Daniel Smith

Thanks man. :)

AH... now that would explain it. Thanks David. I thought it looked asthough the frame rate had been lowered, but didn't think Sony would have done that. But yeh, from my experience, even aside from the choppy look, it really doesn't look good. Like you said, only ideal for static shots. Sounds interesting, I'll keep an eye out for it, I'm always lacking good stories. lol. Cheers guys. This is a very rough idea of what the style is going to be like, going for a bleach bypass look. With shadows, I think it looks great: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bas/style.wmv p.s. excuse the shoddy handheld work, I just needed some material to test out a bit of grading on. And, the messy garden...

Ok guys thanks for the comments. We're going to be using a PD-170P, which I'm glad about since as I used a PD-150 to shoot a few 20 dramas some years back. And the two are quite similar. I've personally made a script in place of the old one. It's still crap, but it's better. The only question I have about this camera is based on the progressive scan. I tested out the progressive scan today and, it looked seriously bad. It looked like footage from someones web cam. Is it true progressive scan? It almost looks like the resolution gets dropped by a huge amount and other qualities also go down. Shooting interlaced and then de-interlacing looks so much better. Cheers. (p.s. just to say I was shooting 1/50th shutter speed, which from my knowledge, should be fine)

What happened?

Ok, point taken.

Well... whatever, accents along those lines.

It's mainly when people stereotype, that's what gets me (And admittedly, I've just done it myself). As I said in a few posts back, some of my best mates are chavs. But it's not like they go around in groups thinking they are drunk after a lager shandy, starting fights with people just walking down the street. I've more or less gone against myself in this thread. I generally don't call any group of people chavs, emos, grungers or whatever. If a chav starts on me, I much prefer to just call them an a**hole, instead of a chav. I've been called a chav before, for wearing white trainers and tracksuit gear. If I'm a chav for wearing what I feel comfortable in, then I'm a chav. But I get seriously annoyed when I get treated as though I've just mugged a 90 year old women or something. So, I can somewhat imagine how they feel. Although, most of the time, what they do isn't because of that. Most of the time it's because they genuinely are, buttholes. But, before I turn all pro-chav, I will still say that the majority of them are buttholes. That's not stereotyping or lashing out in anger. If I've ever been started on or had something done to me for no reason, it has always been by a chav. But, anyway. So has anyone here seen Kidulthood? Oh and, Andy, I'll definatelly go see that Children of Men when I can, saw a preview on that Jonathon Ross film review program, looks pretty awesome. Cheers.

Ok, I'll try and give people a good idea of their character. Chavs will only cause trouble if they are in groups. They would never pick a fight unless they had a good number of people backing them up. They are cowards. They hate the police, end of. They can be either black or white. Doesn't matter. They like to speak in Nigerian accents. Not all, but some. 'Charver' is the term used for them mainly up in the north of England. They like to wear hoodies or caps (or both) both indoor and outdoor, they like to think they are hiding their face because the police are after them or something. (Even though they are not) Ali G is taking the pi** out of them, but chavs are too thick to realise he is, they actualy see him as a role model. For whoever has seen 'The Layer Cake', the Dukes group is what could be considered chavs. Some videos: Real Chavs: Guy taking pee out of chavs, does it really well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRc5yipGTYk&NR (The only un-realistic thing about this clip is that he sounds too sharp for a chav) And finally, a lovely picture of some chavs. Full of scummy, chavy goodness: http://www.chavscum.co.uk/4images/details.php?image_id=1608 EDIT: Just a quick note, I think the American equivalent of chavs are called 'Neds'.

Yeh, I'll agree on that one :lol: It's just the fact that 'The Bicycle Thieves' detracted away from typical Hollywood style, and tried to be as realistic as possible. To represent what life was like. And didn't end in a typical Hollywood style. Kidulthood was practically the same thing. I actually found the film made me angry more than anything. Considering I went through school along side chavs, I know what they are like. So it affected me personally more than most films do. Even if it wasn't a very well made film. For instance, that scene where Sam walks up behind that Katie girl and spits on the back of her head. Just made me really angry watching it. All part of growing out of 'kidulthood'. Only problem was, I made it rather difficult for myself? And as for Max.. We've had our disagreements in the past, but I'll always thank him for teaching me one of the most important lessons I've ever learned on this board.

I don't know how you would fill in the clipped audio, but making ADR look good is a sod in itself. Just make sure you save backups of everything before you edit this stuff.

No problem. There is without a doubt other great software out there you can use to do this with, I just personally use Adobe Auditon and find it works great. Bare in mind that if we were to set something up where I mastered the audio, we would probably need to do most stuff through post. As I would send you the audio in 96KHz 24bit, raw, format, to preserve the best audio quality. (We might be talking gigabytes of audio) It's usually good to process all of the audio anyway, not just one part. Increase volume of important key words and sentences (will increase the meaning), and generally just clean everything up. I usually find you can make the vocals sound a lot better with a few basic EQ adjustments and filters. Things that just can't be done practically on set.

