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Giacomo Girolamo

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Everything posted by Giacomo Girolamo

  1. Hello Samuel, thanks for sharing! I only can see the videos upload in vimeo from here, but beautiful cinematography and I agree, I love "sticky situation", great production work there with the sticky suit. Bye!
  2. I repeat what I said before. The film is so beautiful that I didn't feel it long, but I really think that can be edit it and cut it even more. More even if you are trying to submit the short to film festivals, I really think you need to cut it a little bit more. If you want my advice, find some good editor (not yourself, because you are to close to the project and the shots) and let he/she edit that beautiful piece of work for you. I really believe that you can end with a more incredible and valuable work, because, like Hemingway used to say, you have to kill your love ones, but in filmaking is easy because somebody can kill your babies for yourself. Bye Tiago, keep the good work!
  3. Yeap, because 6 db is literally HALF of the volume of sound, is A LOT man. I'm a sound engineer myself so I did a lot of work with tv series and movies. And I agree with you, sound (like filmmaking) is a chain, and you need that the first links have good quality because is hard to work with bad material. But in reality not always can, and also, you receive a lot of work that you don't even record, so you need to know how to fix bad quality audio, and how transform the sound and play with it.
  4. That's only if you REALLY take a chunk of the low frequencies, if you use an EQ in the right way (a good sound enhance is when you don't notice it) you don't have to worry about that. The problem in filmmaking and cinematography is that a lot of people thinks that sound is just a tiny part of editing, and that editing is something they can do without a problem, because is their project. And not at all, sound engineering is a craft like cinematography, which take years to "perfect". Off course, like everything, is best if you catch the problem early and do it right on front, that try to fix it in post, but with work and imagination, you can pull out a lot of things.
  5. I really like it Erynn, you totally achieve the light and fun vibe. Hope you get tons of (interesting and fun) jobs this year, keep the good work!
  6. Hello Tiago, thanks for sharing! What a beautiful work you pull it off, love the oniric cinematography and the story. The talent (the little girl) was great, and I assume that has a lot of challenges flimming a little kid. Love the way you tell the story and how the parents are being reveal once the are closed to their daughter. There's not a lot to say in a critique way. Maybe could be shorter? I never feel it like is long because the beautiful shots but maybe you could tell the same story in fifteen minutes or less. Then, I noticed some minor (really minors for a low budget production) issues with sound, like for example some a little too loud sounds fx, for example when the girl shut the door in 12:40 or the bottle sound in 13:38. Maybe the shots in the minute 06:50, when the girl is walking below the trees are kinda blow up, but is kinda an esthetic choose. I really don't have a lot to say about the short, besides congratulations (parabens!) and keep the good work! Bye!
  7. Hey, is a gorgeous piece of work, love to watch the part II. I also has trouble understanding the story, but looks marvelous.
  8. Just use a normal EQ and start messing with the audio file. If you can't achieve the effect, try to use a bar compressor (a compressor in which you can use compress different each family of frequencies) and there you go.
  9. Thank you, the footage really looks great! Hope to see the final movie when it's out.
  10. Thanks for sharing your experience! Do you have some vids or stills about the car scene you talk about it?
  11. Thanks for the useful ideas. The scene has to be in the day, around evening, because plot purpose.
  12. Thanks a lot for your input. I don't even think about the safety issues you address (I thought about others, though) so that was really helpful. Thanks for the tips in lighting as well. Maybe what happens with the poor man's process is insecurity because I never done it. And maybe because It's going to depend of the works of somebody else (a CGI guy which we don't have yet) so I'm afraid that even if the shots are good, the screw up in post. Ps. There's two insert shots, one at the radio and another in the rearview mirror, shotting the eyes and later the mouth (because she move the mirror) of the talent. And yes, I'm planning to do all this shot stationary.
