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Post nuclear -short


Lauri Hakala

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  • 2 weeks later...

very impressive man. do you have any stats you could give us? lighting, camera, film stock ( looks film to me ) etc. I've always wanted to see a DP's featurette instead of a directors. That way you could watch the set ups. If you got some behind the scene footage would love to see it.

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very impressive man. do you have any stats you could give us? lighting, camera, film stock ( looks film to me ) etc. I've always wanted to see a DP's featurette instead of a directors. That way you could watch the set ups. If you got some behind the scene footage would love to see it.

 

 

>> shot on dvx100b

 

I would guess then his film stock is a MiniDV tape and 3 CCDs.

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I checked it out and I could tell it was video but it did look good. The acting was decient, production design was good, I especially liked the binocular device and frypan. They had the beat up look that fit perfectly. Casting was good. The one area that could have been inproved on was plot. This looked like something taken out of a bigger movie, which it may well have been, but if so, you should have presented it as such, however, if it is meant to stand alone as a self contained story, the characture could have been a little bit more well defined. Your description told me what the situation was but not the film. I didn't know who these people were, where they were or why they were doing the things they did from the film so I fould myself making up my own story to fill in the blanks rather than being drawn into yours. There were one or two camera angles that were distracting and slowed the action down somewhat, but this was minor.

 

I also thought fading to black for the fight scene was a bit of a cop out. I wouldn't have had the hero shoot the guy at all sence the gun sorta came out of nowhere. You had already very prominately established the knife in the opening sequence. I would have had the hero struggle, to the point of almost passing out, keepng the camera on his face all the while so you could see the terror and despiration in his eyes, have him spot the knife he had in the opening sequence, reach out, stretching to get to it and finally getting his fingers on the back of the handle. As he's choking and coughing about to pass out, he's finally able get it into his hand and viciously thrusts it into the bad guy's gut. Then as the bad guy falls it releases the chain. He coughs and struggles to roll over, pulls the knife from the bad guy's gut and drags himself up the bad guy's body to hold the knife at it's throat. Seeing it's dead, He struggles to sit up agaist the concrete and looks around wildly to see if there are any others around, Seeing nothing and breathing hard, he closes his eyes and tilts his head back to rest against the concrete as you fade to black and in the blackness we hear the howling sound you established earlier. But that's what IIII would have done. Over all though, this is one of the better films I've seen in this forum and I did enjoy watching it. B)

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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Hey sorry guys that I haven't been answering to your questions. Thanks so much for the compliments and James I think your suggestion to the ending is much better than it was now. This was kind of a test short for the post nuclear world, how does it work, are people interested in seeing more of this kind of shorts? Now I am planning a bit longer short with the same theme but it takes place in winter and we really try to bite firmly on story.

 

Jesús and others, here's some making of:

 

http://www.students.tut.fi/~hakala52/mm2/mm2.htm

 

and

 

http://www.tpu.fi/~k4lhakal/making/

 

We really used only large sheets of styrofoam as reflectors and I tried to make some detail on the actors face with putting some junk between the sun and the actor. Also we shot only during the few magical hours in the evening when the sun light isn't so hard and one can exposure both the sky and the grounds at the same time.

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Lauri, I actually think you have the makings of a low budget feature here. I think you ought to develop a script based on the elements from this short. It's been a whilr sence I saw a post-apacalypic sci/fi flick. I'd take a shot at, at least doing a treatment based on this and see what you can come up with. It might be fun. B)

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Before you do anything. write shoot edit or anything you simply MUST read Cormac McCarthy's new book THE ROAD. It is exactly about what you are doing. He is a master story teller and you might benefit from his perspective. and his is that of the bleakest bleakest flavor.

 

I thought your short was good. well shot and very good production design. excellent location. maybe the POV of his "camera" should be more low tech and weird you know with static and odd video hits etc.

 

And i did missed a good fight at the end.

 

good work

 

f

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Thanks,

 

I shot in 4:3 letterboxed mode and just cropped those black bars out from that flash presentation. I used the Macromedia Flash 8 Video Encoder and the video codec was On2 VP6, Audio MP3 128kbs. This was the first time I used that kind of codec but it held the quality quite well. Compression was also fast with that Flash 8 video encoder.