I thought the micro-elements of this film were complete shod. But the actual representation of how things are in England were brilliant. I don't know why this film has got 4.7 on IMDB. When looking at a lot of the neo-realism films such as 'The Bicycle Thieves', it's not all that different. And 'The Bicycle Thieves' is considered a classic. The story line complexion is similar. And so are the micro-elements. A lot of Americans and people from other countries see England as a place full of posh people, but it's quite the opposite. And by the way, life isn't just like this in London. It's in most areas of England. Anything you would like to comment on about this movie? p.s. A quick note to David Mullen if you are reading this, or anyone else actually, if you are still interested in knowing what chavs are, this film is full of them. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. (but not all them of them are like that, just most, they seem to think they are Nigerian gangsters or something)

If you can get hold of Adobe Audition there's a noise cancellation feature in it, you basically train it by playing back a wave with just the background noise, and then the program detects what frequencies there are inside it and removes them but leaves the rest. Works pretty well actually. Although, don't expect the sound you want to come out 100% perfect. It just depends on what frequencies the background noise is using as to how good the sound you want will come out. (for instance if a background frequency is similar to that of the sound you want it will strip both) But it's always best to get the best sound possible on set as opposed to fixing it later in post. If you really want, send me an MP3 of the clip and I'll see if I can do anything to it, if I can, send me the raw video and audio with timecode stamps prefferably and I'll master the whole thing. Free of charge, but a place in the credits. If you don't like what's been done to it, there's no obligation to say yes. So it's a win situation either way.

What camera is going on top of it? From what I know safety is the real issue with steadicam. Weight of the camera, making sure you have a clear path to walk along e.t.c. If there's a heavy camera on top and you fall, it all comes down on your face.

I think what Matthew might be saying is that it's a common mistake for amateurs to make. Out of interest, what happened with the older, hand operated cameras? The only thing I can think of is if the hand crank was connected to a series of cogs in a system which stopped the film and shutter perfectly in synch, as opposed to being connected directly to the reel of film and shutter (which would keep the film running continuously).

I stand corrected. (Hey you learn something new every day... and ever wish the ground would just swallow you up?)

Some of the most professional DP's I know of only own a small MiniDV camera for their family holidays. If you're that professional, the chances are you work for a production company that will rent out a professional camera for you to use. And I think lighting and framing is far more important than the amount of pixels you have. Give David Mullen a consumer MiniDV camcorder and myself a Viper. He'd still kick my a**.

Ok thanks for your comments. It's a tough situation at the moment, since as no one in the class apart from myself has any experience or useful knowledge on film making. So whatever group I go into, I'm still going to be the one wanting to take control of things. (I'm not sure they trust me either, since as they don't know that I've made films and spent a lot of time learning about film making) And I'm not in a group of push-overs either. (I was hoping for a group of girls... instead I got 3 blokes, great stuff...) (This isn't a proper film school, it's A-level film in a college) So the best I can do is impress them with my ideas. Draw out some good story boards, illustrate all of my ideas, and hope to hell they like them. The great thing is we're marked individually for our input, so even though it may seem like I'm doing all the work, at least I'm going to be the one walking out with an A grade. In response to John Hollands question, video. I'm not sure what the cameras are exactly since as I haven't seen them yet, all I know is they're MiniDV, and about the size of a PD-150. I'll ask tomorrow. Cheers.

Ok so I'm taking a course in film, and we have to shoot a project before Christmas. We have a 5 minute running length limit. A director, DP (me), sound recordist and editor. The only difficulty I'm having right now is the storyline. Can you guys think of a good, simple to shoot, 5 minute story line? So far the plan is to make a story about a man who meets someone to buy some drugs, takes them and OD's, but then the whole film reverses back in time and the man walks straight past the dark alleyway as opposed to walking down it and buying the drugs and lives instead. (Crap basically.) I want to give the entire movie a bleach bypass look. Show the gritty side of the streets that we will be shooting. (Orpington) Any suggestions would be great. I'm really meant to leave most of this up to the director but to be perfectly honest, I don't trust him, so I'm basically taking the whole movie into my own hands. Cheers.

I'm just quoting a source from the military analyst and author James Dunnigan. My Dad visited both America and Canada some years back on behalf of HM Prison Service. From what he told me, Canada was a much nicer place. And that if he was to immigrate anywhere it would be Canada. Whilst he was in America he also got offered a hand gun for about £40. The guy knew he was from the U.K, told him that it was up to him on getting it back, but that he wouldn't worry about seeing any paperwork. Not that I'm anti-American. No country is perfect. I just think their foreign policy stinks. Infact there are certain things in America I would love to see employed over here.

And why does everyone always bring up the SAS as being the UK's best special forces. Everyone always forgets the SBS. To join the SBS you have to FIRST go through the Royal Marine Commando selection, THEN go through SAS selection, THEN go through SBS selection. Random note: And I just got pranked over the phone... ba**ards...

Sorry but.. what? I'd say: 1. United States 2. China 3. Israel 4. India 5. Russia 6. Korea, South 7. Korea, North 8. United Kingdom 9. Turkey 10. Pakistan (Actual combat power, not size)

Canada are great, they've helped us out in the past for sure, but I wouldn't say they were the best in the world.

Coronation Street? That was boring right from the beginning. I personally think the Australians make the best dramas. English dramas consist of Grant Mitchell beating people up in the queen vic. American dramas consist of the un-funniest humour on this planet. (And worst canned laughter ever.)

USB drives are much more convenient since as every USB port I know of has a read/write function. You can only write to RW's if the computer you're using has a CD writer. I would say that with USB you can just add and delete data, whereas with RW's you have to burn the whole CD again every time. But in using certain software you can just delete and add data to RW's as well. However I haven't seen much of this software about. For instance, I go to college, and I personally own a USB pen. Not all of the machines have CD writers. Let alone the software to just 'add' and 'delete' data whenever I want. With my USB pen I can just stick it straight in, copy over some data, and delete data if need be. And CD's get scratched very easily.