Thom Stitt

Pretty close. They capitalized on an opportunity presented by The Matrix's precedent. The film was actually just shot as one long movie, but hey, money's money. It worked out quite nicely for Tarantino. Jim Cameron's planning the same formula for his new CGI franchises, Avatar and the Battle Angel anime. He wants to start with a standalone film, and if it makes money, do 2 and 3 together, saving money on production and releasing them as separate films. His are going to be stereoscopic 3D. I have to say I'm quite ridiculously intrigued. Anyway, back on topic: D'aaarrr.

Max will take care of you.

Actually, didn't they shoot part 3 pretty much completely back-to-back with 2? It's the Matrix formula. Make the first one stand alone, see how it does. Leave it open for a possible sequel. It kills. Save money shooting 2 and 3 together, string a cliffhanger between them, and make a trillion bazillion dollars. Hell, I'm surprised they're not doing that with Sin City. It works like gangbusters! EDIT: (except for the fact that the Matrix sequels sucked). Man, now someone just needs to follow the same formula with a bad-ass over-the-top ninja action trilogy. i should pitch thaat... *dollar signs in eyes*

7218 is a tank on Super 16, I love it. The range is good and it's incredibly sharp for such a fast stock. I know you're planning some tests, but I just want to emphasize how very important they are. You need to pay a lot of attention to what you're doing on the day, make detailed slates and notes, and know what you did for each take when you see the results. Really find your way around the stock, know your way around it really well after the testing. Push the stock to both limits so you know what you're dealing with. When I shot super 16 I ruined a lot of the outdoor tests by overexposing too much. I think I just missed an ND calculation looking back, but I can't honestly be sure. It was something stupid - I blew the outdoor test, and it was a wake up call. It pays off to be obsessively precise with exposure calculations on super 16. The images you get on perfectly exposed (and obviously well-lit) s16 are stunning. Though 18 is a tough stock to screw up, it's still a lot less forgiving than 35. My rule of thumb is to not trust anything important being 3 stops over or under. Because the grain structure becomes easily more noticeable in 16, I also tend to overexpose by half a stop depending on conditions. Your actual range is probably at least 10 stops. But don't TRUST anything around zones 8 and 9, and especially zones 1 and 2. The last, last thing you want is to have to print up. Good luck with the shoot, I say dive in. Don't listen to anyone dissuading you from tackling it. Just do your homework like crazy, take your tests seriously, and then have a blast shooting the damn thing.

Honestly I think David Mullen's first reply wrapped things up pretty well. If a film is well-directed, it's well tied-together. You can take an average script and the director can make it something really fantastic. An example of this is Michael Mann's Collateral. You end up with a film that has a solid vision. The production design, the cinematography, the locations, the acting, the music, the editing - it all needs to serve the same story from the same perspective. Each department collaborates with the same man, so you end up with, if the director's good, a consistent and well-told visual story. The acting as well, is one of the MOST important collaborations a director has, maybe the most important. An actor can play a scene the "wrong" way, if a director has a certain mood in mind. If he doesn't "fix" that performance, the acting in the scene doesn't seem to match the mood. It's almost like the director is responsible for the quality - not necessarily production value, because a big-enough budget can take care of that FOR you (ahem-Brett Ratner-ahem). A good director being on a film... It's like the old Nintendo Seal of Quality. A good director is one who also has a really good eye for interesting visuals. Spielberg just seems to love putting his characters in front of a lot of motion. Something's got to be FALLING, either sparks, or clothes, or debris - some IDEA that turns a standard scene into something especially moody or visual. So it's those things you see in a film - things that weren't likely in the script at ALL - They were just ideas, and they often come from the director. An extra detail that just makes a scene WORK, to bring it to life from the page. Another Spielberg example. One of my favorite parts of War of the Worlds was when Tom Cruise got pissed off and threw the peanut butter sandwich he was making at the window. That shot of him in the reflection, panicked and brooding, with a slab of peanut-buttery bread slowly ooooozing down the window in the soft-focus foreground - that was a Spielberg touch. That's where you see the director at work.

