Hi....I represent Unified Studio Productions and we have also submitted a film to the Wizard competition. It is called Batfollies and we should have our website up soon so that you'll all be able to view it as well as all 8 of our other short films. Good luck to all! We enjoyed watching your submissions
Thanks! We can't wait to show it. We've had several viewings of groups of 15 or more people (the largest group was our own premiere group which was 30 people) and everyone laughed their butts off, so we're confident it's funny. As denoted by the title, it is a Batman spoof, but unlike all other Batman spoofs you've seen. The costumes are all custome made and awesome. The Robin costume is probably the best one I've ever seen made and looks just like the one Tim wears now. We'll probably be auctioning them on ebay in a few months after we get our site up and going. It was tough editing all that we had into 4 minutes and Wizard gaves us the ok for 4 min 14 seconds and said they'd just pretend their dvd player timer was a bit off. We'll have the Directors Cut online that is 9 minutes total. Just for a teaser here is the cast of characters you'll get to see: Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Bane, Commissioner Gordon, Det Bullock, Catwoman, Joker, & Harley Quinn. Anyhoo..we're rushing to get the site up and going. Just getting the scripting finished.
Yeah..the Grayson costume was cool. I liked the old-school Robin outfit. Ours was made by a friend that is a professional seamstress. I gave her about 5 Robin comics and she took the guys measurements and went to town. It looks sweet. I almost hate the thoughts of selling it, but could use the money for funding future projects.
Sorry you didn't like it Jimmy. it was my first try at writing directing or editing. I think I could have done a lot worse....
good luck to all
it's a funny thing about that end conversation it was supposed to be something different, but S#!T don't always work out... and that was just some of their ad-libs... I swear they must have gone through like 50 pick up lines....
Yah...don't sweat any harsh criticism. Just think...a lot of multi million dollar hollywood blockbusters get cracked on by the critics. For a first time production you did well. Your lighting was good and your shot angles were good. That right there is the hard part. As far as bad acting.....well, lol, that's a different story and we all have had issues with that. Most of the time your first production involves casting freinds or family and we all know the risks to that. A suggestion: contact local theater groups and recruit. They are used to working for free and most do a good job. Also post flyers outside your local college theater building. You'll find in almost any fan film or short there will always be 1 or 2 bad actors or actors that don't quite want to follow your script. Since shooting MiniDV is cheap, do multiple takes. Let that adlib and then have them do a spot on take with the correct lines. Then, in post, see what works better. We all tend to get bristled up when someone hacks on our work because it's our baby. But you have to take the good with the bad and improve over time.
Well said mavic19 - I was going to have a similar response for you Darth-Todd, but I was too tired last night to come up something meaningful, so I just made it short and sweet. Everyone looks for something different in a film. Some people love big blockbusters, some like small indie features, some like "talkies," some hate "talkies." But I can tell you this, from being a filmmaker myself - you did a great job on important aspects of filmmaking in your first short - things will only get better from here. As for my short - I have had really positive responses (interviews, festival screenings, etc.) and a few really negative ones - which one would expect. I wouldn't expect everyone to like it, it wasn't made for everyone - it was made for the judges of the Wizard Magazine contest. Don't sweat any harsh criticism too much - even films like "Schindler's List" get ragged on - "it's too boring, too graphic" etc. Just do your best, that's all anyone can ask.
Hey..I'm just curious on what everyone is using for equipment for shooting shorts. Since we're all indepenant, I doubt anyone is using a fancy Canon XL-2 (although I would love to have one). My shooting gear consists of the following: 2 Samsumg SCD107 MiniDV cameras, an Audio Technica boom mic & Sony MiniDisc recorder, an Commodore 17" monitor for on location viewing (great picture for an old unit), some tripod based lighting, and two nice camera glide tripods. For an editing PC it's comprised of the following:
Petium 4 3.2GHz
1 Gig DDR400
1x 80gig HD for operating system & programs
2x 250gig HD for video storage
Canopus AVEDV10 video capture/editing card
Radeon 9600XT 256Mg video card
2x Lite on 16x DVD burners
Programs:
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe After Effects
EffectsDV Lab
Sony Sound Forge
Pinnacle Studio 9 (for simple editing stuff)
Adobe Photoshop CS
Anyhoo...that's waht we have to work with. Questions? Comments?