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The premiere went really well - I've been so busy I've only just got the opportunity to write about it now. A bit of back ground - it was screened at a place called QPIX which is a government funded resource centre for film makers here in Brisbane - it's meant to work as an entry point for new film makers - and they do a good job of it - organising training, hiring out equipment cheaply etc - and having screenings every month or so of new works - which is what this came under. Their screening room is about the size of a small art house cinema I guess - it seats about 60 and the screen is about 20 feet across by 15 or so feet high - fairly big though for the room. Every film shown was projected through a video projector. There were three things screened - the first was a trailer for a short film a friend of mine made called Nova - this was shot on miniDV with an anamorphic lense - and the way Ben cut the trailer made it look like it was a feature film - it was really stylishly done and looked quite good. The next film was Sleeping On Her Couch - the short I made - this was shot on 16mm and telecined to both BetaSP and miniDV - to get the miniDV dub we just plugged my camcorder in to some patch rack somewhere at the transfer place to save time and money but I'm not sure of the value of that now. The straight out transfer looked alright but as soon as we tried to grade it the image got really bad really quickly - including flicker and all sorts of noise - I don't really know what accounts for that - and if we had dubbed over from the Beta tape would it have been better. So anyway we decided to screen the ungraded version - which still looked quite good actually. It's an adaption of a poem with some beautiful images and it's probably the kind of thing you'd have to see a few times to fully absorb the poem - but again it was well received and it has a really nice score as well. We've had an expression of interest from a tv station here to view the tape so we'll send it off to them next week - and if they like it we'll recut it off the Beta master. Then on to In My Image. Unfortunately the lead up to this in the days immediately prior to it got very rushed and I didn't really have enough time to work on the sound mix properly and found also too that mixing for your tv or on your computer is a lot different to mixing for a cinema! Some things that sounded great on the computer were really unbalanced in the screening room - it was only in a few instances and some scenes were louder than they should have been - but we were riding the master on the mixing desk so could bring them down as necessary. The camera noise that is unfortunately there on some of the dialogue tracks was evident but not as noticeable as I thought - I think for two reasons - one is the really heavy atmos track (lots of cicadas and birds) which mask it a bit -- and also as people told me afterwards you're too busy working out plot and story and characters when you're watching it to be thinking about that kind of thing. So it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - but it'd still be better if it wasn't there. As far as image quality goes - I tried encoding the film with tmpgenc – but got something wrong with the audio so as I was running out of time I settled for the Adobe mpeg encoder and it looked alright - there was some artefacting - but it wasn't that bad - and no one really commented on it - most people actually said how good the image looked on the screen – better than they were expecting (I don't know what they were expecting!). On a screen that size if it was projected Super 8 it would have blown them away! Interestingly the jitter didn't really look that bad either - perhaps the artefacting helped smooth or blur it out - there's very little of it in the film now - but some scenes which were just too important to cut and which the software couldn't fully correct - I still left in there. On talking to people afterwards the general impression is that people were really impressed - really impressed actually - although acknowledging some of the technical issues. Everyone was blown away by the plane effects too - they all thought it was real plane - and then couldn't believe it when I told them how it was done - it was very very effective! A lot of people commented on the music too - really liking it which was good. I think the scene which most people seemed to like the most was the court room - it seemed to flow the best and gets pretty emotional as well. So where to from here? - I'm going to get in touch with them at the Queensland Museum about the possibility of running it in the theatre there - but I'll have to look into it - because doing a proper mix for a cinema may be beyond my resources in terms of time and money and I may be better off just drawing a line - putting it down to expereince and concentrating on mixing it for the DVD and looking at the sales for that. But on the other hand the one theatre where I might be able to get enough free time to mix it in there is the one at the museum - so I'll have to weigh it all up and see if they're interested anyway - so stay tuned! So overall it was pretty positive experience - a few things to learn from - but it was my first film - so that's to be expected - and most people were really impressed - and the next morning I woke up just really stoked - thinking wow I had a film premiere last night! And going into the shooting of my next film (which we're looking at doing at the end of next year) I feel really confident - not because this is particularly brilliant – but because there's so much knowledge and experience I now have. Another thing that really pleased me was everyone seemed to believe the setting - and that we really were in New Guinea - which was good because that was a hard thing to pull off for a number of reasons - and an important one -- so anyway that's it - thanks for all your support everyone too! Scot |