It's not necessarily that I feel EASIER describes how I feel. It just seems to me more NATURAL. The DP's the boss. often the reason for the huge crew on a big production is the lighting and grip. There's NO question that a major major part of the DPs physical job deals with controlling light. Sure there's the camera. There's the shot, the stock, the filters, the lens. But holy crap is that light issue a big one. To an extent you're absolutely right - So far my experience on my own films are basically: DP, gaffer, key grip, and cam op, all rolled into the credit: Cinematographer. On larger productions I've worked as an electric. So to an extent you have a point, because for me personally, I imagine making the jump from camera to DP as being a much frightening one for me, because of that 2 ton behemoth standing in the room: LIGHTING. A lot of people here are debating the Conrad Hall story I heard - I wish I remember where I heard it from. You're all more likely right, but it is an interesting dilemma. I think my biggest worry is running into another DP who drops a "subdued" bomb on his lighting crew and then disappears back behind camera, picking out filters from their cases like a fine chocolatier, drool accumulating at the sides of his mouth. And I LOVE the camera stuff! Love it. I drool too. But to me, the bigger job for a DP ON SET is the lighting, always the lighting. I hope to work with DPs who know their toys really well; after all, a DP's toys pretty much make the job. Whether they're homemade or state of the art. If a DP hasn't ever touched a light, I have to question him or her, even if just for a second. The pictures tell the final story in the end, but there's always that tugging feeling I have now - what if that lighting is so nice because of the gaffer? What if the DP asked for "subdued"? I've seen a wide range of cinematographers' tactics. It's gotten me OBSESSED with this question of how specific DPs are with their crew. Like it or not, guys, there are DPs out there getting away with treating their crews like bad directors treat their actors. "Make it more subdued." I'm haunted I tells ya! HAUNTED!!

