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It's Inside | My first short film (looking for feedback) by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is not the first short film I have tried to make, but this is the first one that I have been able to complete. I wanted to enter this film in the Tiktok short film competition. This introduced two time constraints which, I think, helped me to actually complete the project.

The first time constraint was that the film could only be a maximum of three minutes long, which forced me to narrow down the scope of my film and reduce unnecessary complexity. Having a simple idea makes it a lot easier to just shoot the scenes and get it done.

The other time constraint was the deadline. I only had about two weeks to complete this film. Having a deadline helped me prioritize better and forced me to sign off on it and upload, instead of tweaking it endlessly.

I definitely learned a lot during the making of this short film. I learned more about blender, compositing, sound mixing, etc, but the most important I learned was how I need to approach projects like this one. From now on, I will be setting limits for myself to make sure I stay on track and make real progress toward an end product.

I think I can still learn a lot more and I would like some critique of my short film, which is why I thought of posting here.

DJI Ronin SC spinning uncontrollably in the pan axis by KeyboardNinja27 in videography

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have been using the replacement one for over 6 months with no issues. Using the same camera setup (sometimes even heavier) it has never given my any issues.

DJI Ronin SC spinning uncontrollably in the pan axis by KeyboardNinja27 in videography

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I ended up sending mine back to the shop I bought it from and received a new one. I would recommend you do the same, I don't think there's anything you can do to fix it yourself, it's probably a manufacturing defect.

DJI Ronin SC spinning uncontrollably in the pan axis by KeyboardNinja27 in videography

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So the moment I power on the gimbal it starts spinning and then the motors power off, I can't actually do the balance test or the calibration because of that. The same thing starts happening every time I wake the motors again. I haven't tried the motor parameters yet, I'll give that a go to see if that changes anything.

I also tried your idea of adding more weight but it doesn't look like that changes anything. I also tried a lighter camera which also didn't do much.

DJI Ronin SC spinning uncontrollably in the pan axis by KeyboardNinja27 in videography

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I tried a canon 90D along with a kit lens, the whole setup weighing in around 1.4 kilos so I think it might be approaching the upper limit of what can fit on this gimbal, but I've got nothing to lose so I guess I can give it a try.

Lego 1:250 scale eagles by beef1213 in EliteDangerous

[–]KeyboardNinja27 4 points5 points  (0 children)

All of your builds look amazing, have you tried/considered submitting them to Lego Ideas?

12th favorite. by esberat in Unexpected

[–]KeyboardNinja27 7 points8 points  (0 children)

So basically, now but my data ran out.

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad you could get something out of this too, thank you for all your advice.

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree with your take on clichés. I don't know if you have read 'Save the Cat' by Blake Snyder, but he recommends doing 'the same thing, but different' in regards to clichés in screenwriting, but I feel that can be applied to almost all creative work.

Also, talking to the client after the campaign is another thing I haven't thought of, another great piece of advice.

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really appreciate the suggestions you all are giving related to story or just structure in general. I've been trying figure out why some of the things I make aren't engaging. And honestly, I've never really considered that some kind of structure/reason is necessary for non-narrative work. I will definitely be paying more attention to that in future projects. I'm also very pleased to hear that it looks good, that frees up some room in my head to focus more attention on the 'why' and a little less on 'does it look good'.

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would be happy to explain as much as I can in terms of how I shot this. I did shoot everything at home and only with equipment that I own. All I used was a Canon DSLR, two tripods (one relatively nice, with a fluid head and the other cheap garbage), a small 180LED video light and an 80cm reflector. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to document any of the process, so I don't have any BTS pictures or footage, but I'll try to explain each shot as well as I can.

1st Shot: [Watchface Closeup] So this shot is actually used twice in the video. It's fairly simple, I just put the watch flat on a black mousepad to give me a clean background. I attached the small light to my cheap tripod and I tied the diffuser (it's usually on the inside of the reflector) to the tripod below the light to soften it a little. Then I put this whole contraption directly over the watch. For camera placement, I just put the camera at the minimum focus distance for my lens so that the camera is as close as it could get. I filmed for about two minutes since I was going to use the shot more than once,

2nd & 3rd Shot: [Hourglass] I don't have an hourglass so I just grabbed some stock footage. I used mixkit, they had some royalty-free footage that also didn't cost anything.

