Jump to content

jacob larsen

Basic Member
  • Posts

    17
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by jacob larsen

  1. You will find an excellent read about this exact question here: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4325273 A few key-words: star-bursts, diameter of lens-house.
  2. This just made me laugh (and sigh quietly a little bit at the same time) ? Lie to look trust-worthy ? I gave up on the 'shorts' side of movie-making some time ago. Partly because it seems to be mostly this: fake people wasting everybody's time with dishonesty (Not blaming or judging anybody, because I get it; you have to 'lie, cheat and steal' to get anywhere. Competition is just too massive for honest low-on-funds naive small-timer people to have any real chance. It was probably always like that, but I just never noticed it before I made some attempts of 'breaking through' commercially myself. Once you get your feet wet you discover the reality is often ugly. A bit like when you watch behind-the-scenes footage you discover that the beautiful film often looks terribly messy behind the camera. It is what it is I suppose) Anyway, I wish I had an answer for how to break through though, but I think at the end of the day it's more about who you know than what you actually can or can not do with the film-media. Just like in the music-business (Which I'm more familiar with than the film-business) : You don't really need talent to make it. You just need enough money to pay for everything yourself. Good luck to the OP though ?
  3. I always felt this ending-frame elevated the whole movie to a special level. I have never seen it topped anywhere, ever (Not even in the other StarWars movies) Almost like how a theater-play is ended with the curtain-call. Cinematically simple. And no fancy coloring or overly 'artsy' look. Just a clear memorable frame of the heroes to let the audience end the journey with ?
  4. I have designed 2 LUTs to make it easier to adjust white-balance and exposure based on people's skin-tone. I am asking a small price for them (9 US$), so technically I suppose they are a commercial product, which is why I post here in the 'press-release' sub-forum (But just so you know; I am just a hobbyist when it comes to photography. I do not make a living from photography) They are simple 'false-color' LUTs intended to make it easier (Versus simply 'eye-balling' it) to achieve a nice looking skin-tone on people. They are probably more useful if you are not working with preset white-balancing or higher-end color-managed systems. Since they are LUTs they can be used for still-photography as well as video. I made a small demo-video that shows how they work and look in a few different photo-editors (And in Davinci Resolve as well) The LUTs come in CUBE and HALDC format. There are 2 LUTs for skin-tone (Warm and cool) and 2 LUTs for exposure (Studio-portrait, which is high-key bright, and middle-gray, which is obviously darker) In the demo-video below, I demonstrate the 'warm' skintone-LUT and the 'studio-portrait' exposure-LUT. Thank you. jacob.
  5. Clearly a much more involved process than simply sitting still for hours in front of a computer-screen thinking digital allows anything to be done in post ? And when I look at stills from "Drop Zone" now, I can clearly see that lights are used on a lot of the scenes. It is amazing how something you did not see before suddenly pops right out at you ? Thanks for the details. I am about to make some test-experiments myself with lighting vs no-lighting, to get more 'hands-on' with how it can alter colors and overall looks of a scene. Learning by doing ?
  6. Thank you very much for that insight, David ? I have only worked with film as still-photography, never as motion-photography, and have almost no practical experience with correcting an image outside the digital realm. I think I am beginning to get a better understanding of where the thing I admire personally in the look of films, such as "Drop Zone" (Which I absolutely love on a whole, not just for its looks. But in terms of its looks it's one of those I use as a 'benchmark' or reference, since, to me, it stands as an example of perfection), comes from; the light during the filming (And seeing you say the same thing just reinforces that ? ) For a long time I thought it was film itself that provided the 'magic', but since I have never been able to get that 'magic' just by using film I slowly figured out it had to be more than just that. So I was curious how they would actually work with film during those days, to balance and create the final color-tone, and I half-way was expecting it to be a method like the one you describe; a global coloring of the film-frame. My use of the term 'white-balance' may not be correct, but I was thinking, in simplistic terms, of 'simply' shining a light of some chosen color through the film-negative/positive to manipulate the color-tone of the image as a whole. It seems logical that, when working with physical light, it would have to be some method along those lines. So I feel like my initial thoughts on this were confirmed by you and am pretty confident I am on the correct track on my path to understanding how to achieve the look I am after with my own photography ? So thank you again ? And if it matters to Roy, let him know his work on "Drop Zone" is very much appreciated and adored here ? jacob.
