Well there ya go. Colour me shockedOriginally Posted by McBain
Well there ya go. Colour me shocked
Are you using any sort of DOF adapter on the HV. How are you controlling its shutter and gain from aperture priority?
No, no DOF adapter. Just shooting wide open and zooming in slightly to achieve nice bokeh. Before I shoot a take, I just set the gain to auto, see what it looks like and then usually drop it down about three or more notches until it looks nicely exposed and there's no zebra lines on the actors' skin. That's the problem with consumer cameras: their auto exposure always overexposes slightly cos Mr & Mrs Public want nice, bright home videos. But so far I haven't had any major exposure headaches because we're usually filming under jungle canopies, in nice dappled light.
As for the shutter, I just shoot in aperture priority mode and let the camera decide which shutter speed to go with. In the early days I always used to slavishly stick to a 1/50 shutter speed because, you know, that's the conventional wisdom for this sort of production. But after a while, I came to realize that it didn't really matter which shutter speed I was on, there was hardly any visual difference. If you're shooting wide open in broad daylight, you just slap an ND filter on the camera and that drops the shutter speed way down anyway. It's probably imperative to stick to a fixed shutter speed if you're shooting 29.97 fps, but with a 25psf camera I find it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference.
Good to know, thank you.
Good work on doing a feature. I liked the colors of the trailer and was fun to watch!
Plus I always love a good adventure story.
Cheers.
This is coming along great.
It looks GREAT!!!
Unfortunately for me, like most other trailers, it shows WAYYYYYYYYY too much.
To show us here at hv20.com what your movie is, it is perfectly fine. And I appreciate it. IT LOOKS FRIGGIN' GREAT!!!!
As a teaser trailer i.e. to tease me in wanting to watch it, it fails miserably.
I realize I am in the minority, and most seem to want to see basically the whole movie in 30 seconds.
I MUCH rather be TEASED, i.e. show me some small aspect, WITHOUT giving away too much. This could be a small 30 second scene with some (very limited) narration.
If this were a theatrical release, and I was to sit in the theatre after having seen this trailer; the first 30 minutes of the movie [the 1st act] would be an utter bore,
because I would be waiting for the damn hairy monkey to show up already.
Trailers give away WAY too much IMO. We have a habit in our home to close our eyes and say "babababababababa" loudly over any trailer that comes on of a movie that we want to watch.
Most trailers SPOIL the movie for me. There are exceptions, but they are rare.
There, rant over......
Summary:
1) Your movie: looks great!
2) Your trailer: is great (compared to other trailers)
3) Your trailer: sucks for me personally (no interest to see the movie anymore - as I've already "seen" it now.)
That's true: the more intriguing the trailer/teaser is, the more people will want to watch the movie. If you show too much, then people will be disappointed as there won't be any surprises when watching the movie, some sort of déjà-vù.
Thanks for your feedback. Let me just respond by making a few points.
1. The "Throwback" teaser trailer barely shows anything. You might feel like you've "seen the whole movie", but trust me, you haven't. Not by a long shot. The teaser trailer just sets up the basic premise of the movie, but it doesn't give anything away. When I edited the teaser together, I deliberately left out a whole s***load of stuff that won't be revealed until the movie is released. There are shots in this movie that I won't be putting in any of the publicity material because to do so would blow the surprises I have in store. Believe me, I'm keeping this movie's secrets as tightly under wraps as Hitch did with "Psycho" back in 1960.
2. About 25% of the movie hasn't even been filmed yet, so there's a whole quarter of the movie that I couldn't even hint at in the teaser trailer because it literally hasn't been shot yet, so once again, trust me, you have not "seen the whole movie."
3. You assume that like I'm one of those Hollywood a**holes who just puts the whole movie in the trailer, like "Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows." Let me tell you: I'm at the other end of the spectrum from those guys. I myself hate trailers that show the whole film, so I'm certainly not about to go and do that with my own movie.
4. You assume that the first 30 minutes of the movie will be a bore while you sit there and watch two guys canoe up a river, go on a trek, search through some caves etc etc. You couldn't be more wrong. The movie opens with an action/suspense sequence a la a James Bond or Indiana Jones film, and then there's another action/suspense peak approximately every 10 minutes after that. I've structured the film like a Saturday matinee serial of old so the audience won't even have a chance to nod off. I've done that by employing a bit of non-linear storytelling here and there, and that's all I'm going to say about that subject for now.
It's a shame that you feel the teaser "fails miserably" to make you want to see the movie, but hey, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. But take my word for it: there is a lot in this movie that isn't even alluded to in the teaser, including a major character who doesn't even appear in those two minutes of video. The teaser is just the tip of the really big chunk of ice under the waterline. If you knew how little of the movie I've actually shown in the teaser, you'd be quite surprised. Magicians use misdirection all the time. They're masters at it. They show you things to make you think you've seen something when in fact you've seen something completely different. That's what I did with this teaser. I deliberately included shots taken completely out of context so you would be led to believe that ABC was happening when in fact XYZ is happening. You dig?
Aye.
I stand corrected....maybe....after seeing it!
Nice work McBain.
I'm always impressed with someone who can put together even a half-decent product and yours is looking really good from the trailer.
Michael.
Cheers, guys!
Hey guys, if you want to read a lot more about "Throwback" and see some brand-new stills, check this article out: http://roberthood.net/blog/index.php...sie-sasquatch/
McBain
Hi guys, the third production diary video for my upcoming HV20 horror feature "Throwback" is now online, and part of it showcases my HV20 rig and associated gear: .
As usual, questions and comments (technical, artistic or otherwise) are more than welcome.
Production is nearly complete. We only have one more easy scene left to shoot and we're done. Right now I'm deep into post-production, with almost half of the movie edited so far. We're hoping to unleash the movie on the film festival circuit in the second half of 2013.
For updates, check out our official site http://www.travisbain.com.au/throwback.htm or our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/throwbackmovie.
Cheers!
McBain
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