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Short Film - The Date, Shot for YouTube Short Film Competition
  • PhilldaagonyPhilldaagony

    Password: thedate

    We shot this short film for the YouTube short film competition. We went from concept, to written script, auditions and casting, to shooting, and editing in a 6-week span starting in mid-February.

    We used the Quantum Orion v9b patch, and couldn't have been happier with the results. We can't thank @Vitaliy_Kiselev and Nick @Driftwood and everyone else on this forum for their hard work. This is truly a unique community and I can't wait to see what the rest of the year has in store.

    Also, the ending credits are truncated because of the 15:00 running time, the version of the film we plan on releasing to festivals is about a minute longer with some footage added in the support group video, and extended credits. Also, I uploaded the version we submitted to Vimeo to share with everyone here, because I despis YouTube's compression.

  • 17 Replies sorted by
  • pdluminapdlumina

    @ 14:29 black frame?

  • adamquesadaadamquesada

    @Philldaagony Cool short Thanks

  • atticusdatticusd

    @Philldaagony

    Really well delivered story. With that theme you can go mainstream really easy even if you don’t want to, but you managed to stay unique. Congratulations to you, your crew and your talent. The visuals were beautiful as well.

    Now, the things I would change:

    Editing: A few cuts were a little bit abrupt for my taste (only a few) and the corporation logo should be more “corporate” to make the video look credible.

    Dialogue and acting: Some of the acting and dialogues (again, only a few) could use a little bit of polish. Not that they were bad, I just think that they could be better with just a tiny bit of polish.

    Music: The piano stuff was a little over the top for my taste but that’s a subjective thing. I’m a picky motherfucker when it comes to scores so you might be better off not listening to me.

    But enough with the negative shit. This is a gorgeous, unique movie and an inspiration to a lot of us who are sitting on our asses and spending too much time lurking around forums and too little delivering good stories like yours. You should be really proud of yourselves, mark my words.

    P.D.: Would you be so kind as to tell us about your sound setup and your grading approach?

  • atticusdatticusd

    Also, I'd like to add that I love the use of light all through the film and most of the camera work was pretty neat as well.

  • GeraldGerald

    Great story and well done. I agree with atticusd for the piano. For me it is a bit to present. And i would take more work on the sound. If i had to edit, firts i would do compression on dialogs. And i would spend (some) other tunes. For changing the mood from time to rime, and giving a bit of speed without shorten the scenes.

    I think its a great work as it is now. If you have littel bit of time and power you can make an outstanding Short Film.

  • PhilldaagonyPhilldaagony

    @pdlumina Thanks for spotting that! I checked the final sequence in premiere, and found the culprit. Changed, and re-exported.

    @atticusd Thanks for the input and compliments! I'll try and throw up a video showing some of the grading techniques, but it was fairly simple and I can thank @shian for his ColorGhears presets and tutorials. Without those I don't think we would have been able to achieve the look we wanted in the allotted timeframe. I wanted to eliminate the green tinge native to the smooth picture setting, make things look just a little cooler, and shift the density to achieve a more cinematic look.

    Because of the time constraints I could only do so much with the billboard replace, and the billboards are one of the first things I want to change. Now that I have some time to tweak things before submitting to other festivals I plan on going back and tweaking the audio, and shooting a couple additional scenes.

    The camera work was pretty nice eh? Ha, I have to thank my good friend Ryan Humm for helping DP, and supplying us with his ARRI Lighting kit. Those things are a treat to work with.

    Four sound though, we used a rode NTG-2 or 3 shotgun mic and the H4N Zoom audio recorder the entire shoot. However, when we were on the beach the winds were a pretty constant 20-35mph with larger gusts (coldest shoot of my life). But, we were lucky enough that a natural bank on the beach had built up over the winter and created a nice wind-shield that dropped the wind noticeably. Still, we wrapped the Rode in two Deadcats and brought two gigantic 7x3 or 4 foot boards to break the wind even more. Honestly, I was terrified that the audio was going to be horrific.

    @Gerald, thank you for the dialogue suggestion. I want to go back through, and export the an .omf version of the audio to edit, but for some reason soundtrack wouldn't recognize the dialogue files.

    I attached a couple stills of early tests grading footage.

    grade1.jpg
    1901 x 1611 - 201K
    grade2.jpg
    1921 x 536 - 110K
  • HillTop1HillTop1

    I really good piece. Nice work! It's funny how you said for youtube but post it on vimeo lol, but yah the youtube compression sucks bad.

  • PhilldaagonyPhilldaagony

    @HillTop1

    Ha I know right? I'd rather link to vimeo on here than YouTube!

  • atticusdatticusd

    @Philldaagony

    Thanks for sharing your workflow. It really is a nice film. Can't wait to see more stuff from you!

  • ctbehrensctbehrens

    Nice work! Very engaging.

    Chris

  • Mr_MooreMr_Moore

    @Philldaagony

    We wrapped the Rode in two Deadcats and brought two gigantic 7x3 or 4 foot boards to break the wind even more. Honestly, I was terrified that the audio was going to be horrific.

    Really? I could swear it was ADR. The bulk of it anyway.

    Good job!

  • shianshian

    NIce! It's good to see ColorGHear making an impact. I'm glad it made things easy for you, and gave you great results. Thanks for sharing. I'd add this to the ColorGHear vimeo channel, but with it being private, makes that impossible. When you can go public with it. Please add it.

    Great work!

  • PhilldaagonyPhilldaagony

    @Shian I'll definitely let you know when we go public. I can't thank you enough for your presets and tutorials, and I'm just as excited to see how Adobe integrates Speed Grade into CS6.

    We're shopping a slightly different version of the film around to festivals (there's about 1:30 of added footage including the extended credits). Once we make our submissions and see what their "rules" are regarding release I'll contact you ASAP. Thanks again!

  • gabiloursongabilourson

    @philldaagony Great job ! Bravo !

  • kanintesovakanintesova

    Wow! Great work you did. Truly inspiring!

    Keep on truckin' ;)

  • majoraxismajoraxis

    I loved it! Fantastic work. Really well done. Congratulations to you and your team on producing such a great film!

  • PhilldaagonyPhilldaagony

    Thanks for all the kind words, advice, and interest! We're currently submitting the short a few festivals in the LA area (my production partner just moved out there after we completed) and are eying a few submissions in the Midwest area (easier to secure a spot). I've updated the cut on Vimeo and eliminated a black frame, and added a few smoother transitions earlier in the piece during the cheesy support group video!

    Thanks again for everything and I look forward to contributing more to the community soon as well!

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