Zamir Merali

It looks like you had some great equipment and the music video's quality and look shows that. I just thought that if you wanted to follow mainstream punk music videos you should have many more cuts. For example Alternating between singer, drumer, guitarist, singer, guitarist etc. That would have drawn the audience into the fast pace and the roughness that is characteristic of punk music. It looked great though and I liked how you used the handheld camera moves and your dolly/zoom. Lots of people use the dolly/zoom just for kicks and it makes their footage look really amaturish. The trailer for the short seemed pretty cool but I watched it 3 times and I couldn't figure out what it was. thats good though because it made me want to watch the actual short. Great Job, I am really new and I love to see what other people have done to get inspiration.

I am going to be getting a microphone mounted on the podium with an xlr cable to my camera plus my built in mic. Hopefully that will be enough. Since I am doing everything including the editting there shouldn't be any confusion later on. Thanks again

Thanks For the Tips. I'l probably end up using my xl2 to get the wide shot of the entire stage througout the ceremony and my cheaper camcorder to get shots of the crowd as they applaud and as specific students go up to the stage. And as a reply to the above post .Yes im getting a written release from all the kids

Hello Everyone my name is Zamir and I have a question about an upcoming videographing job that i have to do. I am taping a grade 6 graduation for a small school. The camera I am using is an xl2. So far I have only done narrative movies and music videos so I was wondering what the procedure would be for shooting a graduation. Should I use 24p ? 30 p? or 60i ?. Also, what sort of things am I supposed to be taping. Graduations usually have a long boring section where each kid is called up, so for that shot should I just point the camera at the stage and wait or should I zoom in on each kid as he goes up? Should I put music to the background or should it only have the principal talking? I have a lot of questions and most of it boils down to the balance between how artistic i make it and how much it should be like just sitting in the audience. Thank you

Thanks for replying to my post but I thought that I should tell you that what you said in your reply was not considering the most important thing in film making...... the story. If the story benefits from a greenish tint and high contrast then use it. Also if the story involves a creepy doll then its great to have it in the foregroud and if the movie has lots of grotesque scenes in it, flashing gross pictures helps but otherwise it seems redundant and amaturish. Im not criticizing you and I think its great that you are getting into filmmaking at the age of 14. Just remember THE STORY. P.S. I always like to see other people work, do you have anything that you would want to show me. my email is: zamir@onlink.net

I just thought that I would add my 2c. It is true that a progressive mode really adds to the film look on the camera. But the best thing is not to rely on camera features but to pretend you are using a film camera. Light just like you were using film and move the camera the same way you would if you had a 24 p mode. Remember it is the story that matters not the camera (although it helps), a good story and awsome sound will always pull you through and even make your video look better. Plus as a reply to the above quote when you shoot in interlaced and there is fast action the two captures of the odd and even lines capture the action at different stages so it looks like a stair case, especially when the action is frozen. Even though the progressive footage is interlaced when viewed it looks just like if it was actually 24p.

Thanks your your help guys. I really liked the tip of making sure my movie is original. There is nothing interesting about just another horror film. So i really am going to try and make it fresh and original. All your tips were appreciated though.

Hey guys my name is Zamir and I am going to be making a horror short in the near future. Right now I am in the planning storyboarding stage but since this is one of my first shorts I wanted to know what kind of tecniques are used to scare people. I was especially impressed while watching the remake of "when a stranger calls". No real threat actually happened until the last 20 minutes but the entire movie was scary. Is it lighting, camera angles, colours, acting or a combination of all that make the movie so scary? Can you please give me some tips on ligting and other tricks for scaring the audience.

Hello My name is Zamir Merali and I am very new to this website and filmmaking in general. For the past while I have been experimenting with making some short movies with my consumer canon zr70 and I have finally decided to get a nice camera. I want this camera for making narrative movies and maybe a bit of documentary later on. I want a camera that emulates the "film look" very well. I understand that 24p doesn't look completely like film and if I actually want a film look then I should shoot in film, but film is currently out of my budget. I have narrowed the cameras I could get into either the xl2 or the dvx100b. They both have very good image control and user customizability. I am having a real hard time deciding which one to get. Price between the two does not matter but features and your opinion do. I have read lots of articles on the Internet addressing this issue but they all seem biased towards one camera. Could you please help me in deciding because this is a pretty important purchase for me and I would like to be completely satisfied with the camera I get. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.