Good luck with your script.


Phil

Thanks Prussian Mosby, I know you liked the first one but the way I'm thinking is that the more I shoot, the more options I have in the edit.

There's now way more people involved so the ideas are flying around all over the place.

I'll keep you posted as to how it's going , cheers

So, just shot the first part of the film today. The first thing I noticed was that a 'dead cat' doesn't work if it's windy.

The more heads that you get involved the better.  You don't have to take all their ideas onboard but if the actors have an input, they feel the 'vibe' and make it their own.

Make sure that you don't see the 'boom in the frame , but  if you don't see it now and then, it means it's to far away.

Give yourself plenty time. I never.  and endid up shooting without using a clapper board, so it going to be a head fuck trying to match things up.

IMPORTANT- continuity, it's so easy to forget if someone is smoking with their left hand or their right, or if when their drinking  and it suddenly fills up without going to the bar.

Lock your  F-stop after you get a good exposure if you're panning or tilting.

Look out for reflections from you're lights on glass or mirror

Focus zoomed in then pull back.

Check White balance if you're changing lights or moving location

HAVE FUN... that's the most important part.

I'm sure I've missed bits but that's just what I can remember

Hope this helps someone.


'Slimboye'      the Scottish connection.

Congrats, man - you've got to see what I meant now about your first script...  

Yeah - different dead-cats work differently, but right now knowing the British weather, probably none would really do the job. What camera are you working with? And don't forget you can always dub - suprisingly effective. One last thing... you're using lights outside? So what's your power supply?

Oh bless, you've brought back memories of the few times I shot my shorts. Don't that say that too fast.

It's always quite funny to watch back the rough footage then see yourself holding a camera and looking at your reflection in glass with a stern expression. Also heartbreaking.

All good advice. I hope it turns out well for you.

R

I could definitely tell this wasn't set in Texas, because that traffic warden would've busted a cap in Billy real quick.

Hi 007

I am shooting on a  JVC GY-HD101E with a Firestore 100 gig recorder. It's an old thing but the quality is really good and they come with a fujinon lens as standard so it's all good.

My mates parents have a bar and they are away holiday so we decided to do a shoot there, it was too good to miss.

So now Billy goes into the bar to pick up his weekly protection money, then sees one of his girls drinking at the bar, he says 'what the fuck are you doing here? you should be working. When she fully turns round, she has a black eye.

It turns out that it was the traffic warden that gave her it over an argument about payment for sex. So that gives Billy a good reason to fuck him up.

The lights I was talking about were used in the bar.  3 redheads 800W bounced off the ceiling, a 1000W LED with a warm up gell for fill in, and a couple of little battery operated LED's

I met Billy at 10am and give myself 2 hours for the first scene as another 5 actors were arriving at 12.

First problem was the jib crane, it was so windy the thing was wobbling about all over the place so it wasn't a good start, we struggled with it till about 11 then moved onto the car scene where Billy takes coke . We used one of the little LED's sat in the passenger seat to light Billy up. I've not seen the footage yet but it looked good on cam. In reality I should have gived my self 4 hours but now I know.

Up to now, we haven't stuck to the script much, as I'm a believer that if someone comes up with a better line than mine, we use that instead.

But all in all, the actors were amazing, I just hope I can do them justice.

I've shot the first couple of scenes, I've put the opening scene on youtube.

It's just a rough edit and it seems a bit juddery on youtube, the file must be to big or something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1IYikRG1DA

Hey Athol;

Had a boo at this on Youtube. Looks really good so far, not much to go on, but the quality, and sound came off as professional. Loaded up fine in my browser too, no 'judders' as you thought there might be.

Did you use a post processing filter on this scene? Looks something like a cross-process at about 10-20% or so?  Works well for the mood whatever it is.

Instead of the slow transitional cross fade, I might have actually 'smash cut' to him doing coke after the car door was slammed shut, might play out better to give the scene a crunchier swing, as it stands, the cross fade comes off as looking too choreographed. Other than that, looking good! Can't wait to see this full throttle 'Billy' doing what he does best.

Cheers... Rick.

Thought about the coke scene, and how it could play out as a good pre-cursor to Billy's radical behaviour.

Instead of shooting off on a tangent here with a crazy explanation of what I mean, here's a clip from a movie that I remember having a really good smash cut montage whenever the primary characters consumed their narcotics.

Although the cut scenes only last a few hundredths of a second, it makes for a really powerful statement in the medium that we're about to transition into the world of, or mind of the characters, and their frightening behaviour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzk-lmU4KZ4

It's from 'Requiem for a Dream'; I managed to find the trailer, which uses a few of the cut scenes to bring it to life. You'll understand what I mean by watching the beginning of the clip.

For what it's worth, hope this helps in some way, take care... Rick.

Hi Rick, I love the way those little clips work and I'll add some in for sure.

It was me that edited it and I'm feeling my way as I go as I'm normally a photoshop man.

The clip wasn't cross processed, I shot this yesterday and being in Scotland, the weather changed from sunny to dull so I tried to match the shots up using the colour corrector and desaturated the sunny bits.

I'm using Sony Vegas and and the cross fade thing sucks. I can't get it to do it in under a second. It jumps from zero to a second. Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

Anyway Rick, thanks for putting me in the direction of the smash cut montage thing. It really fits into this kind of thing.

Cheers man

Hey Athol;

No worries man, glad I could help.

With respect to Sony Vegas, I'm unfortunately in the dark. I've always used After Effects for layer composition, and then passed all the clips to a friend who works in Final Cut Pro for editing. But that was many moons ago. I probably couldn't even find my way around the newer version of AE if my life depended on it, LOL.

Anyways, I hope it works out for you, best of luck!

Looks good - super cool car BTW. Does look like a filter, but it works well. And a nice steady camera for once

I watched this the other day. I've been out though so didn't get chance to respond at the time. It looks professional. Acting was well done. I think though the coke scene could benefit from some more visual. Maybe a shot of he chopping some white powder, or snorting glucose. It's perfectly fine, lots of people sniff it every weekend... or you could get some real sniff... just kidding. Be great if the actor was up for it though, eh. Grab realism by the balls and give them a tug.

Editing and everything done well. Nice work.

Just read the script and watched the scenes.

It's dynamic, it's forceful and it has twist. I woulld disagree that nothing happens, but I get the point that it lacks something. Lots of action and drama don't mean a decent short. The twist is not foreshadowed, or coherent, and although it works the consistency of theme, if any, seems weak.

It's good, but feels like the scene of something larger, rather than a short. If a short it should be self contained.

Theme, or underlying meaning, is what makes one short stand out from another.  This needs a tweak to acheive this, otherwise the best films would just be pure action, pimps and drugs and guns etc it's not. That alone is boring.

The first thing that jumps out to me is ... Who's story is this? To me it's either the mother or young girl. Start with them. It's their day. How's this day going to work out? What's it mean to them? What did they hope for at the beginning? The bald ganster, policeman is the catalyst, the driver, but of their story.

The filming looked good.

I think this has something, it may just need a different rotation, IMO.

I wish you all the best.

Cheers

Bill