I'm back with a new boost of creativeness...

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 22 Sep 2006, 14:30

Hey,

my time off the forum made me spend less time at the computer in general and it was a good time to be honest (and yet we all come back to this box we keep staring in).

Anyway, I used the time to make a little action video with my friends. It's not finished, yet, but what has been edited so far is there on YouTube to have a look at.

Yes, it's a shame I'm coming back only to shamelessly plug my little video, but otherwise I'd be restless until I knew what my mates here think about it.

Out of some reason it goes out-of-synch after I upload it to YouTube. Hmmm... Any ideas anybody?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmIDmque8Uw

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 22 Sep 2006, 14:38

He he good stuff LD, I like it

I love the kung-fu noises and the kicking actions too!

Welcome back

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 22 Sep 2006, 15:42

As-salam alaykum LostDragon, Eshtaqto elaika!! Kaifa haloka?

dragonhero005 · Post by **dragonhero005** » 22 Sep 2006, 16:27

Welcome back LD!
Good to have you back here.

I also like the video!
Is that guy with the sportsbag over his shoulder in the beginning trying to copy Lau Ching-wan in "The Longest Night"?

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Sep 2006, 17:07

Welcome back, you sill fool for leaving

Cool video. It was fun to guess what they were saying. I presume you were filming?

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 22 Sep 2006, 17:10

I bet hanging out with you guys is a lot of fun.

OK. Constructive criticism:

1. Soundtrack drops out at the beginning.

2. Faulty direction - look at the how the thugs don't seem to know what they're doing after the hero is kicked to the ground. They practically fall over each other.

3. Fight movements are very slow and deliberate. You can see how soft the actors are being so as not to hurt each other. Cute, but not fun to watch.

4. MY FAVOURITE BIT - The hero takes his jacket off during an attack allowing him to be kneed twice in the head. Major lol

5. Some nice acrobatic moves, effective slo-mo kick when Hero is forced back onto the garbage bags.

6. Unconvincing use of sound effects (though this may be tongue-in-cheek intentional?)

7. I know it's for safety... but that car is driving awfully slow.

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 22 Sep 2006, 19:06

Hey LD! Really glad to see you're back (Hopefully not temporarilly, even after Mark's criticism of the movie

)

Ok about the movie. I agree with Mark that it's way too slow and soft. Plus what bothered me most is thatmuch of it doesnt make sense, as in even for a martial arts flick, much of the actions and reactions don't make sense.

Ofcourse it's a no/low-budgetmovie so I can look past the lighting issues and people standing around watching... but when it comes to choreography, it's way more interesting to see someone punch a guy, get blocked, react to the block etc, instead of a guy being missed by a kick about a meter, and then for no apparent reason going into a butterfly kick. Dont get me wrong, I like butterfly kicks (one of my favourite moves to do actually, as it really lets you have a 'floating' moment due to the momentum, but it really should be used in the right context.

Some of the cuts and camera-angles, like in the beginning right when the fight in the garage starts, and everyone runs towards the camera after a cut, it's not necessarry and just looks like guys running at and past the camera, instead of staying in a constant flow with the rest of the scene.

Also, the people performing, are either not all that great (SCREEN) martial artists (judging by their form) and as I said before, way too slow. In the middle where he supposedly fights multiple opponents, it just looks like some scenes are just mixed in there, as no-one of the other guys are in the shot, and it just looks out of place.

Ow yeah, some of the reactions (as in pain from getting hit) to kicks and punches are a bit OTT, and dont really need to get a new cut just to show that reaction.

Finally the car. WHY does the 'hero' jump on the roof, and WHY does the guy not just stop the car and kick his ass? And again, too slow (I can understand why you would film it slow, but it doesnt look good so if you cant do something the way you'd like it, better to not do it at all, instead of letting it in and looking bad.

Anyway, that all sounds pretty negative so please dont hate me for it

I do like that you (and other people across the globe) are doing this stuff and learning and getting better etc.

Does seem like great fun to shoot such stuff though, which is ofcourse one of the main priorities: to do stuff you love, and have fun, and learn from the mistakes etc.

I wish I lived in Germany near you ... I would love to try and create some great stuff. When I had that workshop with Ron Smoorenburg, me and my friend also had to do a fightscene, and where most other students did everything pretty slow, me and my friend really went REALLY fast, but taking care so we wouldnt hit eachother. At the end he made a lil mistake but I improvised on the spot. So that was all great great fun to do. I enjoyed it alot. I'm done withs chool at monday, so I might look into what it takes to get into that whole screenfighting stuff. Sadly, there dont seem to be that many opportunities to learn that kinda stuff. But maybe when I move to HK I can find some stuff to do overthere.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 22 Sep 2006, 23:57

Hey everybody,

thanks for the kind welcomes and your comments on the videos. I really appreciate the constructive criticism. Let me try and go through it one by one:

Margway wrote:1. Soundtrack drops out at the beginning.

True. Out of some reason I overlooked that. Call it "The Quiet Before the Storm".