That's of course true - and sure a lot of young filmmakers' first films - and I do mean FIRST films - don't look much better than this, I agree. I say young filmmakers, because anyone shooting their first films as actual FILMS and not video tended to have better material. There's a very simple reason for that. When you shoot film stock, you're required to learn quite a bit about how to shoot beforehand. You need to get your exposures right, sure, but most of all you need to BUDGET YOUR STOCK. This forces creative efficiency. When you have all the 60-minute tapes in the world, you can pretty much run wild. Remember those early films of Steven Spielberg, the ones he did when he was just a child? Pretty damned impressive stuff. I know I was always jealous, mine looked like crap, I was using my neighbor's VHS camcorder back in the 80s, and those early video systems age terribly. But regardless - the early films, before you've learned anything, don't tend to get a whole lot better in repeated tries. I honestly believe that you need to train your eye before you can really start to grow. You can spend as much time shooting movies as you want, it may give you plenty of experience in on-set problem solving, but as far as the actual craft - forming a visual narrative that really works - there comes a point where you need to do more than that. You need to study film, you need to really learn what a lot of the precedents are - especially if you're planning on breaking them. I think it's crucial. And the younger you start, the better you're going to be. Young people are so incredibly, INCREDIBLY lucky these days - we have netflix, the internet, practically every movie ever made is available by download or mail order or at a local dvd rental joint. Hell, you can log onto Youtube and watch The Great Train Robbery and Le Voyage dans la Lune!! What a resource for budding filmmakers! I say, immerse yourself in the good stuff, completely immerse yourself. It'll drive you to make much better films. What I hope this kind of criticism does is light a fire under a person. I know it does for me - I've been brutalized critically, and while it's made me angry at the critic, it's also motivated me strongly to do better. I know not everyone is like this, but I think anyone aiming to DIRECT in film had better work on it. I wish I had someone light that fire under me when I was younger. My videos were more about just having fun going through the process of movie-making - but I didn't seem drawn too much to the fact that it looked like garbage. The novelty of seeing a movie I planned playing on my tv overwhelmed everything else. And also, regarding the age thing - I think it's pretty safe to assume that this person is pretty young, teens maybe? and the reason for that is the actors. This film DOES remind me of early movies by myself and my friends - we acted in our own stuff. If I directed, I'd use my sister, her friends, my friends. I'd get everyone I could. Sometimes parents. Look at the setting in this video - Clearly not the result of excessive location scouting (which is FINE). The entire movie feels very youthful. If a 30-something made this, I'd be pretty much completely shocked (maybe because a 30-something is more likely to make a dialogue-heavy R-rated relationship story, but who knows). My first movie was a scifi story in which an alien planet crashes to earth, and the two planets somehow meld to create an alien-earth. Everyone in the world is knocked out - the film begins (after a terrible stop motion opening titles sequence in which a play-dough planet crashes onto a spinning globe) with people everywhere waking up mysteriously, not knowing what's happening (too many first films begin with waking up - appropriate though it is). From there, I could tell you all I want about how the story's about paranoia and how the main character comes to realize that his friends aren't really his friends at all, and the people you thought you knew are something else entirely - but really that's crap. It was us at 6 and 7, basically playing in front of the camera. I had a script I had written (it read like a short story), and which I didn't use because I felt I knew the story well enough to not bother. Really, we just had more fun making it up as we went. At 12 and 13, my movies were no better. The subject matter had changed. We liked the blood and guts by this point. But the craft had not developed much from that first piece of crap I did half my lifetime earlier. It wasn't until around 16 that I started getting serious about WATCHING films, and gaining all that knowledge hidden in them. To give you an idea, I'll briefly break down the first minute for you. I'll try to stray away from critiquing the shot composition, acting, etc, and try to concentrate on the editing and shot efficiency. Your first cut takes us from a close up to a medium-close, and it's a jump cut. It looks like the camera pretty much stayed where it was and zoomed out. Maybe ever so slightly higher. But it is a jump. The important thing is that we're establishing her sleepy confusion. We cut again to a medium shot. It's establishing the same thing again, for the third shot in a row. Sure, the alarm clock's in the shot now, which she reaches for, but this is not a reason to cut to a whole new shot. Then an insert of her hand grabbing it. back to the medium shot. POV of the alarm clock showing a time we already know from the first frame of the film. close up of her line. insert of the alarm clock tossed onto the bed. medium-close of her moving the covers. medium-wide of her standing up in bed. insert of legs beneath the covers move. a bit of a jump because the camera still hasn't seemed to have moved. medium of her tripping forward. back to insert of legs. full shot on floor of her landing. empty wide shot of her standing. crossing the line to the other side of the room, now she's looking to the right of frame instead of left, and it's a closeup. wide of her slumping into chair. probably the longest shot in the first minute at about 7 to 8 seconds. cut to medium at her looking at something. insert of computer, her finger pushes the button. There's the first minute. Nearly 20 cuts, which averages to nearly a cut every 3 seconds. Pay attention to what each shot does for you - there's a lot of repetition and I could ask a lot of questions - I could probably ask you for nearly every single shot, why this? why that? why this? The story of the first minute is a girl waking up having slept in, she's groggy and clumsy. How awake are you in that state? Pretty alert? Is your mind jumping all over the place? It's more likely to be crawling, sluggish, unsure of what's real. our perspective in this opening is extremely alert and jumpy, it clashes with the action, and it doesn't really cut together. This sentence may not make a lot of sense, but I'll still say it: You've got to tell the story you're telling. The language of film, again, influences EVERYTHING that's being told visually. Your shots are everything. Whether you're trying to create a dream state, or you're just showing a light-hearted comedy - either the shots are going to create an alternate reality like a dream or a fantasy for the audience to be hypnotized by, or they're going to completely disappear and the audience is left to be enraptured in the story. The camera is also your point of view - Many films have quite a personality to the camera. Is it neutral, curious, impatient? How are we, as an audience, going to perceive this story? Your movie draws so much attention to itself with all the questionable shots and jumpcuts that it achieves neither. Once you train yourself to think in a completely different language - the language of the moving picture - you'll be on your way to learning the craft. And also, I'm a kid myself, I'm really no teacher. lakmir0 mentioned that you shouldn't just obey a discipline. That's true. The best thing is to learn as much as you possibly can. The idea I think is that before you go "breaking the rules", you need to be a master of them first. Though most people agree that the secret truth is, there are no rules.

