My Next Film

[Stephen Williams]

(just to clarify.. the mac crashed)

 

Hi Daniel,

 

Good luck, I think you are very brave giving a link to your film.

 

Best wishes,

 

Stephen

[Alex Haspel]

Innovation chaps ;) innovation...

 

 

Donnay umbrellas and sellotape.. the future of Hollywood. (It was pouring down..)

 

 

i had good experiences with sunshades, they're usable for light rain,

and also for sun protection in jibarm-caused high altitudes...

 

 

sorry for the highly off-topic post.

[Jim Feldspar]

There is an yearly publication named 'Great American Short Stories.' Its a compilation of good short stories from all over the U.S of A. You can buy it from Barnes and Noble :)

 

Good luck

For what purpose? Optioning a story legally? Or just swiping somebody's original idea(s)?

[Sakari Suuronen]

Don't mean to be a wiseguy, but if you were editing on FCP, isn't there a somekind of loglist in the system files that you could maybe backtrack at least some of your work? I'm probably wrong since it's been a while I've worked seriously on FCP....

 

We had a similar umberella rigging on an HMI just couple weeks ago.

[Bill DiPietra]

Today I was making loads of adjustments to the editing, because the editor spent an overall 2 hours in total on it. (over 4 weeks.... ....)

 

I used to cut three times that in a DAY!!!

 

 

And if anyone new to editing wants a handy tip, save the work every 20 minutes.

 

Otherwise you end up like me. Losing two hours of work.

Talk about learning the hard way.... :(

 

Another reason I always preferred old-fashioned film editing. :blink:

 

Congrats on finishing the film.

[Daniel Smith]

Ok. First of all, may I just say thankyou to everyone here for your helpfull input, I really appreciate it.

 

This isn't a post for sympathy, it's an apology with an explanation.

 

The film is ruined. In a nutshell. Over the last few weeks I have been getting up at early hours to catch the editing room opening hours to do some editing. It was *almost* TV quality.

 

But today, the editor had a look at it. All we needed to do was shorten it down a bit and add in the voice over audio. He ended up changing everything around. And saving over my version of the edit.

 

So yes.. the film still exists.. and I will probably still post it (after christmas now..) But yeh, everythings screwed and to be honest, I don't care anymore.

 

I'm not asking for 'Sorry to hear it' replies, I just wanted to apologize and explain why the film is not posted on the internet like I said it would be.

 

The editor told me not to worry and assured me that it will be fine. It won't.

 

 

Overall it was a good experience which I learnt a lot from. So it wasn't a total waste. It's just a shame the effort put into it will no longer reflect in the film.

 

 

Anyway. Thanks for the replies in this topic. You guys are awesome.

[Robert Hughes]

Rewind a bit. The film is ruined? Or just your 2 hour edit of it? (2 hours??? come on, you've got enough time for that before lunch). Now you know what you want to do, you can probably reedit the material in less time than before (as long as you still have the original camera elements). Fire the editor and do it again yourself.

Edited December 19, 2006 by Robert Hughes

[Daniel Smith]

Rewind a bit. The film is ruined? Or just your 2 hour edit of it? (2 hours??? come on, you've got enough time for that before lunch). Now you know what you want to do, you can probably reedit the material in less time than before (as long as you still have the original camera elements). Fire the editor and do it again yourself.

No unfortunatelly it was a lot more. More like 10 hours. Which, even so, doesn't sound like very much, the editing suites are only open for a few hours each day. And they all started at the crack of dawn, so I was getting up each morning when I didn't need to.

 

And trust me I would love to get rid of him and do it myself, but unfortunatelly, I'm not allowed.

 

 

 

Blow it there's no point in moping around, here is a very rough version of it:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bas/checkmate.wmv

 

 

I mean... I really hate to sound arrogant and everything, but I practically did EVERYTHING for this film. I mean even when it came to the shoot, we didn't have any transport, so I myself had to carry the camera kit, dolly, tripod, lighting kit and sound kit home over 2, hour long journeys. (4 hours travelling in total, on public busses, which were packed)

Edited December 19, 2006 by Daniel Ashley-Smith

[Daniel Smith]

Just to say, a few friends of mine had trouble just clicking on it and opening it straight up with wmp. If you right-click on it and then click on 'save target as' then it should work.

 

 

 

Oh.. and lets not forget the crappy crappy poster I knocked up... lol

 

 

 

Also just to mention, on the warmed up flashback scene, the white bits are not over blown, it's just that I de-saturated the highlights in post.

Edited December 20, 2006 by Daniel Ashley-Smith

[Greg Kowal]

i just saw your post right now, but if i was the one writing the screenplay i would kind of made it hidden to as of what the old man is taking... buying drugs would be shown as a paper bag with something inside.... him getting high would be a shot from behind or his legs or hands becoming relaxed maybe a couple of shots at some photographs around the house of his ( dead wife for example) , but i see you are done with the movie so forget about it :) i wanted to see your movie but the link isn`t working

[Andy Sparaco SOC]

when I was in school in pre-historic time before video-my college advisor was an egyptian film maker. And after patiently looking at my first 16mm film turned to me and said "Andy, your next film will be 50% better" And he was right and I always try to make my next film 50% better -as should you.

 

I looked at your film actually without sound and it tells a story. With a little distance you will find it isn't half as bad as you think it is.

[Daniel Smith]

i just saw your post right now, but if i was the one writing the screenplay i would kind of made it hidden to as of what the old man is taking... buying drugs would be shown as a paper bag with something inside.... him getting high would be a shot from behind or his legs or hands becoming relaxed maybe a couple of shots at some photographs around the house of his ( dead wife for example) , but i see you are done with the movie so forget about it :) i wanted to see your movie but the link isn`t working

Well it's a different story now but I'll certainly keep those ideas you've posted in mind for the future. Cheers!

 

And here is a youtube version of it:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cla_VaGVgU

 

 

 

when I was in school in pre-historic time before video-my college advisor was an egyptian film maker. And after patiently looking at my first 16mm film turned to me and said "Andy, your next film will be 50% better" And he was right and I always try to make my next film 50% better -as should you.

 

I looked at your film actually without sound and it tells a story. With a little distance you will find it isn't half as bad as you think it is.

Yeh, there's plenty of things I messed up on, which I could so easily put right if I had the chance to go back. The worrying thing is, I knew how to do these things, but when it came to it I just messed it up.

 

Anyways thanks for the advice. Hopefully the cinematography in my next film *will* be 50% better.

 

 

I have no idea what the final cut is going to look like now to be honest... considering the editor has now put the flashback scene at the beggining, and then the depressed dark scenes after. The thing he doesn't realise is that it will take hours to re-mix all of the audio for it. And at the rate he's working on it, and the time we have left, it's not going to happen.

 

Ah well... it's the cinematography that counted I suppose...

Edited December 20, 2006 by Daniel Ashley-Smith