The short film appreciation thread - 8mm, 16mm, 35mm

[Jon O'Brien]

Here's a very little film I made last year.

It looks a bit rough, but I was going for that sort of look. Handheld. Very grainy. Filmed on the hop, no lighting or preparation, in low light for a few shots. Shot on 50D Super 8 in a Canon 814 AZ. I steadied the footage in Davinci resolve.

Got a friend at Easter to record some guitar for it. I'm going to offer it for free to the Heritage Listed place where I filmed it, to see if they'd like it to use it for promotion.

It is what it is. Please enjoy, the very brief, "Stonehouse."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fpKQEC7Bpg

[Tyler Purcell]

We just dropped a section from one of our new movies before release because the towns people really wanted to see clips from the event. It's lacking the VO, but it's still a cool little self contained mood reel from the event. 
 

 

[Jon O'Brien]

Looks great, Tyler!

Btw, I love these heritage/traditional open day events. They are so cool and everything looks great and interesting.

It fascinates me that in earlier times everything was basically hand made. It's the perfect antidote to all the c*** kids get taught in schools now that earlier generations ruined the world. The truth is that they had tough lives and they did what they could to live. And that meant doing everything by hand, and doing it yourself, and helping out your neighbour. Sure, bad things happened. That's the nature of this world. But many, many good things happened. We need to remember that. A people not grounded in the past is a people that are going nowhere. All healthy societies have a healthy respect for all that was good and wholesome in their past. Yes, as you can see, I am 'old fashioned.' 

[Jon O'Brien]

How do you get the nice big screenshot of your film put into your post? When I do it, I usually get just a scrawny, boring looking line of text added, for the link, but no picture.

[Uli Meyer]

3 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

How do you get the nice big screenshot of your film put into your post? When I do it, I usually get just a scrawny, boring looking line of text added, for the link, but no picture.

Premium membership? 😉

[Tyler Purcell]

3 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

How do you get the nice big screenshot of your film put into your post? When I do it, I usually get just a scrawny, boring looking line of text added, for the link, but no picture.

Interesting, I've never seen that behavior before. 

4 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Btw, I love these heritage/traditional open day events. They are so cool and everything looks great and interesting.

Thanks! Yea it was a great time. We're around 70% complete on that longer project, which is nice. Got two more trips planned this year so we can start putting bows on some of the shooting. I only have 8 or 9 Remjet rolls left! After that, AHU here I come! LOL 😛

[Jon O'Brien]

 

I've posted this before, on another thread. However it now has music and titles added. It's very short. "Numulgi" is the location, near Lismore, Australia.

I think I will repost my earlier film, too, called "Stonehouse," now that I can get the large image of the film posted. Shot in 2025 on Super 8, with a Canon 814 AZ, 50D film, and with a Manfrotto tripod. Was going for a 'painterly' look. Did the colour grading myself.

Should have a roll of 16mm to show here, soon, too.

[Jon O'Brien]

 

[Tyler Purcell]

Hey Jon, I noticed your audio was only on the left speaker on both of those videos. 

Just an FYI! 

Did you just crop the footage to 16x9 or is the camera Max 8? 

[Jon O'Brien]

Thanks Tyler, will check out the audio. I got a someone else to record the guitarist.

I cropped the footage. Just got an ordinary gate.

[Tyler Purcell]

Just now, Jon O'Brien said:

Thanks Tyler, will check out the audio. I got a someone else to record the guitarist.

I cropped the footage. Just got an ordinary gate.

Yea just check your settings in the editor, you'll probably see its coming out of one channel on the timeline. Common issue, especially with premiere which doesn't indicate stereo/mono easily unless ya got the mixer pane up. 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

(7:58)

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

On 3/8/2026 at 11:22 PM, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Thanks for posting those. They're very well done and concise.

I have one criticism, but it's not unique to your films: there is too much music in too many online videos and it's very annoying. Why? Why do creators think they need music over everything? And not only that, but it's too loud and not that good. It's a disease. Having said that, you didn't commit the worse atrocity. 

For expressionist films, like the one I posted, it works well if done well. But for other types of film, no.

 

Terrible problem. Not talking about Tyler. But many times, you can't understand the dialogue. They wreck the films with crazy audio mixes. And sometimes the background music makes the film unwatchable.

I am a one man show. Maybe, once every 30 to 40 films I may get to show a rough cut to someone before finalizing it. But I don't have the eyeballs looking at my films in production like pro productions do. And the person I may show it to is not a pro, just a friend. Yet these so-called pros still produce shit on a regular basis even with dozens or hundreds of eyeballs looking at the work in progress. I just don't get it.

Stop it people! 

As far as shorts?

That is the specialization of my film archive / film production. Thousands of them in the archive, professional and non-professional.  But I have no film scanner as yet to bring them to the digital screen. And near a hundred shorts of my own work...all digital.

On the positive side of things. I was hit with a flood a couple weeks ago. Trashing the flood damaged material has freed up some room for a scanner...if and when.

Here is a sample of a non-professional, museum quality short. 

Halloween Hallucinations October 31,1931 D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

https://archive.org/search?tab=all&query=Halloween+hallucinations+teoli

(I put 2 links of the same film because sometimes there is problems viewing with 1 link. The I.A. seems to be jammed up this morning and links are not working, so maybe try later if you have an issue.)

I like shorts because they are more affordable, easier to deal, they take up less space and my ADD likes fast jobs as opposed to long jobs; whether it is other people's work or my own.

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Selection from Hesco Barrier Survey

Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

Edited July 5 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.