2. Faulty direction - look at the how the thugs don't seem to know what they're doing after the hero is kicked to the ground. They practically fall over each other.

True. We shot on one day which allowed us 6 hours before the sun went down. I just wanted to move on to the action parts, which is also why the dialogues are so cheesy. If you understood German, you'd notice a lot of pronounciation mistakes etc.

3. Fight movements are very slow and deliberate. You can see how soft the actors are being so as not to hurt each other. Cute, but not fun to watch.

Noted down. Thanks. Need to be fast and with hard impact.

4. MY FAVOURITE BIT - The hero takes his jacket off during an attack allowing him to be kneed twice in the head. Major lol

That was really intentional, lol! Good someone got the laugh.

5. Some nice acrobatic moves, effective slo-mo kick when Hero is forced back onto the garbage bags.

We pulled him on a wire for that. Me and another guy were on the ground floor pulling two ropes that were attached to the wire on his belt. Upon preparation I told him that we wouldn't pull that hard. I did the exact opposite when the camera was recording.

6. Unconvincing use of sound effects (though this may be tongue-in-cheek intentional?)

I wish I could say that this was intentional. However, it wasn't. The only reason I used these sound effects is that it were the only ones I could find on the internet.

7. I know it's for safety... but that car is driving awfully slow.

Agreed.

@Yi:
As for your criticism about logic (why does he jump on the car etc.):
Please don't look for any logic. It was merely a showreel for the guy to show what he is physically capable of. Of course that isn't all. We will soon film the second part where he is going to perform some great kicks and some cool HK stunts, like HK spinning through a table etc. As I said, we only had 6 hours and it wasn't meant to have any kind of story. I made the story up in 5 minutes during the 2 hour drive to the location.

Oh and Holland ain't that far, you know. Maybe you want to appear as on-screen fighter in the second part.

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 23 Sep 2006, 01:10

Welcome back m8, I thought the film was a good stab for a bunch of non-professionals having a crack under limited time constraints.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 23 Sep 2006, 01:42

Thanks Shingster.

The thing I could be professional if I had the money to rent the right shooting equipment, pay a crew and pay some decent actors.

As you might remember, it was possible when we shot that teaser with Maggie Q for our current big project.

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 23 Sep 2006, 11:41

I took some of the footage I have on my hard drive and compiled a demoreel for Ümit. Not the best stuff he can do, but all I had on my hard drive for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gvvNgY7YvA

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 23 Sep 2006, 11:44

Very cool LD, looks good. Keep with it

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 23 Sep 2006, 13:21

Something worth mentioning...

If you tighten up the editing it will disguise some of the lack of impact and deliberation.

Not all... sometimes you just have to get hit.

But I notice many shots show too much of the before and after rather than cut away to a more effective angle.

I did a little bit of editing in college so I speak with Yoda-like knowledge.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 23 Sep 2006, 14:33

LOL. Fun...

Though, is it just me or did the bloke just happen to get in and drive the car they were attempting to steal? And if so, the car suddenly swapped from being parked front in to being parked front out? Hm

Oh and in the garage scene one would really benefit from locking exposure control and bringing some real lightning, you could see the poor camera trying to find something to film

Oh and next time - widescreen please

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 23 Sep 2006, 22:30

Thanks for the hints, Mark. Will keep them in mind when editing the next part.

gojensen wrote:LOL. Fun...

Glad you enjoyed it.

Though, is it just me or did the bloke just happen to get in and drive the car they were attempting to steal?

Yes, he got into the same car. In the dialogue it gets clear that they managed to open it.

And if so, the car suddenly swapped from being parked front in to being parked front out? Hm

Actually, we shot how he got into the car, starts the car, drives back in reverse and then drives forward. It took so long, so I tried shooting it with the car's engine already on, so he'd just have to get in and step on the gas. But still, when editing it I noticed that it's too much and it slowed the pace of the whole sequence down. So I took that out and played it from when he drove off forward.

Oh and in the garage scene one would really benefit from locking exposure control and bringing some real lightning, you could see the poor camera trying to find something to film

As I said, we did it on no budget so I didn't really have any rented headlights and floodlights. I brought some aluminium foil glued on cardboard with me to the location, but on the lower level, there was no sun at all to reflect on the actors, so damn, lol!

Oh and next time - widescreen please

You know, I told my brother who handled most of the camera work to keep the upper and lower edges of the frame empty so I could mask it with two black bars (faked widescreen

), but it seems that you can't mask them onto the video in PowerDirector 5. And I find Avid quite complex to use to be honest.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 24 Sep 2006, 00:38

thelostdragon wrote:Thanks for the hints, Mark. Will keep them in mind when editing the next part.

Look forward to seeing it.

You know, I told my brother who handled most of the camera work to keep the upper and lower edges of the frame empty so I could mask it with two black bars (faked widescreen ), but it seems that you can't mask them onto the video in PowerDirector 5. And I find Avid quite complex to use to be honest.

You mean it wasn't shot in Panavision?