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watch ASSets: A short film conceived planned and shot in just a few hours. Hope you laugh.

msp1518

msp1518

So I was walking around NYC one day and saw this guy flat out gawking at women's asses. It was so blatant as to be funny. It got me thinking. So I wrote down an idea on my Blackberry's memo pad and decided to shoot it.

Grabbed my buddy, Morgan, who had appeared in a short I shot a week earlier. Grabbed my wife and best friend and a 60D and went outside and just winged it. All of the POV shots were done on the sly and naturally I had to do my best not to get caught.

None of this has been color corrected and certainly I need to stabilize some shots, but all in all, I thinks it good for a few laughs. I need to find a song I can legally use, of course. :D

I'll screen this, along with two other of my short films, on July 26 in NYC at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. After-Set.com is sponsoring the event. Any New Yorkers out there? Please come.

This was edited on Adobe CS5 Premiere Pro and it was really the first time I had edited anything.

BY THE WAY: The shot towards the end where I zoom out, yeah, my wife basically stopped acting and looked off to her left (lack of focus), so I need to create an fx shot here and do a kind of iris in on the guy or something. Guess I need to learn After Effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NQL__m0rsU
 
Could have been about half the length (or less) and it may have made it funnier. I'm also kind of opposed to opening credits for what is essentially a visual joke.

Really nicely filmed though, and your actor was cracking me up. :)
 
Some nice shots.

Was the moving camera deliberate (IE No Tripod/rolling cam mount) Just wondering if you were wanting that effect-sometimes I found the bouncing camera to be a little distracting.

The editing seems to be pretty good as far as shot to shot, and some funny dialogue :)

I think you've got a neat short here, again the bouncing camera distracted me (and that just might be me personally-perhaps you were going for a certain effect) :)
 
RE: Shakey-cam...

It was not intentional. It was unavoidable. I had to get the shots without being arrested. NOT an easy thing to do. Had I been using a camcorder, it would have been easier as I would have auto focus. But using a 60D I had to maintain a certain distance.

I am going to put the POV shots through Adobe After Effect's 5.5's new stabilization tool. That will be a big help.

Next week I will play around with a shorter length version.

By the way, I welcome all responses, but sarcasm isn't very nice.
 
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I enjoyed it! The topic of the film was perfect ;) and so I thought the length was just fine. The shaky camera didn't distract me too much either. Once it's color graded it will look nicer.
 
Must have been work getting release forms for the 10,000 people in Times Square.

I'm totally down with the shoot-and-go idea. Theoretically, you could shoot two or three films a week like this. Make more, and you'll eventually refine your process into a style. This one needed a stronger punchline or payoff.

And your wife does have a nice ass. :D
 
msp1518 said:
I need to create an fx shot here and do a kind of iris in on the guy or something. Guess I need to learn After Effects.
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You have pretty good motion control (and masking abilities) in Premiere, if you don't want to jump into AEFX yet.

The film: The actual setup is hilarious. I know a few people like that. Ending is pretty weak, though. Was expecting a comeback or rebound of some kind, at least.

The actor was great, btw.
 
Unfortunately, warp stabilizer in AE is going to crop the heck out of your shots, but it might work on the wides and the gluteal shots. Just an FYI, if you're shooting in a public place you don't need release forms in the US.
 
haha nice one
the guy's facial expressions were priceless :)
only reason I wouldn't do this is because if you got caught, you might get an ass beating

sorry, that was cheesy :P
 
Thanks for the comments, guys. Morgan Nichols is the actor and he IS terrific. He did another short with me for the Straight8 contest that he just nailed. I am aching to get it back. It's called F--- FACEBOOK and is about how much social networking sucks for personal relationships.

For this one I shot guerrilla style because I didn't want to get slapped or arrested for being a pervert. I was a little worried about that.

I would advise everyone with a camera who wants to direct to just go out there and create shorts on a whim. Just shoot. And then shoot some more. You will learn a few things, guaranteed. It was fun to shoot and educational in helping me learn how to edit.

The actor at the end who plays the boyfriend is Sifu Vincent Lyn and he can kill a man in two seconds just by looking at him. You guys see OPERATION CONDOR? He's the lead villain who fights Jackie Chan at the end in the wind tunnel. He's also a good friend, retired from acting, but appeared just to have a giggle.

And yes, my wife has a GREAT ASS! :D She didn't even get mad when I asked her to be in it and found the experience to be fun.

The song is from YELLO and called OH YEAH and yeah, it is perfect for the short. I thought of it before I actually shot a frame of footage. I can use the song on YouTube, but am in negotiations for the rights to use it elsewhere.

My hope is that I can use warp stabilizer at its minimum settings for some of the jumpy shots to take away a slight amount of jitter. Even a little will help.

I've got more shorts in the can and will post them after my July 26 screening with After-Set in NYC.

Anyone live in NYC or nearby?
 
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Re: Public Crowd Shots

CamVader said:
Just an FYI, if you're shooting in a public place you don't need release forms in the US.
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I was, BTW, joking about that. All of the Times Square shots are fine because they are shot so wide. Nobody is identifiable.

However, any time you have somebody's recognizable face shot in a public space, a release is a safer way to go. There's a lot of face-blurring going on these days because of fear of lawsuits. It used to be that you could get away without releases, but even news organizations now either shoot crowds from behind, show them from the neck down, or just blur them. This is especially true when discussing sensitive subject matter; for example, whenever news stories are done about Americans being overweight, you will always see shots of heavy folks in public places with their faces blurred or not shown.

In other words, ask a lawyer whenever there's a question. You can't assume that it's always fine, and context matters.
 
DirtyPicturesTV said:
I was, BTW, joking about that. All of the Times Square shots are fine because they are shot so wide. Nobody is identifiable.

However, any time you have somebody's recognizable face shot in a public space, a release is a safer way to go. There's a lot of face-blurring going on these days because of fear of lawsuits. It used to be that you could get away without releases, but even news organizations now either shoot crowds from behind, show them from the neck down, or just blur them. This is especially true when discussing sensitive subject matter; for example, whenever news stories are done about Americans being overweight, you will always see shots of heavy folks in public places with their faces blurred or not shown.

In other words, ask a lawyer whenever there's a question. You can't assume that it's always fine, and context matters.
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Absolutely. There was an old SNL skit years ago, a fake commercial actually, where a lawyer would say "A lawsuit requires merit in order to be successful...FALSE!" :lol:

News is where I come from and we would have consultants come in and give us the 411/911 speech on the subject. Unfortunately, anyone can be sued by anybody for any reason - even if you have a signed release form. Sadly, the deeper your pockets, the more likely you are to be sued at some point.
 
Hah. I enjoyed it. Though, I do agree with Dready's comments that it would benefit from brevity.

Zensteve, you know a few guys like that? You must only know a few guys. :D

msp, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that any of those first few comments were sarcastic. I think I know the one you're referring to, and I think that comment could have been intended to be taken at face-value.
 
I've played with a shorter version, but when I show it to people, they say they like the longer version. Were I better with sound editing I could seamlessly edit the sound down to a minute in length and make it work. But I'm new to editing stuff myself, therefore, I have these growing pains.
 
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