Dry Cool Wit

Recently my friend Rod and I went up to a local dam to do a bit of location scouting for some future projects. Whilst we were there, we ended up filming some footage, consisting of a chase scene through the bush that we came up with on the spot. Similar to the little film I made with my kids, this had no preparation, no script and essentially no budget. I also had it edited with a soundtrack within 3 days.

Considering I am terrible with music, that is quite a feat.

I had been meaning to post this when I first uploaded this to Youtube, but I started doing the post and have just left it sitting here as a draft since.

It is very short. We didn't really film much footage at all, and editing what I had down into something usable was a bit hard. I learnt a few things that I need to look out for in future:

1. Make sure that the exposure doesn't blow out the whites, especially if the sky is in frame or someone in the shot is wearing a white shirt.
2. Even if you get a good shot, do a few extra takes to cover yourself in case there was something wrong you don't notice until later.
3. And this is an important one... make sure everyone has their fly done up.

That last one was the reason it took 3 days to edit the film. During the editing of the footage, I noticed in the shot of me walking up to Rod and kicking him and shooting him, that my fly is undone. It was incredibly distracting and was the first thing anyone noticed when they saw the raw footage.

So whilst there were a few things added into the short film with After Effects, the most labour intensive special effect in the whole thing was to make sure my fly remained closed.

It was a learning experience and I can't wait to do something with Rod that has a bit more content and acting. Here is a piece that we filmed afterwards on our way home, explaining what we did that day:

Gotcha!

So, it is the school holidays and my children are all with me. Of course, this means that we're going to put together something later on in the week as a little fun thing to do. I'm thinking either a superhero short or an action one, we'll see.

Today, I showed them the green screen for the first time and got them to do a few little things in front of it which I ended up filming with my Logitech webcam. The quality from the camera could have been a little bit better, but it was perfectly fine. Though, the green from the cloth looked a bit aqua in the video which made it a bit hard to fully key out.

The hardest part was around Jackson's head (the one shooting the gun). His hair was all over the place and it wasn't a pleasant experience keying around it at all.

On the left we have what is essentially the before shots, and on the right, the after. There is still more room for improvement, but I mainly just wanted to show my children how the whole thing works. They find it hilarious, especially the part where Brandon falls, which I have to say, he did very well.

It was pretty fun shooting this today and I can't wait until I manage to get the brand new camera i'm looking at. And now, here is the final version that i've uploaded to Youtube.

 

There you have it. And if you watched right through, you'd notice that I put the Film Australis bumper that I made last year into the video. Figured that i'll start putting it in for most of my more creative videos.

A Proper Green Screen

Been a little while since I posted anything last, with the main reasoning for this being that I'm holding off on filming some things until I buy some new equipment, so haven't really had any need to post. Nothing too fancy or anything, but better than what i've got.

The first of this new equipment is a proper green screen. You might remember reading about my previous attempt at making one using rolls of green wrapping paper, which you can see on the right. It was an okay substitute, but it was bad compared to the real thing.

And the real thing is so much better. After parting ways with $150, I now have a green screen setup with a muslin cloth that is 3 meters by 6 meters, which means that the cloth by itself is enough that I wont need to buy another. With the cloth, I also received the rig to hang it up, with two telescopic stands along with the bar which actually holds the cloth.

But that isn't all. Along with the green screen kit came a lighting kit. Two telescopic stands for two 125 watt lights, which are bright as all hell, as well as four different lighting umbrellas. Two reflective and two shoot-through.

So, what does the end result of all of that look like? It just so happens that I put together an incredibly quick test using only the camera on my phone, so it was poor quality, but shows what I will be able to do with it when it is done.

Check it out:

Like I said, quick and simple. But still very highly effective.