archived-videos THE CONTINGENCY PLAN - 4 minute pyro/comedy

Buddy Greenfield said:
How did you do the window?
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I used some glass elements, from Action Essentials 2. I also shot the scene with the door open and closed. That way, I could draw a mask (the jagged glass) on the closed door and layer it over the open door. When Sheila comes through and looks at the jagged glass, it isn't actually there. The trick to masking is to get "plate" shots of the background, in this case one with the door closed and one with it open.

If you noticed, as I fall through the door, a large shard of glass falls from above. That was simply a triangle mask of part of the closed door. Using "Position," I can drop the whole door out of the frame, so it seems like it is just that one shard falling. technically, you could do all this in layers, with no extra footage, but it would take much more time to handle each shard layer. It was my first time trying such an effect and it was a lot of fun.
 
Looking at it a 2nd time I see the two shots.
At 1st glance I honestly thought you used some sugar glass or something. lol

I'll have to check out the Action Essentials 1 and 2.

-Thanks-
 
Zensteve said:
Pretty creative, recycling the pyro-footage like that. :cool:
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Thankyou, coming from the man who was there! It was just a matter of compositing myself and Sheila in the middle of the scenes (below).


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Neat little movie. Looks like it would have been a lot of fun on the set and the F/X looks good. The TV looses one of the bullet holes before you cut to the next scene. Shots were okay and everything looked okay for this short. Sound seemed fine. Story was fine.

Keep up the good work.
 
wridingrlm said:
The TV looses one of the bullet holes before you cut to the next scene.
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Good eyes. I just noticed that, today! Oh, well. I'll fix it, before I put it on a DVD. There is another discrepancy, where the jagged glass is gone from the background, when Sheila starts running. There is one other thing, which is shell casings coming out of the wrong side of the gun, but I did that on purpose, so they could fly at the camera.
 
This was great. I liked it a lot better than Screamin Demon. Still...for what you guys are doing, and how astute you are at a lot of production, it just seems...lacking. There are too many little things that are missing that hold back the production. I guess it's because I see major promise and potential...but the quality is too home-grown. I don't know...more lighting design? Sound design? A better camera?

Don't get me wrong...I like your stuff...more than a lot of what I see online...It's just I like it so much...I wish it were better.

:)
 
M1chae1 said:
I guess it's because I see major promise and potential...but the quality is too home-grown. I don't know...more lighting design? Sound design? A better camera?........I like it so much...I wish it were better.
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Hmmm, not sure what you're getting at (aside from adding gels and some shadow gobos), because I'm fairly happy with how it looks and sounds on my system. DEMON uses some pretty cool shadows and fogged shots, so I'm wondering if you could view it on another computer and tell me if it's any different? And to think, I was admiring how smooth I got the framerate on that TV movie (BLACK CRYSTAL) playback (it was not a matte). :D

Regardless, I will heed your comments, because there is much room for improvement and there's nothing wrong with aspiring to look more like studio quality. My camera is the Panasonic HVX200, so I'm pretty damn happy with it. My external mic is the Sennheiser ME66, which I place on a boomstand, for closeup audio. Sheila and I take turns shooting each other, so most shots are static - though DEMON had 3 pretty good handheld moments, especially her walking into the garage.


One note: The Squib demos weren't originally part of the movie and they were done as the sun was going down. (see pic of squibs and wall, above) We shot most outdoor stuff, after magic hour, when rays were almost gone. You can see one ray, on the dummy face (above). This was a case of making the movie look like the squib footage. We did not spend one dollar on it (or on DEMON), so getting those squibs in were the production value.


EDIT: A little excusing, here, but all three of these movies (including STUPID GUY, plus 2 unposted scenes) were all made for IndieMeet. Zensteve arrived on Friday and I told him to go mingle, because I was just finishing the SCREAMIN' DEMON movie! :lol: We really cranked them out. So, yes, they could look better with time to plan.
 
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Hmmm...maybe some color correction and grading?

Perhaps someone else can chime in on what I'm seeing? I'll get back with ya...off to work.
 
M1chae1 said:
Hmmm...maybe some color correction and grading?
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Yes, I agree with that. I think the first minute and a half shot of me in the chair looks good, but when I stand up and it goes to medium shots, it loses some of the blue and looks off. I was trying to use a combination of sun coming in from the glass door and a 1K softbox light.
 
ROC said:
I'm curious to what mic you used. It sounded great.
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Thanks. I used a Sennheiser ME64 (short), for the opening wide shot. I used the ME66 (medium), after that. I also have the ME67 (long), if I need the pickup range to be really tight.
 
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