I Entered My School Film Competition

[Red Roses2]

I'm really excited. I wrote this script tonight, and I'm going to start filming some tomorrow. (I have until Monday to have it all done.)

After the competition awards are handed out, I'm going to share the video on Youtube, and I'll give you all the link so you can check it out and tell me what you think of it. Any constructive criticism is welcome!

 

[Red Roses2]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi9NXH1Ffrs

There's the link to my video!

It was filmed with a Canon VIXIA HFR10 camcorder, with a tripod and a boom microphone for additional equipment. It had to be from three to five minutes long, filmed in the school's chapel, have a close-up of a cartoon character, and had to have a train sound.

If you have any constructive criticism, I'm all ears. ^_^

 

[Red Roses2]

If it's not on the tripod, how am I supposed to keep the camera steady? I had attempted to get some better movement, but I didn't have a dolly, and the table with wheels I tried to improvise with made too much noise.

The lighting did occur to me after I got all the shots together and was looking at how they were on my computer. At the time, I figured that it would help add to the contrast between the demonic impression that Mary initially had of Charity to her actual state of being - an angelic one. But you're right. Do you have any suggestions on how to handle adding more light? Back-lighting tips?

I would have made the credits shorter - if doing so wouldn't have cut my movie to being under the minimum length requirement. I basically used my credits to cheat and get it up past the three minute mark. I also put them at the beginning because I wanted the train sound at the beginning, but it was a single sound file with no footage to go with it. Since I only had a week to film, I didn't bother trying to learn the train schedule of the cargo train that drives past my school. Who knows how long it would have taken to successfully get the train in a shot that I was satisfied with without getting myself run over.

Do you have any post-production tips? I'm unfamiliar with the idea of color correction.

Lastly, what does 240p mean? Is that bad?

 

[Red Roses2]

Oh, okay. Thanks!

I used a free trial of Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD 9 to edit it, but I didn't know about the color correct. And you're right, all I did was cut and arrange the clips, added the sound file, and put in the credits. I am planning on buying the Sony Vegas program once the free trial expires.

And an amateur is definitely what I am! First ever film! ^_^

Thank you so much for your input! I'll look into the stabilizer. I have seen how shaky it ends up being when I'm holding the camera, and I really don't like it, so I'll need the stabilizer if I'm not going to use the tripod.

 

[Red Roses2]

Aye aye, Captain!

 

[LamWooStudio]

Hi Red Roses, you are super fast. I remember you were recently just wondering what video editing software to buy.

It seems your uploaded video is very small though (only 240p--that is, 320 pixels x 240 pixels), especially as you have an HD camera (that records at 1920 x 1080). Maybe the preset used for creating the project or the preset used for rendering the project wasn't appropriate.

Next time, you can try creating a project with one of the HD templates (If your camera is NTSC, and full HD, you are looking for something like HD 1080-60i (1920 x 1080 29.970 fps). When you render the final video, you can try rendering it as an mp4 or wmv file. Look for a HD preset that's 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 (also at the NTSC rate of 30--or 29.97). Then you will get a HD video for uploading to YouTube.


(note: If you have a PAL camera, the frame rate is 25 fps and the project preset you choose at the start of the project would be 50i.)

 

[Red Roses2]

Um . . . huh?