  7. Pardon what may be a silly question, but... ...would it be likely correct to assume this movie (And similar movies like for instance "Die Hard" and "Dirty Harry") is basically just white-balanced and then nothing more in terms of grading? (I am judging it by the version shown on TV and streaming websites) They are clearly not using LUTs (And never have the 'teal and orange' look we see today, but rather clear, vivid and distinct colors) as this is before digital grading, so is it fairly safe to assume that movies from those days basically get their looks from the film-stocks themselves? And that 'color-timing' is basically just white-balancing (Including contrast-adjustments) of the image. Or did they have methods back then to key certain colors (Like skin-tones) and create a 'teal and orange' look if they wanted to? I am personally really mesmerized by how beautiful the movie "Drop Zone" looks ? (And also how good its sound-track sounds, but that is obviously not for this post) and really wish I knew how to aim for a similar look with digital photography (Which is why I am trying to understand the differences between which parts of the look is inherent to film itself vs which parts of the look they crafted themselves with skillful look-design (Since the latter might be possible to re-create ? )) Thanks jacob.
  8. Thanks Phil ? Yeah, I have learned that IMDB will not let you remove a budget once you have entered it, so that is also something to be aware of. I learned that the hard way with the only short I have on there ? So my overall take from this thread is this: submit as little to IMDB as needed at first, since you can always add more later if needed.
  9. Thanks, yes that one makes good sense to me :) Perhaps not relevant for me to mention, other than as a small anecdote perhaps; during Christmas-season I notice how old movies in Denmark (1960s, 70s) often don't have any rolling credits at all. They may have a short intro with the star-actors names highlighted but often the movies end with a simple "The end" and then a hard-cut to black :) I don't know if that was also done for the cinema-releases of those films, or if it was a trend of the time in danish cinema to simply omit the credits on the film itself. And also, the audience always gets up and leaves during the credit-screens anyway, so nobody really reads them (Except maybe geeks and people looking for specific info) On my music-videos I have, in later years, actually gone away from lengthy credit-screens. At first I thought it was cool to have cool credits that looked cool because, you know, it was cool :) But more and more I just have the minimum key-information listed. The things I would want to know myself, for a similar production, but not all the flashy cool stuff that doesn't really serve any other purpose than being artistic fluff. So I think your advice is a good one as it will be a logical extension of the path, in terms of credit-list design, I'm already on :) Less is more I guess ;) (Which is kind of ironic to say after having written such a long post here just now lol)
  10. I will go with that :) At this stage my purpose/idea of having an imdb-presence is only to have a relevant 'calling-card' I can reference when being in contact with people. So I can at least show I have some level of dedication/commitment to all of this. I don't think me being on imdb, in and of itself, will do anything for me. But I'm thinking that being able to show a link to an imdb-page, with a little non-overwhelming info that at least hints at me having some varied experience, might make some difference (in the good direction) to how I might be perceived and thus my potential chances. Well, that's what I hope at least :) Thank you to all who took time out to reply to this. I appreciate it :)
  11. @Tyler Purcell My initial plan was to have 3 titles on imdb, to not appear like a 'one-trick-pony'. The short, to show something that was fictional/drama The documentary, to show something that was non-fiction (and the documentary actually had a crew. It was only the short-film I made completely solo) And one music-movie (a kind of extended music-video I suppose), to show something music-related since that's what I do most. And the music-movie I have planned is also non-solo work. Those 3 I think reflect a nice variety of my work, while still being such a small sample that it's still 'digestible' :) At least that is what I planned before asking the budget-question :)
  12. @Bruce Greene Yes, that's another very good point. Thank you. The short I got on imdb is not one I had thought of trying to sell though. I actually placed it in creative-commons, since its purpose is more to function like a 'business-card' to attract attention to myself (and to basically just get started with the whole imdb-process) The short is also not new, but one I made in 2012. I just never took it further than putting it on youtube and vimeo back then. But I'm just trying to get more organized now and establish some kind of 'real' presence for myself and my work (and in turn hoping it may lead to some more opportunities in the future) But for future work (commercially oriented) I can see how having a history of making 'cheap' stuff may be a bad thing. Wow... there is a lot of things to consider regarding this. It sounds like even attempting to do solo-work is not a very clever idea. But that getting some kind of agent/agency/representation is needed even for producers (I was under the impression that that was really something to only consider further down the road and not very early on (except perhaps for those who only do acting and not multiple aspects of the production)) @Tyler Purcell Thanks. I'm about to add an older documentary I did, to imdb, which is more 'serious' than my personal short. Perhaps for that I should consider a budget reflecting what it would actually cost if it was a paid job? I guess I'm more of a movie-maker than a business-person :)