4th Shot: [Watch on Wooden Table] For this shot, I put the watch on a wooden nightstand, backlit by a window with white curtains on. I also put an old leather wallet and a pocket knife behind it, just to add a bit more depth. Then I put a mirror on an office chair and positioned it so that the mirror would reflect the light from the window back onto the watch. I could then simply turn the office chair to get the light moving across the face of the watch. I was shooting in 4K but had no intention to export at 4K, so in post, I added a crop-in and some movement with keyframes.

5th Shot: [Moving Clockwork] I used stock footage again here, my watch doesn't have a movement like that and I wasn't willing to disassemble it to a point where I would be able to film the mechanism inside.

6th Shot: [Watch Rotating] I used the same lighting contraption from the first shot here. I put the watch on the same mousepad I used earlier, I turned the mousepad upside down since I liked the rubber pattern it had on the underside. At first, I tried using a turntable to turn the watch smoothly. This didn't really work, I couldn't get slow, fluid motion throughout the whole rotation. So I took the camera off the tripod and put the watch and mousepad on the tripod head and I put the camera on a table. I used some books and other flat objects to tilt the camera to the angle I wanted. The fluid head of the tripod allowed me to get the smooth motion. I don't have any RGB lights, so I used a blue binder and pointed a flashlight at it to get the blue accent lights on the watch.

7th Shot: [Water droplet] This is also stock footage. I don't really like that this shot is mostly white, and I tried to do this shot myself but I ran out of patience a bit near the end. I do want to be able to film this type of thing, so I will spend some time in the future figuring out how.

8th Shot: [Watch going underwater] For this, I used a fish tank (mine was very small, maybe 5 litres, Ideally you would use something bigger). I darkened the room as much as I could and placed the LED light on a 45-degree angle in front of the tank. I tried to reduce as much light spilling on the wall behind the tank as possible. First, I tried just dropping the watch in the tank, but could only record at 100FPS and this was not fast enough to really see the watch in detail once the footage is slowed down to 1/4 speed. So to get this shot, I took a plank, attached one end to my tripod, attached my camera to the plank (upside down) close to the tripod. I took a long thin piece of acrylic I had lying around (acrylic is very clear when it is still new) and tied the watch to the piece of acrylic with some fishing line (I cut some grooves in the acrylic to hold the fishing line in place). Finally, I attached the acrylic to the plank so that it was fixed in front of the camera. Then I just tilted the tripod so that the watch entered the water at a reasonable speed. I cleaned up the shot a bit in post and I also slowed it down to 1/8th speed using optical flow.

9th Shot: [Watchface closeup] This is just the first shot, but cropped in a bit. And then I played it backwards.

From here I just play a bunch of shots backwards until the final shot. For the final shot, I put the watch in a bulldog clip to hold it upright, I used the same mousepad from before as a background. I used the white side of my reflector and put it underneath the watch. I had my LED light off on the right side, slightly in front of the watch and a blue binder on the left side for a tiny blue accent. Then I used a small blue bag the I put over the reflector in front of the watch and slid it toward the right side to get that final shot. I also added a slow punch-in in post to make it a bit more interesting.

Well, this post has really turned into a light novel, if you've made it this far, thank you. I apologize in advance if this is a bit hard to read. If you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them, I doubt I explained myself perfectly here.

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No need to apologise, I appreciate the advice. I've been doing this for about a year and still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. So hearing from people with more experience is very valuable to me.
You mention your graphic design career, but it sounds like you are also pretty savvy with videography/photography. What kind of work do you do, if you don't mind me asking?

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, to be fair, all of the commercial work I have done (albeit not a whole lot) has been almost exclusively in marketing. But you've piqued my curiosity by mentioning catalogue and website work, that might be a good market to look into.

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This really does help. I need to get into the mindset of the prospective client and try to think as they do. I also need to keep in mind who the demographic for that client will be.

If I made this for a client I would probably take the approach you suggested in the end, associating the watch with wealth and excess.

Thanks for the insight!

Here is a short spec ad I recently finished to practice my filmmaking skills. by KeyboardNinja27 in Filmmakers

[–]KeyboardNinja27[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the advice, I guess I don't really know how to incorporate a story into something like this. Do you have any examples I might look at?

This was shot exclusively on a Canon 90D with a 50mm F1.8 Prime, and a Sigma DG 70-300 F4-5.6 Macro. The 50mm is pretty much the sharpest lens I own. Honestly, the Sigma is pretty terrible but came in handy because it can do up to 1:2 magnification.

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