Excellent Movie and Great Filmmaking tool especially for Super 8mm Film users Hello Scot, The DVD arrived at the weekend, but I have been too busy to watch it until last night; you have been bravely inviting feeedback so I intend to send you some as soon as I have more time. For the moment I'll just say the film exceeded my expectations by a long way and I have nothing but respect for your fantastic efforts in producing such a creditable piece of work. I found it thought-provoking and refreshingly oblique and I am looking forward to revisiting it soon, after which I'll be in touch again. Thanks for sending it so quickly; it's very good value for money, in my opinion! I watched it, but my viewing was broken into three sessions so I don't want to write a full review. I enjoyed the story, and I did engage with most of the characters, especially Scot's. I felt the first 30 minutes or so might have been more pacey but otherwise script-wise I only have minor niggles. Obviously the camera jitter is an unfortunate intruder at times, but generally the pictures are excellent - I played a 5 minute section to some unsuspecting friends who thought it was a professional TV movie. I found myself knowing that the chap *was* going to be found guilty, but wanting him to be acquitted...and the second half of the film was fascinating with Scot's character examining the beliefs of those around him and also his own...I always like a film that makes you think. I watched the film and thought it was quite good. At first I was watching from a technical perspective but did find myself involved more and more with the story as it progressed. Having said that, the jitter did interrupt my attention. Well done though Scott. You went out and shot a film (on super 8 might I add). It must have been an incredible learning curve for you. All the best with future projects. I saw a copy of your film and being someone who loves 8mm, I found it interesting. I have a few questions though. 1) I noticed that a lot of scenes were under-exposed, the sound was weak or the image was very unstable. Did you ever consider re-shooting those scenes or spending more time in post-production to clean it up? Or were you up against a time limit or budgetory restraints? 2) How many films did you make on DV or VHS before you tackled 8mm? Just because I know how expensive 8mm can be when making films and how good DV is as a learning tool. What are your DV films like? Ever thought of releasing them too? 3) What type of editing / encoding did you use to get the film on DVD? I notice there is pixelation (macro-blocking) in numerous scenes. I know of many people who have experienced the same problem and was wondering if you had any luck rectifiying it? I know it can be a real pain sometimes. 4) Have you broken even with your investment yet? Has there been a good reaction to the release of the film? And have you sent it off to any festivals? I think it's an admirable effort because it's one thing to dream about making a film and another to have to balls to take the risk. My response: 1 We did consider redoing some of that stuff however time and money became an issue. It get's to a point where you've just got to cut your losses and say in terms of what the possible out comes from the film are it's not worth the effort. At one level that sounds defeatist but it's just being practical really - you don't want to throw good money after bad. This is the first film I made so it was always going to be a learning experience and some of those mistakes unfortunately just go with that territory. To my memory the scenes in the hut are the only ones that are underexposed - which is a pain because thy're quite important - again just lack of experience particularly with a low ASA stock and not enough lights. We did go back and redo the sound for some of it - the camera noise is what was causing the problem in the interior scenes - we had a great microphone etc - we couldn't voice over Jainantu's stuff as he'd moved by the time we got to post production. The jitter unfortunately was due to a manufacturing error by Kodak - there's been much written about this on various Super 8 forums on the net - and although we tried with various image stabilisation programmes - some of it we just couldn't get rid of - very annoying - but beyond our resources to reshoot all of that stuff. Some of the court is underexposed too now that I think of it - but in a way I like the naturalness of that - they were in a society with no electricity so just relied on natural light - or lanterns and fires - so some times the insides of buildings would have been reasonably dark - but of course it can go too far too! Alot of these problems and how we dealt with them are raised in the making of discussion on the 2nd disc - have a look at that for more info. 2 No - zip! This was my first film - an expensive choice and DV would have been better in that respect and in allowing us to view things back as we went- but I think the look and feel of Super 8 suited the time and place down to the ground - I think DV really would have worked against it in that regard - although film fx filters would have made up some of the lost ground I think it is still much better looking on Super 8. My next feature is going to be on miniDV mainly for cost and it is set nowadays - but I'd love to shoot it on 16mm - I still prefer the look of film heaps more than video - and becasue of some of the limitations of Super 8 I'm wanting to do more on 16mm now than Super 8 - because for me in Australia there isn't much cost difference see http://www.mango-a-gogo.com/inmyimage/imaglink.htm#s816 for more 3 I'm not sure exactly what you mean by pixelation or macro-blocking - one person said it was all chunky on their TV but fine on their PC -- so if it's some kind of artefacting over and above normal mpeg2 artefacting then it is probably a compatability issue between the disc, player and TV - so another set up or PC might be better. If it's just the normal stuff you get with mpeg2 then there's not much that can be done. I tried a number of different encoders and methods and settings and the one on the disc is by far the best - bear in mind the original film is something like 20gigabytes - and it's brought down to about 4 for the disc so there's always going to be some trade off. As you probably know commercial discs are dual layer (about 9gig) so they do better - when the burnable dual layer ones come out or the blue ray ones do (23gig I think) then I'll do another transfer (when I can afford that burner!) 