Set Lighting Technician's Handbook: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/024080257...ce&n=283155 Or... 1 left at $22! Hurry, hurry! http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=65-0240804953-2

Right - and at the same time budgets are skyrocketing way faster than inflation and audiences are. Kill the blockbusters, bring it back to the 70s. Studios have been quite capable of putting out real art. Just not lately. Now, I know this is an absurd suggestion, and of course it's one that will never - EVER - actually go down. Like everything else in entertainment, everything about Hollywood is fickle, and that includes audiences. It puts us dangerously at bay for succumbing to fads. What was the last real piece of art that was made and paid for, from the beginning, by a major studio? Eyes Wide Shut? That might be worth a few seconds thought.

It's tough to bring up this question without getting into auteur theory, so I'm just going to chime in a little on the matter. Films by the "auteurs" generally have the director's signature all over the film. Just by watching a scene or two you can say "wow, this must be a Kubrick", or "Looks like a P.T. Anderson film", and so on with Hitchcock and Allen and Hawks etc etc. So there's a distinct style that seems to carry across a body of work. There's no doubt that these are great directors with a very distinctive style and perspective in storytelling. There's also no doubt that the director is absolutely crucial to being the "golden thread" that ties everything together, through any production. That being said... I'll never in my life subscribe to the auteur theory. It takes more than one person to make a movie, I believe the "auteur theory" genuinely takes away from the contributions of many of the cast and crew. I mean except for You Can't Learn to Plow by Reading Books - Linklater's debut super 8 feature may just be a true exception to that. But that movie also just so happens to be about absolutely nothing. Anyway, I think it's easy for critics and film buffs to label someone an "auteur". I find it especially hard, however, to believe it from someone who's ever actually been through the process of filmmaking.

Indeed - I should have expected to be called out on the generalization. You're both right, and I should know - I have a friend who I spent a bit of time with on set. He was the first person I've ever met - possibly only in fact - who I can genuinely see as just "being a grip." Doing that work and being fulfilled by it, loving every minute of it. He was an absolute machine, I've never seen anyone tackle a job with the kind of gusto he had. Not a lot of time for joking around, he was so intensely into his work. If he was on a show, you could probably subtract the amount of grips by half and he'd happily take up the slack - and this is on major productions. The last few months he's been busting his ass on the new Coen Bros movie for Roger Deakins (or is that the other way around?). He relayed that they used two 100K softsuns at one point, and ran miles of cable to 18 or 20Ks that were positioned at practically every street corner in a town the production took over. I mention this because when I just hear that information, I think, "Man, that's like Phil's ultimate fantasy." Me, it's my ultimate nightmare. Anyway, the point is he'd be bored to death by camera dept. If he doesn't have 200 pounds of gear strapped to him in the trenches, he's going to be miserable. I think a few guys here have it right - it's about planning and executing a flexible plan and being adaptable. A highly experienced DP will know exactly how to shoot a scene - where to put the lights, how to shape them, etc. But a really GOOD DP will look at the shot when the plan is finished and know just what needs to be finessed, or be able to admit that the whole thing is failing and to conceive an alternative with his lighting and grip team on the day, efficiently, and have it WORK. Time is everything on set, so I think having a plan is invaluable. And that's not to mention the freakin' butterflies. I always get the nerves before a production starts up. It really really helps to have a game plan so you can deliver fast once things start moving. I'd honestly be too damned scared otherwise. Speaking of which... I'd have to have a comfort level with DPing that I'm not sure I'll EVER achieve in order to take an approach like that. To me, the bigger the show, the more lights, the higher the budget, the more terrified I'd be. Therefore, the more testing I'd do, the more discussion with other DPs for advice, the more diagrams, the more preplanning with the gaffer. Of course, I say this easily because I've never DONE a big production - but it's not something I see myself being terribly comfortable with. Hell, I'm a fan of pre-lighting and pre-rigging, I've done it on the occasions where we shot in-studio, and I'd do it anytime the schedule and logistics allowed for it. It can be a tough balance sometimes- I know I've spent way way too much time trying to get a shot just perfect, and it cost the production. In the end, that one shot wasn't worth it.

