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watch My Team's New Demo Reel -- Feedback appreciated!!

Hey everybody! (Hey Dr. Nick! --- only cause the Simpsons marathon just began) Anyway, my team and I have been producing a plethora of new content in the last few months and as such we felt it was time that we re-work our demo reel. The previous one was over two years old...so yeah. Check it out and let me know what you all think, we're always looking for any feedback so we can grow as filmmakers! If you like the reel and are interested in our content, please consider subscribing, we just began building our audience and we're on the (slow and steady) rise! Enjoy guys!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K472j_saro
 
Wow, you guys just started? I love the OTS action shots. Those are always my favorite. I have a couple of questions, though. Did you have to outsource your special effects designer or did you just happen to know someone? Also how many people make up your production crew and how do you guys keep it together?

I ask this because my brother and I are currently trying to build a production company but, one of the biggest challenges we face is in keep a crew together. We were really successful with everything we've done so far. However, due to our slow pace, the people we hired to help us with the first promo are kind of losing interest. How do you keep others outside the net engaged and willing to you know...sit down and talk about a plan of action? I mean, I have a gaffer and a DP and all that but, they're more like contract friends only willing to help out on production rather than marketing and everything else.

One last thing...Do you have a site to subscribe to? I'd really like to see where you guys go with your stuff. This is great!
 
Thanks for the positive feedback! I'm more than happy to answer your questions, some of which may come off a bit surprising. Everything my team and I do is done on an incredibly small scale in terms of production. We work in a small unit but produce large projects in a two week turn around.

I write, direct, and edit all of the projects we work on---editing includes main cutting, visual effects, sound design, and titles. We had a dp, but after college moved everyone around a bit he was unavailable to come back for our last 4 productions, so I've also taken up the DP mantle and but for many of the shoots I'm in the production so we have two people that serve as camera operators. Our casts are relatively small --- never more than 5 people really --- and we'll rehearse as a full cast two days in the week leading up to a shoot. Since our shorts are no more than 2:30-3:00 long, I take a lot of time to rehearse all of the actors so that we create an actually engaging short video that stands strong in character performances, rather than just as visual-eye candy.

All of us in the team have insanely hectic lives, more so than we anticipated before going off to college, but we work around that as best we can for scheduling. Each short video we make we'll shoot in a single day, at most two if there's a big company move required. But that being said, our crew, on a perfect day, is 4 people, plus our 3 cast members. However, the cast consists of myself and three other friends whom I've worked with for over 5 years now on different projects, and they've served as both actors AND crew on every production, so even though I have 4 people (myself included) as dedicated crew members, I can have as many as up to 6 or 7 crew on hand to help out as grips, gafs, or boom ops depending on what a shot requires.

In terms of maintaining interest/morale amongst a crew, it comes down to two things (in my experience at least): working with people that genuinely like you/are interested in what you're creating, and demonstrating incredible enthusiasm for any given project. My first short film had one actor, one camera man, no dialogue (so no on set audio required), and between everything we needed for that film, there were a total of two people involved in creating the entire project. We did a handful of festival runs with the project, won some awards, and afterwards some local close friends expressed an interest in doing what my best friend and I had done. From then on (five years ago), we formed what's been our crew ever since, so those initial relationships were built on a familiarity and trust that came with being friends with many of these people before asking if they wanted to help us with our film projects.

To keep all of them aboard for the last five years though requires more than just a past friendship, because on a film set you can destroy even the best of relationship in a heartbeat. Like I mentioned, your enthusiasm for any given project will trickle down to the rest of a crew---if they sense you're making something just for the sake of making something then they're not likely to care about the project in even the slightest respect. You'd be surprised how far confidence and lots of enthusiasm will help carry a crew --- make them believe in what they're helping to create (give the project meaning, both to yourself and to the crew) and they will work hard and stay on board with you through whatever you make --- assuming you treat everyone respectfully haha. That being said though, you don't want to fake this enthusiasm, whatever you're making should be a distinct choice --- think why you're choosing to make this project, as opposed to something else --- make sure you're choosing something that you have a genuine passion for, that way the enthusiasm expressed isn't a necessity in order to get the project made, but rather it's a result of the project you've chosen to make.

As you create more and more with the same people they'll be more and more excited to work with you in the future and start asking you when the next project will begin and things like that. Once that happens, then it'll motivate you to keep producing content, and it turns into a happy cycle.

Our main website is under renovation at the moment, but we invite everyone to subscribe to our youtube channel, as that is where you'll without a doubt be able to keep up to date with all our new projects that we release! (sorry for the novel of a response)
 
I was dying at that "2.35 anamorphic" line hah.

You guys got some good shit going on. And from the sound of it, you work in the exact same way that our group does. Minimal crew and everyone does everything haha. We've also had our fair share of strained relationships with those that we've worked with. Some of which I wish we still had a relationship with.

I also envy all your VFX work. I've been doing this for over 10years and can't CREATE sfx for the life of me. You guys been doing this for 5 years and got all that going on? I applaud you guys. Also some recognizable fight sounds that many of us indy people use haha.
 