4 Broke even?- not yet - I never expected it to be a commercial hit (due to the subject matter and being the first film I've made) - if it ever does pay back it's money I think it will only be on the back of other hopefully commercially sucessful films I do where people want to check the back catalogue as it were. But it is paying off in other ways - I'm getting paid acting and crewing work in the industry now thanks largely in part to this. The reaction has generally been positive - the subject matter and issues it raises have been well received as has the effort that has gone into the film. Most of the criticisms have been for the points you raised - the lighting, sound and jitter - criticisms I all agree with. The first film festival I'm sending it to is the Melbourne Underground Film Festival. Anyway better fly now - thanks for your feedback great story, nice looking images, some lack of different view angles and some jitter things look a little bad, but anyway great movie! Hi Scott, Thank you for the DVD. I watched it with friends Monday night. I liked it for what it was except for the problems with the lighting. After watching it we discussed the story line and came to a few conclusions from the perspective of a viewer. The dialogue in several scenes was a bit long winded and feeling was being spoon fed the story, not leaving enough for viewer to make own interpretation. Also felt not enough emphasis on Talaipo. I have to go now as my friend needs his computer. Keep in touch and good luck with the film. ok, i finally saw it from beginning to end. like many others i fast forwarded it a couple of times to check the technical quality, but when i finally saw it the way you should (?) i was caught. a great and important story very well told, and very thought provoking, i still can't stop thinking about it. i also think it looked great, especially the editing which is a lot better than most no budget features i've seen (el mariachi excluded though). i didn't really mind the jitter, and the so called underexposed shots were the most beautiful in the film in my opinion. what did bother me a little were the thin vertical lines in most of the scenes. did you find the source of them? they maks the dvd authoring look unprofessional (well, i guess it is, so no big harm done) and it hurts the story too since it sort of kills the organic look and depth of the otherwise beautiful wilderness scenes. and now to some quite hard critisism that i wouldn't feel like an honest man if i didn't tell you: the sound mix is *awful*. a dialog based film where you can't hear the dialog? while it sounds ok at best in my computer speakers it's a complete mess on my 5.1 system. you should hire somebody to clean it up for you, or at least get a couple of reference speakers and listen for yourself. you can't really release a film without performing some very basic mixing tasks, like normalizing dialogue and cutting out excessive bass (sometimes when people talk you can only hear their chest resonance and breathing into the mic). i know you had several audio problems, but i think you've got more than good enough audio to get a *much* better mix than this. if you're looking to get tv and festival screenings you really have to fix it. the sound quality is one of the first things these people check. so, overall you should consider this a very positive review, and the audio problems can still be fixed i think. congratulations! The Super-8 looked great too. Much better than I anticipated. If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was 16mm. A friend of mine has got a copy of your film In My Image, I saw it I didn't find anything exciting or inspirational about it all. I was desparate to like it but there just wasn't anything about it that I liked. I couldn't bear to be critical on your website.[NOTE: This was emailed to me - I decided to post it here -Scot] So I am gonna say a few things here. You are most welcome not to read on and to dismiss my points. My first Impression was that it was a poor DVD recording, there was a grid over the picture, I think the telecine was poor. The titles were flashy but difficult to read. There were too many characters and there was a lot of bad acting, ultimatley an average idea but a very poor script. I felt the framing and the photography was poor and the special effects were diabolical, even the sound sync was bad even though i think you had a crystal sync camera. How you can openly talk about the film is beyond me. I once made a film that I felt was poor myself I and all the cast and crew decided not to show it because we all could see how bad it was. That was 8 years ago in my student days, a film made on Super 8 we didn't have a sound or a crystal sync camera and it was double system sound all wild track and we never once lost sync (we used the Ivan method), we had problems with contrast and exposure. I have been running my own production company in the UK for several years we work on Super 8, Super 16 and Digibeta. I dont think its enough to just make a film and then say wow and expect people to respond positively, especially from practicising professionals. I am not ridiculing your film for the sake of it but am genuinely saying this because I think you should withdraw it from public put it down as experience and stop believing its watchable and worth talking about, because it's really very bad. My response: I couldn't bear to be critical on your website. So I am gonna say a few things here. You are most welcome not to read on and to dismiss my points That's okay - I don't mind the criticism in the public arena - most of it has been so far My first Impression was that it was a poor DVD recording, there was a grid over the picture, I think the telecine was poor. No this was actually a digital artefacting problem caused by a poor codec and a poor work flow on my part - I'm actually going over it now and remastering it - virtually all of that grid has been removerd. There's been a bit of discussion about this on the shooting 8mm forum if you want to know more. There were too many characters and there was a lot of bad acting, ultimatley an average idea but a very poor script. Yes some of the acting is uneven - but I couldn't afford to pay anyone so within the time frames etc there wasn't too much I could do with that. About the large cast I don't think you could look at that story or period with out a large cast. An average idea? - well that's personal taste - I think it's a great idea - the script could be better I agree. I felt the framing and the photography was poor Yeah that's my fault - coming from a theatre background and not planning the shots enough - something I'm definitely going to correct on my next feature. special effects were diabolical Which ones? - the only one we had were the model plane and I thought they were great? even the sound sync was bad even though i think you had a crystal sync camera. Yes we did have problems with the sync - did you watch the making of or listen to my commentary on it? - the sync went flat with out us knowing it for two days of shooting and we had to adr a fari bit as well so it was all synched by hand -- our fault of course but that's the reason for it How you can openly talk about the film is beyond me. You can't be serious? There's nothing to be ashamed of in trying and learning I dont think its enough to just make a film and then say wow and expect people to respond positively, I don't - how do you get that idea? - people can respond however they like - I've even put the negative criticisms on the films' web site. I think you should withdraw it from public put it down as experience and stop believing its watchable and worth talking about, I put it down as experience ages ago you can be sure of that! But as for withdrawing it from public view - get real! As for it not being worth talking about - the strong and the weak points of the film have been a great talking point on a few forums on the net and I think in both positive and negaitive ways alot of people have learnt alot from what I've done - foremost amongst them is myself! -- I'm not afraid of knowing where it falls down - in fact I want to - and without showing it or discussing it - that could never happen. Quite apart from airing the thematic values of the film - the psychology of religion and aetheism and the colonisation of New Guinea. The film falls short in a number of ways - all of which I hope to correct in my next film - but to go and hide under some rock or something is ridiculous. Perhaps your expectations were too high - but wherever I've discussed the film (chieflly st Shooting 8mm) I've been honest about it's shortcomings - but still it was a hell of an achievemnt and I'm quite proud of it - although I wish it were better - but that's something I'm putting into my next feature - and I've benefited so much from airing it and getting feedback. And I still think it's a good treatment of the themes involved - which is the main reason I want it out there. Also I've put too much money into it as well to not put it out there as well. I agree with you in alot of what is wrong with it - but it's not where you start it's where you finish - so watch this space! Thanks for your email and good luck with your projects as well Scot--You have some guts to try to make a feature on Super8. That alone is worth a round of applause. -------------------- The good part. All in all I thought that the script was decent and well thought out. It was predictable but most films of this genré are. Locations were nice. The sunset, sunrise, beach, jungle--All excellent. --------------------- The bad. The credits were nasty. They looked to computer generated like they just came out of FCP. What about using After Effects or shooting titles on film?? Vignetting was horrid. It seemed like I was watching the movie through a key-hole. Scratches. They seem worse at the beginning but they are a distraction through the whole show. Jitter yes it was plaguing K40 and it looks like you got it in a bad way. It was very distracting and there is not much you can do about it so the viewer simply needs to deal with it. The transfer was inconsistant--Either that or the variation in exposure from one shot to the next was to much for the colorist to handle. It doesn't look very good when one shot is venturing on dark and then the next shot is hot. When you cut the shots together it draws attention to the cut. Dark-Dark-Dark. Yes, it was K40 and there were a lot of interiors but when it appears as though I am looking at nothing but a black screen 20% of the time it gets old. Bring in light--Do what ever it takes to get the exposure. The cabin scene at the beginning, The God/No God Scene are just two that come to mind. --------------------------------- Did you consider sending you film off everyday?? It seems to me that the Vignetting, Scratches, and Jitter all could have been avoided that way. I know FedEx goes to the Jungle. You seemed to have learned that 16 is far more predictable and easier to use when it comes to longer projects. I look forward to seeing your future work. Like I said--You took on a huge project with Super8 and you stuck with it. Good Luck Most importantly for me, I like the story. IT IS A STORY ABOUT SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER. And that makes it a Stand-up act. If you had written this story as a novel I probably would have picked up the book. Your film raises some important philosophical questions about colonial legacies and the flaws inherent in every religion. The story itself does point us toward a version of the truth: an obscured truth, which leaves us contemplating and demands a kind of healthy skepticism concerning religious doctrine. It reminds me that the truth is nothing more than a point of view about things. It's super 8!! And I've seen the format used more skillfully, but I say it's a job well done. Therefore I recommend the film. |
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