  13. Hi everyone, on February I'm going to shoot a short film (5, 6 minutes long) and I have an scene in a car. The scene is short, least than 2 minutes, and have just a little of dialogue (a monologue in fact). The talent is an old lady. the scene is in the day, and the background has to be some kind of road or highway, but is not important to have a lot of cars, and anything happens with the road itself. Now, the tricky parts. First of all, is a short film practically without budget, so we can't have a car rig or a car trailer. Second, is important for the plot that the passenger seat is hide from the camera, so I already sketch some shots from behind and from the side (shooting in the passanger seat), and I think their going to work, but I'll glad to hear your thought an ideas about this. Third, the character is kinda clumsy, so is important that when she monologue, she take off the belt and forget to put it back, or maybe look the radio and no the road, or when she grab something from the passenger seat, that the car maybe shake for a moment before the woman take control of the wheel again. Is nothing from a Fast and the Furious movie, but I told you because I don't do it anything like that in a busy road with a lot of cars. About sound, I think that, like most of the shot we barely see the woman's mouth, we're going MOS and later do ADR of that scene, and fill all the car sounds with the sound engineering. And like the background is not that important, I think to get a place (like a farm) when the talent can drive in an internal road and there's not going to be cars around. That's were my thought about the scene, but looking for information, I find that you can take the "poor man's shot" an film the car stationary. Anyone can tell me your experience with this? I understand this is the best way for safety reason's, but I have the feel that if increase the cost of the short film (for all the work in post with a green screen) the director is going to veto the idea. What about the talent driving while acting? Is going to hurt her performance or you believe it doesn't matter? If you want to know, the scene has to be mundane but at the same time, is important that you (the audience) notice how careless or clumsy is the woman. Also, is the first scene of the short film, so to me is important that have quality because if you get distracted by some thing wrong, is going to damage the rest of the short film. Oh, and the last one. It should be a sunny day (for plot reasons) so what about the lighting? If I could, I'll shot in a cloudy day, but that's not possible. So, do you have some thoughts on the matter, or have any experience could help me? Let me know if you need to know more about the story or the production. I have some sketches from the location (the car) about camera position and some story boards, but I can't upload from here. If you want them, let me know. Thanks a lot, bye!
  14. I believe you never noticed. Like any "effect", is it use it right, you tend to immerse in the story and don't even notice it.
  15. We don't talk about who make it first, instead who makes it mainstream. Interest stuff though, thanks for sharing.
  16. You take my words from my mouth, haha (I don't know if that expression exist in english). Is true that the frenchs an russians experiment a lot with jump cut, but to me, MTV made it mainstream. A lot of public (young new public) just get used it to a lot of new ways of tell stories and make interesting videos.
  17. I know what you mean but to me is an esthetic decision, maybe trying to differentiate the show from the traditional (on studio) cooking show, that have an "theater look"'. Don't say I love it, but is not "wrong" to me.
  18. Is about the system. The DSLR have a mirror that bounce whatever the lens take to a viewfinder. When you have a mirrorless camera, you are looking a tiny screen which created through the sensor an image. Some says that the mirror system is great because you are looking the reality an not a screen, affected by light and battery, etc. Others say that mirrorless are better because you always look the real deep of field (you can do it this in DSLR with a buttom). And, the most important difference is that the mirror system need to occupy certain space, so the mirrorless cameras tend to be smaller and lighters. I do prefer DLSR if you are trying to learn about photography and cameras, though.
  19. Just buy some Sennheiser headphones and be happy.
  20. Jihed, I let you a page in which you can compare between a lot of cameras and quickly you can find you which is better in which field. http://www.neocamera.com/camera_compare.php Check about the item "display position" and search for "rotating", not "fixed". Bye!
  21. Love it man, great shots too! Keep passing the torch of knowledge to your students.
  22. Hey Jihed, how are you. Excuse me if I disagree with Landon (which opinions I really respect in this forum) but to me a DSLR in that prize is totally worth it if you are learning. You don't have to spend $2.000 dollars for start learning about how a camera works, and for filmmaking. Besides, I believe some times people in USA or the UK forget that in another parts of the world, 2.000 is pretty much an years work or even more, because for that people a dollar not worth a dollar, but a lot more. Now, about you question, there are a big dilema about canon vs nikon. In my opinion, the cameras are very similar, but to me is canon for two reason. First of all, at least in my country, you can find more way options to canon lenses that to nikon lenses. Yes, you can buy an adaptar, but some times they are at least that expensive like a cheap lens, so to me that's an important factor. The second one is that nikon to me is the same taking pictures, but to filmming hasn't all the options that canon has, like the entry of the audio system, or some customization that they aren't the difference in the world, but they are better in the canon system. I have friends with both cameras (nikon d3300 and canons t5i and t3i) and to me the canon ones are more intuitive. But that is a matter of taste. OH MAN, sorry, I miss a really important matter. The d3300 can't move the LSD screen in the back (like the canons t3i) that's really bad!! Because some times you need to put the camera on the ground or in a high place and you need to see what's in the screen. For video that's a MUST, trust me. I'm sure that nikon has models with a flip LSD screen, in canon you can find the t5i and another ones too.