Very true. My first experience DPing a 16mm film was essentially a head-on collision with that lesson. The diagrams in my brain, the plan, the lights - it wasn't working. The frame was always flat - It was a tough tough scenario to be sure, dealing with bare white walls, one of which is an enormous window during a sunny day, cramped space, and 4 people at a circular table in the middle, and to compound it all, we're shooting 1.33... But we set out to make it look interesting, and I just wasn't experienced enough to handle that situation. I wanted to just WILL the light meter to give me the readings I wanted - I couldn't achieve good separation. About 3 days into the shoot I had completely stopped going with my original plans, and started ad-libbing with the problem solving. Consequently, the last few days look a hell of a lot better than the first ones. But I think ESPECIALLY within that work environment, the DP's got to be very very savvy with his gear and exactly what it's going to do. It's okay I think if a DP only goes in with a general scheme, with plans to sort of dance with the production design and actors in lighting the scene... But I fear for any cinematographer who says "Make it subdued", and then pimps on out. That's what I love to see. At this very early point in my career, I'm still not experienced enough to trust those pre-made decisions. Which is good in that it trains me to think on my feet and adapt. But it's definitely a goal of mine to do an entire shoot, pre-planned down to the scrim.

David, just to clarify in regards to the HMI lens - It wasn't the globe I was referring to, but the lens assembly (Narrow spot, narrow flood, medium flood, etc.). In most instances when I've worked with HMIs the DP (or gaffer on larger shoots) would always specify which lens, which is a much simpler affair than changing the globe out. It is a very good point that the DP doesn't need to have the technical expertise of the gaffer, particularly in regards to distribution. Which raises what I've always thought was an interesting question. It's sort of "the norm" for a DP to reach his or her position via the camera ladder. It seems to go for many people: 2nd AC, 1st AC, Camera Operator, Director of Photography. Now, that last jump seems to me to be a huge one - much bigger than Electric, Best Boy, Gaffer, Director of Photography, which you see much much less of. In fact, I can't really think of any examples of this - I've certainly never met a DP who climbed the lighting ladder. It's certainly two different sides to cinematography - the on-set lighting being one, and the camera itself being the other. Now, anyone you ask will confirm camera department is about a thousand times more fun than electric work. I'm a small guy, man. I have a skinny ass frame. I am simply not built to hoist a 4K on 3 risers on my own. On radio: "Could I get some help out by the window?" "What? Why, Thom, it's one light?" "I'm a weakling, I'm sorr-OH GOD MY HANDS!!" So there's that little pull factor. But at the same time, the lighting crew has at least as much to do with cinematography as camera. On camera you surely work more with the frame and director, which is important. Much less manual labor, and a more intellectual job. Seeing and being able to form and critique the frame itself at all times, and see the lighting work within it is invaluable. But a DP is still nothing if not light-savvy. two cents.

