Excellent work, Mitchell.
I think it's super cool to work with your kids like that.
Thanks Ray, it is way too much fun and I love seeing them be creative.
I imagine that took quite a bit of work, and would like to hear more about the concepts and goals involved, the actual process from think session, to editing.
It was definitely a project, but only took a month of random, short, spurts. It was edited and uploaded right after the last scene was filmed (the opening scene of the video). I don't know where their ideas came from, other than they've been watching a lot of old kung fu movies for the past six months. They told me the general scene idea, I offered them some suggested ways of doing the camera work, then we would shoot it. They had the whole story worked out in their heads all along and I just did what I could to get it how they wanted it to look. After the scenes were in the camera I edited each segment, then did a final edit session with all the render scenes put in the correct order, grabbed sound files for beeps, footsteps, kung-fu, and my son e-mailed all the music he had made to my in-box, from his computer. Slapped it all together and voila... The 8+ minutes of wasted time you saw on Youtube, lol.
What are some of the things all of you learned and will be doing differently for episode 2 or would like to try?
I definitely learned a lot about camera work. Use a tripod, double check your exposure, use manual focus, use the T4i and not the point-and-shoot, good lighting is great/great lighting is king, record audio separately, don't leave your camera bag with all your gear in the truck (a somewhat separate story, but still applies), do 2 or 3 takes even if the 1st 2 are good, always use multiple camera angles (even if your in a hurry, it just adds depth to the story), sound can make or brake your movie, and making movies ROCKS.
That's the short list of mistakes and lessons on this project anyway,
Episode 2 will need to be coaxed out of them I'm afraid, a winter theme was suggested by one viewer...