  13. In the movie itself you mean? If yes, then that's how I do it too. I do not have a long list of credits in the movie (or any other solo video-production I do) with my name showing up over and over :) I agree that would be outright foolish :) But on the imdb-page for the movie I had my name listed several times (6 times actually)
  14. @Michael; Ooh a ghost-crew would scare me. It's funny you mention it though, because with my music I use several pseudonyms for the various genres I do. But they are band-names and also serve a kind of 'legit' purpose; making it easier for listeners to know which songs are in their preferred genre. They also do avoid 'artist-fatigue' though (a different pseudonym may make the listener think they are listening to something new and fresh, even though it's still the same person behind the music), which is similar to what a ghost-crew would do, so I guess I should perhaps not feel so alienated to the idea in movie-making. It does have connotations of cheating to me though. I mean, with pseudonym band-names the purpose is not really to hide that I'm the person behind it. But rather to associate different genres to an easy to recognize name. But of course it does indeed obfuscate the fact that it's still me behind the music. I'm really torn about that idea, but perhaps that's the kind of thick skin that's really needed in the business :) Because I do get your point about coming across as the odd rabbit in the field if all my credits are for my own productions. And obviously, as a small-timer, I don't have all that many collabs to brag about yet, so most of my productions are ones where I do most things. So I guess I'm kind of caught there, for the moment at least. I will have to sleep on that idea, because I do get what you're saying. I don't want my imdb-page to just become another facebook-profile, but without an agent I'm obviously left to making it myself. Thanks for your words :) @Brian & Phil; Thanks again. I still have a lot to learn about these new (to me) side-aspects of movie-production :)
  15. I have done some compression-experiments with the "VP9 .webm" codec, and one of the features is that you can lower the frame-rate in sections of the intra-frame that has little difference between adjacent temporal inter-frames. Basically this means you can have a main frame-rate of 60fps (or whatever is the main frame-rate of your video) and then smaller sections of the image can have an individual lower frame-rate. I believe the purpose is to decrease band-width and/or increase compression-ratio relative to your quality-target and I see it frequently on LIVE-broadcasts (somebody doing an interview on some outdoor location, for example) on TV (mostly when they seem to use internet-connections for their ENG-links, which appear to happen more and more often now)
  16. Thank you for your insight on this. I had not really given the 'signal-value' much thought, but I recognize its effect on myself now that you mention it. And how it can affect what you expect of a production and lead to a kind of prejudice (and one that may even still color your opinion after seeing the production) That's certainly something to think about. I am just not sure who is the broader target-audience for the budget-listing on imdb (who you really list the info for), and thus what the norm would be to list there. Personally I rarely look at the budget-listing when checking up on a production there (I mostly just read the reviews and the technical specs :) ) So I was in doubt if it was mostly listed to benefit your reputation among other professionals (to make you appear more attractive for work-opportunities and such, in which case it would make obvious sense to follow whatever established norm exist) or more to satisfy the curiosity of the general audience (in which case the 'signal-value' point becomes more relevant) I don't have any experience with how imdb is used from the pro-side of things, as I have only used it from the audience-side myself so far. But if pros don't really need the budget-info listed there, then it may be smarter for me to omit it (and go by 'less is more', or at least 'less info is less clutter') since I generally don't have big budgets to play with anyway. And then I can always submit it on a case-by-case basis, for example if trying to submit work to a festival that requires it or such. Thanks Phil :) Living is learning.
  17. I just got my first short-film listed on imdb. Yay-me :) (I'm just a small-timer, but it is a great feeling all the same.) I have a question about the most appropriate thing to put in as the budget. I used my own equipment and my own time, so technically it did not cost me anything extra to make the film. Would you... 1: list the amount of money you were willing to spend to finish the film, even though you perhaps ended up spending much less. 2: list the amount of money you figured it actually cost you to do the film (basically just the electricity used during the hours it took to make the film, edit it, etc) 3: list the amount of money it would cost you if you had to rent/purchase equipment and crew, including expenses on meals you had during production. Even though you did not really have those expenses related specifically to the film (since you spent those money buying the camera/computer/etc for your own use at an earlier stage) Sorry, the post got accidentally posted before I had typed it out (because I hit ctrl-enter on the keyboard, as I thought it would do line-formatting and not posting)
×
×
  • Create New...