you do decide to experiment some more, post it again and compare it side by side.

Cheers,
 
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