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harmonica44 said:
I want to make a short, it's just that actors ask to see my work before they consider working for me, and I don't have any shorts to show them so they don't get back to me. It's a paradox.
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You should start a thread asking "How have you gotten actors in the past? How do you get people to work with you?". No, I'm not joking or being sarcastic. You should do that.

It's not impossible to get actors. All of the filmmaking "greats" didn't start off as rich, famous, multi-million dollar directors. Most started from the bottom, and worked their way up to where they are now.
 
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Okay thanks. Right now I am helping others finish their movies. After I will see about making something to show.

I am using Premiere Pro to color grade now, and I also have After Effects. I could mask out the actors and color them separately from the street scenery, but that would take months of work, and their is already so much post work when doing most of it on my own anyway.
 
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WalterB said:
Wow!
You finally realised it!

Yes, it's a paradox!
And it's even a bigger paradox that you don't just finish your first short with all it's flaws, so you have something to show. It's probably not great, but it shows you can finish something and that you are serious about filmmaking.
It's better to finish it, than have the eternal unfinished first short...

Past few months I gave you 2 short script ideas. One was even with just one person in it. (Or 2 if you want to and can find 2 actors/friends.)
Those plans where not like the thrillers you want to make, but it can help you make simple stuff fast, so you can learn fast, develop you skills fast and get actors faster.
But you choose to keep whinig about skintones at night or DOF.
You are blocking your own progress, by doing nothing.
Every day you don't make something you can show, will be a day you'll be wondering and pondering why you can't do something.

Your to do list:
- Finish your short as it is now. Do the colors suck? Too bad, but hey, you are still learning. Does the sound sound like crap? Too bad, but hey, you are still learning.
- Make something really short. Somewhere between 1 and 4 minutes max. Keep it simple. 1 or 2 actors/friends or even models who want to try film. 1 or 2 locations. Preferrably exterior. Shoor during daylight!

- OPTIONAL: find a local band you like with a short song. Make a simple video for them. Shoot it in 1 day only. It's a musicvideo, so you are allowed to try extreme grading, but you don't have to.

- OPTIONAL: make a short without actors. Can you tell a story this way? Or is it just a certain vibe you watch to convey? Can you make a poetic short about the sun rising and your town awaking (with no words)?

- Now you have 2, 3 or 4 video's online hopefully showing progress, you'll find actors a lot easier.

- Watch 'Festen' a Swedish Dogma-feature, shot with camcorders and no additional lights, no action scenes, no explosions, no ADR, no score and see how the story makes you forget all the things they didn't use.


OR:

Keep asking questions and do nothing but shaking 4 second shots and you'll achieve nothing but a worldrecord on Indietalk-posts :p
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H44. I quoted the whole post above because it is really, really good advice. I emphasized the most important item that is very, very, key. I also set in bold a really good idea on how to solve the "i need to show something finished" problem.
 
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Okay thanks.

Intuitive Films said:
Don't do that. Like you said, it WOULD take months of work.

This tutorial really helped me when I first started out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf_3gX_Z6Lo
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That tutorial doesn't seem to apply to my camera though. If I shoot flat then color grade, I get noise and the colors seems to spill a bit. I have the Canon T2i which is H.264. I was told that color grading sucks for that codec. My collaborator has a camera that shoots RAW (forget the exact name. Pansonsic something). But his color corrects way better after shooting flat, compared to mine, cause of the larger codec. Unless I am doing something wrong, but when I do it, it seems noise and spillage can be a somewhat noticeable afterwords.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks.



That tutorial doesn't seem to apply to my camera though. If I shoot flat then color grade, I get noise and the colors seems to spill a bit. I have the Canon T2i which is H.264. I was told that color grading sucks for that codec. My collaborator has a camera that shoots RAW (forget the exact name. Pansonsic something). But his color corrects way better after shooting flat, compared to mine, cause of the larger codec. Unless I am doing something wrong, but when I do it, it seems noise and spillage can be a somewhat noticeable afterwords.
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You are correct, H.264 doesn't hold up as well to being pushed and pulled, but there is still some room in the codec for grading. If you are getting excessive noise, then you need to learn to light your scenes better. Having a large sensor, with a lens that shoots f1.4 is no excuse to not use proper lighting. Even outdoor night scenes need proper lighting.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks.
That tutorial doesn't seem to apply to my camera though. If I shoot flat then color grade, I get noise and the colors seems to spill a bit. I have the Canon T2i which is H.264. I was told that color grading sucks for that codec. My collaborator has a camera that shoots RAW (forget the exact name. Pansonsic something). But his color corrects way better after shooting flat, compared to mine, cause of the larger codec. Unless I am doing something wrong, but when I do it, it seems noise and spillage can be a somewhat noticeable afterwords.
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If you are able, you should really start with something more in-depth, like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Correct...=UTF8&colid=NSQYFGYEIMFX&coliid=IGXXI6EEG7JKT

Alexis has both figuratively and literally "written the book" on grading. It's on my "to read" list, but has been back burner'd as I work through a very long list of books. Online tutorials are great, but they rarely, if ever, offer any sort of background information on the why or when of grading. Just are usually just technical step-throughs of a given technique or complete grade. "Here's how to give your film the Flesh/Teal color palate."
I find that when people say "shoot flat" on the internet or "I tried to shoot flat" they are often not talking about what that really means and are talking about something else completely and getting grading results in harsh codecs (like h.264) like you describe. It also sounds like you are trying to push the codec harder than it can take and thus things are getting wacky.

Have you played around in a tool like Lightroom or CameraRAW (in photoshop) with RAW stills? You'll have more degrees of freedom than you would with h.264 video, but the principles at play are the same and you will be able to practice applying multiple grades to selected parts of an image. If really want to get into grading, at least do the people who have come before you the service of not simply copying their grade and slapping it on your film, like you know, pretty much everyone with MB Looks is doing. If you really enjoy dinking around with images on the computer, online editing/grading can be a quite solid career choice. Even if you only use the knowledge to communicate with the guys grading your films in the future, taking the time to really learn the techniques in depth is far more valuable than trying to mimic an online tutorial (which has its value too) ever will.

Edit. I'm not knocking all online tech tutorials. Many of them are great and they are definitely useful tools. But, imo, without any sort of background on the subject even the best tutorial is of limited value.
 
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David is right.
Tutorials are useful, but without understanding what is happening it will only teach you a trick.
A good book about colorgrading can give you insights that will help you learn skills instead of tricks.

BUT:
You still need to make something first.
Don't you dare to make 'I have to read the book first' an excuse.
If you never made anything, a book will not make any sense to you.

That's another paradox:
A book can only give you insights if you have already experienced things it writes about.
(That's why you still have no clue about audio, despite of reading about it.)

SO:
What will your next step be, H44?


PS.
Don't spend months in AE... it's a waste of life.
 
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