  23. What a great review and tons of information Jihed, thanks for sharing! About your cinematography journey, just relax, learn and when you have the possibility and have access, take a dslr and start shooting. You're going to make a LOTS of mistakes, which is great, because is the best way to learn about something. My grand mother used to say (this going to be difficult in english) "Who's don't do anything, never be wrong". Have fun and be wrong a lot in the process! Thanks again for sharing, good bye
  24. I'm gonna watch it all and later give you an honest response, but let me tell you that the audio in the first shot (the first 2 seconds in fact) is really a problem. Is below an acceptable audio, way below. I really don't understand what you talking about spending the double of the budget in submission, when you can rental a normal and generic audio system for a couple of bucks. I also don't get how you don't have people, friends, somebody in the industry, saying to you "nice man, but the audio is awful, don't bother in submits this". Let me finish the short and I'll continue with the review. Well, let's start. First the good parts. I like the lights and colors of the film. Like the place too, maybe you can squeeze it a little more the location, because the shots are very classic, but that's ok. After all is just an esthetic choose. The actors are good too, specially the maitre and the guy. Now let's go with the ugly but necessary criticism. I'm going to divide this in 2 part, the red flags, the critical ones, and later thinks that I don't like but they are fine, or at least, easy to fix. First of all and probably (because I don't read minds, but is really the reason) you don't get your short in any festivals, is THE SOUND. Maybe you already read about this, but sound is 50% of the movie. It's clear isnt's for you. You can tell because you say: and don't even mention sound. Well, that's you mayor problem and what makes (sorry for that but is the true) a really pain in the ass watch the whole thing. Again, I really can't believe that nobody tell you this and you keep spending money in something that was already a dead corpse from the start. Probably they told you but you don't listing because well, who cares about sound? The answer: everyone, even whom really don't know anything about cinema. The second mayor problem is the handheld shots. Let me be clear about this. The problem is not the esthetic decision about use a tripod or handheld (too me, is a tripod anyways in this kind of story), but the problem is that you go handheld and in some moments (like 06:20 for example) you cut the head of your actor. If I stand (endure maybe is the proper word) the bad sound, and I saw a cut head because the handheld, I'm not going to keep watching, I'm going to reject your short, even if the lights and color grading are fine (they aren't a masterpiece though, they are just fine). The third mayor problem is rhythm. The short is unnecessary long. Raymond Chandler (the writer) has a phrase about revising his own word. He said that he just cut the boring parts. This is difficult in writing because you are all alone (Hemingway talks about killing your love ones) but it should be easy in cinema because is a collaborative art. If you can't do it, then the problem has an easy solution. Get an editor the next time (after get some sound engineer for the photography and the post production, PLEASE) who could kill your pretty love ones for you. Finally, I'm going to talk about some minors problems; all of them have an easy solutions and probably you catch some of them already (why you cut them in the edition, who knows). In 00:52 and 03:05, just to give you some examples, you have focus problems. I don't know if you are using an autofocus camera, or just mess it, but have a focus puller if you can control the focus of the camera, because is an easy way to take the audience out of the story you are trying to build. In the 01:10 the actress looks off to me, I don't like her performance in that moment and in general in the short. We can blame the actress but who cast her? who directs her? Yeah, to me is still your fault. In 01:20 the handheld is really distracting, still don't get why you choose filming that way. Later, when the couple is in the table, I don't like the POV to the menu, because you can't visually understand that the menu is expensive, so why put that POV. You can't cut a LOT of boring and unnecessary parts like that, and get a more shorter and nice looking short. 03:25 The "hurry" part sound force to me. Who goes to a fancy restaurant in a date to be hurry. I don't like it and I don't buy it. The story start to sinking in that moment. 04:00 By the 4th minute the music starts to be really repetitive. In fact, I believe that the sound being so awful actually helps the music, because is so bad that you can stand (again, endure?) the music longer. The sound have a lot of problems too, the foley part. I mean some foley are too repetitive, an almost all of them has problems with intensity. They are not mix right. 05:10 The music here is, excuse my expression, bull%$&$ . Is completely over-dramatic and doesn't have anything to do with the story, but at this point I believe your audience (what's left of them) doesn't care anymore. But is really off, and I don't like it. Again, I don't buy it. Well, that's all. Nice try, good lighting and nice place, but I hope you learn from your mistake. The first one, SOUND. The second one, you are so close to your short that you only see a tree, maybe a leaf, and can't see the forest. The next time don't be so close, get an editor that cut the bad parts, work with sound engineer and please, spend money in new material or equipment, not in try to sell something that is unsellable from the second 1. Bye
  25. This is totally true about the owners of the stores, but was a incredible and untransference experience just go to the video club and "swim" in the ocean of movies, sitting on the floor and read the back of those boxes. I'm not saying netflix is a bad thing, but is like experience childhood without a cellphone. You can tell a kid about that, but he never truly understand about that.
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