 

I also owned the panasonic anamorphic adapter but it is quite pain in the ass to use and it eats up the little dof-possibilities that are left in these 1/3" cameras. I have now sold it and I'll soon buy a 35mm adapter.

 

James Steven Beverly, we are definitely going to shoot a new movie with these same themes, maybe not feature length, but at least ten minutes :D

 

Frank Barrera, thanks for that book tip, I'll read that for sure.

 

ps.

We are doing a website for these projects, and it will open in a few weeks on http://www.badlaa.com

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lauri,

 

That's some incredible camera latitude. It beat the high-def Sony Z1U I used for my short.. what do I mean? The actor is lit, but not overexposed, nor is the ground overexposed - and you can still see the sky's blue! Then again, you said you shot at golden hour, right?

 

Questions:

 

a) How did you get the crane shots?

 

B) Did you use a real (professional) track, and if not, how did you get the tracking shots?

 

c) The compositing - which application was that created and finalized in?

 

EXCELLENT Doping, excellent sound (that really sold it) and great piece all together. It's fantastic that you don't need to have any particular language - it speaks for itself. The acting is legit too!

 

Cheers!

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That's a fantastic short guys. All aspects were top notch. Great sound design. Definately some fo the best footage I've seen from the DVX100B. I thought the fade to black on the crane shot was good. Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to seeing more from you guys. ;)

Edited by Carl Brenner
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Questions:

 

a) How did you get the crane shots?

 

b ) Did you use a real (professional) track, and if not, how did you get the tracking shots?

 

c) The compositing - which application was that created and finalized in?

 

Thanks so much!

 

a) We had a DIY-crane which I have built a year ago. I think you can get a quite nice view of it from those making of pics I posted earlier.

 

b ) All those tracking shots were made with my DIY- skater dolly, nice tool! You can see it also from those pics. Here's another link for the skater: (no camera mount yet)

 

http://www.students.tut.fi/~hakala52/skater/

 

So in conclusion I didn't use a "normal" dolly at all.

 

c) The compositing and the color grading were done in After Effects.

 

 

Here's an example:

 

1.jpg

 

1) RAW footage.

 

2.jpg

 

2) Here I have brought the ship from 3dsmax as a TGA-sequence in to the After Effects and have dragged it over the RAW-footage. It isn't looking good at all :D

 

3.jpg

 

3) I had to draw a mask because I wanted the ship to come from behind the rock. And it was also done because I wanted to replace the sky with a cloudless one. Only little of rotoscoping when his head goes over the rock line.

 

4.jpg

 

4) Here I have placed the earlier shot sky background -layer behind the main layer and it sits there quite nicely.

 

5.jpg

 

5) Now the ship is behind the rock, but it doesn't look too real.

 

6.jpg

 

6) Here I have added some Channel noise, Light wrap (from the sky layer), Edge composite and glow. Only the CC is missing.

 

7.jpg

 

7) The CC'd final composite.

 

Hope this helps.

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i think it would be nice to see some narration in the beginning... male voice it would kind of fill out the sound.... but i would have never guessed it was shot on DVX100, i mean i`ve seen some good footage but this one is just really film like... awsome.. i would love to see this short finished... but like i said my ears are dying to hear some male VOICE...

Edited by Greg Kowal
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Great job on the visual... It make us realize the potential of low budget shooting when you have some creativity and knowledge... My only reserve is about the story it self... As a DOP exercice, it is well done... but cinematographically, it is a litle bit weak... not very original.... What is the point of such film ? don't mean anything to me... not really impress

 

But, if you work hard on a good screenplay, you have true potential... :D

 

Don't forget that Filmmaking isn't just making good images...

 

-----

 

Some Quotes:

 

"No pretty pictures, no pretty images, but meaningfull images, and necessary pictures"

-Robert Bresson-

 

"Conscience and content must come before any technique - for any artist in any art form"

-Andrei Tarkovsky-

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  • 2 months later...
WOW - the bet footage I seen for a DVX 100!!!!!!!!!!! Insane!!! well done mates - the image has great quality to it!

 

my best,

Joey Dee

 

Thank you guys! This really was very test like short, I admit it all :D But next time will concentrate on story.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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There is one think that could improve the vfx of the spaceship. It looks like its made of metallic components and its quite a sunny day so some light reflections would be good maybe even some simulations of overexposing of this element in the compositions. Also think about cloud and sky reflections.

 

regards

Pawel

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