I haven't D.P.'ed myself much yet, though I do love it. A few 16/Super 16 projects, and many DVCAM, no features. Just to give people an idea right off the bat as to where I'm at - relative newcomer. Now, my shoots have all been pretty small. So I end up putting up a lot of the light fixtures myself, and the few grips/electrics I had helped me out. I'm pretty hands-on with the lights because of that, but regardless, it requires a good knowledge of every piece of gear you have, and exactly what it's doing, where, and why. We did our homework on the shoot, and I go in with a set plan of where my lights are going - I only change them when the diagram in my brains doesn't work out on set. I once heard about Conrad Hall that he was so experienced that when they were preparing to light, he could draw a lighting diagram that got as detailed as to include notes on exactly how much to cut the light with scrims. I have such a ridiculously deep respect for that. I'm bringing this up because I've spent countless hours as an Electric (non-union, cash jobs and volunteer - music videos, TV, short films, and features), and I've just seen some fairly upsetting approaches to working as a D.P. Imagine you and the other electrics are about ready to do the first major setup of the day. No lights are up yet. The D.P. comes up to you. "Okay. Make it look... subdued." *walks back to camera* WHAT??? MAKE IT LOOK SUBDUED?? It honestly feels at that point that the Electrics are co-DPing, not the cinematographer. Many moons ago, when I had my first experience with an HMI on set. I was changing out the lens on a 1.2, and, well, I'd never done that. I was just having some trouble finding the latch - you know the one, it doesn't look like a latch and it moves laterally. So when the DP passed by, I ask her where it is. "Oh I don't know, I've never even touched a light before." *cue the spit-take* Several other times, the DP was also cam-opping (different DP from above). She never left the area around the camera, and essentially let the gaffer do EVERYTHING. Eventually I saw how it worked - they had discussed the approach generally beforehand. The gaffer goes in and lights everything, and then, basically, the DP "critiques" it onset. "Nah, nah, this isn't working for me. Can you make it more toppy? And that light needs to come down." I dont think she ever specified details in planning, and she doesn't until everything's already set up on the day. Or she sees US setting something up that she doesn't think she'll want. Honestly there was a LOT of wasted work, simply because her styles clashed with the gaffer, and he was essentially running wild. It would have saved a lot of time - that "light that needs to come down", that was a huge rigging job. So the purpose of this thread is basically - how specific should a DP be? Do you let your gaffer handle many of the specifics, and stick to relative, mood-descriptive terms yourself? I understand that everyone has their own style, their own approach. But it just seems to me that what I saw at times must have crossed some line into "WRONG" territory... Has anyone else seen what I've seen, or was I just on the WRONG shows?

Ah - you're right, you're right. D.I. is a term specific to theatrical release. Ignorance is the true culprit here. The term's used so much I never actually realized it was as specific as it is. That's all right. I heard someone mention a D.I. on an HD shoot once. No, friend. Not a DI. Just a D.

Cinematography's always interesting in spectacle movies like this because it's often tied more closely with production design than other films. When I think of the "look" of Pirates 2, I think of the Flying Dutchman design, the gypsy soothsayer's house in the swamp, the beautiful caribbean jungles. Some of the scenes in the film look like they would have just been a pleasure for the cinematographer - There's just so much eye candy - Every scene is rich in detail. Definitely a pretty film. I can completely forgive it for its narrative shortcomings because it was just such a ride. It's unfortunate that I really didn't give a damn about the characters, and the whats-hows-and-whys were pretty much arbitrary... But honestly, if any movie can get away with being little more than an amusement park ride, shouldn't it be Pirates of the Caribbean?

With expensive condenser mics like the octava, highly-skilled boom operators, and an in-depth sound design process with a full mix, including some amount of ADR looping and foley sound effects. I mean, what can you say? Major productions are major for a reason. Making movies is way too damned expensive.

David Mullen: "Hyper-Video". I'd say that's the most perfect description for the look of Vice I've read yet. For all the video noise Collateral had, it seemed to maintain a pretty polished, glossy aesthetic. Miami Vice looked so much like video at times that it was quite shocking - I was expecting something similar to Collateral, and what I got was about as different a style as you could have gotten using the same camera systems. Which absolutely gets my respect. And it was a serious thrill for me to see shots that I have just never seen before in a film. The shot from the trailers that pretty much sold the film blew me away - the car-mounted shot in which we see every detail in the night sky taking up a good portion of the top half of the frame - That's what it was all about for me. Seeing things we haven't seen before. Doing things that you just couldn't do with 35mm. Here's what I really like: It's one thing to shoot HD. It's another thing to shoot HD at a time when it's becoming widely established, and then to push it to every conceivable limit. Any cinematographer HAS to respect Mann and Beebe for what they accomplished doing that. But when I say that the "video"ness of it shocked me, I really really mean that. It was uncomfortable for me to watch at times, and completely unexpected. The trailer park scene and the climax particularly jolted me. All that ultra cool mercury vapor color, EXTREMELY high contrast, and a decidedly video smoothness to the motion made me eyeballs churn a little in their sockets.