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In terms of maintaining interest/morale amongst a crew, it comes down to two things (in my experience at least): working with people that genuinely like you/are interested in what you're creating, and demonstrating incredible enthusiasm for any given project. My first short film had one actor, one camera man, no dialogue (so no on set audio required), and between everything we needed for that film, there were a total of two people involved in creating the entire project. We did a handful of festival runs with the project, won some awards, and afterwards some local close friends expressed an interest in doing what my best friend and I had done. From then on (five years ago), we formed what's been our crew ever since, so those initial relationships were built on a familiarity and trust that came with being friends with many of these people before asking if they wanted to help us with our film projects.

Ah, I gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. See, I've always done film but, I was never really serious about it until recently. Basically film and storytelling was just my brother and I with a hi-8 camera going around and filming stupid videos of us terrorizing the cat, like we were Steve Erwin. Sometimes, we filmed stuff with our friends but those guys were never really into film. It was just a fun thing to do, you know?

But, then I went to college and tried to really figure out what I wanted to do. I shit you not, I spent 6 years in 5 different majors trying to figure out what I wanted to do and in the end I had a degree in History, Teaching, and Geographical Information Systems. But, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. My brother who ended up actually pursuing film kept egging me on to join him so I did. I wrote and both of us directed. It's been a year and a half and though I'm poor as hell this is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I've finally discovered what I want to do. I just wish I knew about it earlier. Then I could have probably found my crew and be more effective like you.

At the moment I can only afford what's around me and unfortunately I'm not around like-minded people. I'm very much so a transcendental filmmaker in that, I believe that film has the power to inspire generations to do things differently. However, every filmmaker I've met so far seems to only want to make films because its fun to them. I mean, that's great but there's so much meaning to film than we realize, especially today as we're undergoing a huge transition.

Also, I hate to bug you about this but, what's the name of your youtube channel and do you have a link?
 
I was dying at that "2.35 anamorphic" line hah.

You guys got some good shit going on. And from the sound of it, you work in the exact same way that our group does. Minimal crew and everyone does everything haha. We've also had our fair share of strained relationships with those that we've worked with. Some of which I wish we still had a relationship with.

I also envy all your VFX work. I've been doing this for over 10years and can't CREATE sfx for the life of me. You guys been doing this for 5 years and got all that going on? I applaud you guys. Also some recognizable fight sounds that many of us indy people use haha.

Glad you enjoyed the reel, and thanks for the vfx props haha. Also happy to hear we're not the only ones operating with a rag tag crew of filmmakers---keep on keepin' on man!
 
Ah, I gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. See, I've always done film but, I was never really serious about it until recently. Basically film and storytelling was just my brother and I with a hi-8 camera going around and filming stupid videos of us terrorizing the cat, like we were Steve Erwin. Sometimes, we filmed stuff with our friends but those guys were never really into film. It was just a fun thing to do, you know?

But, then I went to college and tried to really figure out what I wanted to do. I shit you not, I spent 6 years in 5 different majors trying to figure out what I wanted to do and in the end I had a degree in History, Teaching, and Geographical Information Systems. But, I still didn't know what I wanted to do. My brother who ended up actually pursuing film kept egging me on to join him so I did. I wrote and both of us directed. It's been a year and a half and though I'm poor as hell this is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

I've finally discovered what I want to do. I just wish I knew about it earlier. Then I could have probably found my crew and be more effective like you.

At the moment I can only afford what's around me and unfortunately I'm not around like-minded people. I'm very much so a transcendental filmmaker in that, I believe that film has the power to inspire generations to do things differently. However, every filmmaker I've met so far seems to only want to make films because its fun to them. I mean, that's great but there's so much meaning to film than we realize, especially today as we're undergoing a huge transition.

Also, I hate to bug you about this but, what's the name of your youtube channel and do you have a link?

I'm happy that you're doing something you truly have a passion for, and I'm even more happy to hear that that something is filmmaking! It's certainly a tough industry to jump into, it's becoming increasingly saturated with the transition into digital filmmaking so standing out becomes key. I'll be honest, I'm a filmmaker because there's nothing else I can see myself doing. I love it, I practice it constantly, and it is an art form. Though I do pride myself in the fact that one of the biggest reasons I do this gig is because it is insanely fun to me, I also know it's capability of being an incredible form of art. The art side of things is what I practice in film school, as well as beefing up my technical skills. I sprinkle in some clever little artistic elements into my short youtube videos, but being in audience building mode I have to recognize that the mass of audiences on youtube aren't looking for art, they're looking for entertainment. So as a result I am strategizing in the kinds of content I'm producing at the moment. Again, I write direct and edit all by myself, so I have a lot of projects (both short and longer form) planned for the future, but for the time being I'm gonna continue to produce these short action/comedy vfx driven shorts.

The challenge/purpose of them in the first place (when my team and I started producing them 3 months ago) was to make the action/comedy vfx shorts that have already been so popular on youtube, but to have them written/directed/rehearsed with as much care as a two hour feature film. Each short was no more than 3 minutes, and I reahearsed each scene with breakdowns, beats, character actions, history, relationships, etc., and dove into creating actual characters to inhabit these 2:30 shorts rather than caricatures and just "type" characters. As a result, a large majority of the comments from people who watched the shorts said that they thought the acting was really good, especially for the type of video we were creating---again, trying to stand out.

Keep making art, but don't be afraid to get noticed by doing something you find "less than" what you really want to do.

My youtube channel link is www.youtube.com/markdepasqualefilms
 
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