Okay, Okay. I'll be the one to say it. I feel bad that there aren't many replies, and I do want to give you some very genuine feedback. So here comes the brutal honesty. This looks like it was made by someone under 14 - I realize that's a possibility. If so, that's fine, you've got plenty of time to learn the ropes. If you're around 16 or older, there's not much excuse for this. You need to get studying. Really start WATCHING movies. If you want to just do an exercise, take a good scene from a film you like, one you think is well shot, and recreate it PROPERLY. Not just the action. The lens length (that's "zoom" on your budget handicam), the position, the angle, the mood. Work hard on it, dammit. It's amateur hour from the very first frame. I will admit that a big turnoff from the get-go is your format. This looks like a 400 dollar Sony miniDV handicam or worse. I only mention it first because it was my first impression - it doesn't really matter YET - I wouldn't suggest upgrading to another format until you dealt with a few more problems first. You mentioned that you want to work on shot composition. It goes way beyond shot composition here - the majority of shots in this video are completely unnecessary. The coverage is confusing - It looks almost like it was edited in camera, and the shots were chosen based on convenience rather than storytelling. You need to train yourself to see cuts and shots that don't work. So much of this film's coverage is completely jarring. I suggest taking a by-the-book approach to cinematography and directing before doing a whole lot of experimenting on your own. Learn about the line of action (also called the 180 degree rule), the 30 degree rule, and study up on coverage points. Then when you shoot your next project, plan it in detail first, down to EVERY SINGLE SHOT. You should never cut or take a shot if it isn't enhancing the story. I can tell by watching this that you probably didn't consider each and every shot with much contemplation. If you did, it doesn't show - this really looks like a point-and-shoot affair. If you want to be a filmmaker, your shots need to be your babies. You really, honestly need to care about them. Otherwise, you might as well be writing screenplays, not directing. This film has very, very little craft behind it. Work really hard on your craft if you want to continue. I'm assuming you're very young, and if so that's fantastic. Get a head start now and you'll be leagues ahead a few years down the road.

Morgan's got it right - you repeat yourself too much. I think your problem is that you had too much fun editing. I don't blame you, the action's interesting and the music is great. But you really - REALLY need to slice this thing way way down. Don't repeat yourself at all - take out any shot that you have ANY doubts or misgivings about. Include only your absolute best work and none of the mediocre. For example, consider ditching possibly all of your office scenes. Don't include something just for the sake of variety. You have the material for a decent reel, but you're not there yet. It should be incredibly short and engaging. This one wears out its welcome. Otherwise kudos.

I would definitely go for the DVX100. It's the go-to camera for standard def prosumer video shooting. It's really penetrated the industry as well - Steve Buscemi recently shot a feature called Lonesome Jim with the DVX. A new 100B can easily cost you 3000+. But if you're willing to go for an older model, like the DVX100P or 100A, you can get one for as cheap as 400 dollars used, and it really is an amazing little camera. What you could do is buy the cheap used one, and then send it in right away to get the heads replaced, which may run you around 900 dollars. You'll have a near good-as-new camera for less than 2,000. Just check classifieds, craigs list, ebay, whatever. There are plenty of them out there. Just do your homework with the buyer, make sure the lens is in good condition - and again, I highly suggest getting the heads completely replaced if the camera's used.

A full digital intermediate seems to be pretty common in the postproduction workflow for higher budget film projects, definitely including music videos. Not many productions go through timings anymore, and moving from video, the film color timing experience may be a bit alien and not achieve the results you're exactly going for. In the end it's going to come down to the amount of money you have. I'm going to assume you don't have much, since you're just moving from DV (and not HD), but I'll discuss the option anyway. If you have the budget for a full D.I. it'll probably be extremely comfortable for you if you've been using magic bullet to color correct. A good colorist on a Da Vinci 2K can work absolute magic. The software will look very familiar, the colorist will likely be very fast in giving you a look that you describe right there on the spot with real-time results. And it doesn't have to be outrageously expensive - One alternative is to do a D.I. using HD, where the film is scanned to HD instead of data. You lose a bit doing this, but it's a good option for smaller budgets. You're still easily in the thousands though.