4th Reich Movie - Website

The company I work for, Smudge Film Productions UK, is in the process of getting funding for a feature film. It is based on the award winning short film The Soldier.

The working title for the feature film is "The 4th Reich".

I was asked to create a website for investors to download the films' sales pack. I thought i'd get a bit creative and use Flash (something I haven't done for a few years now!), to give the site a feel, in the form of a preloader.

(4thReich Website)

Thanks to Hugo Horvath for the sound design.

Once I made that I starting making a static html page. To begin with I had passworded the whole site using the htaccess and htpasswd function available on all linux hosting services. This worked great, but then we realised that we were missing a trick by limiting the access to the site to only thosse with the user/password.

What we went with in the end (and what I suggested in the first place), was to password the zipped .pdf file, meaning all can access the site, but only those with the user/password can open the zip file with the sales pack contained there-in.

So, feel free to visit the 4th Reich Website, and see what you think!

Typography in Motion

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Seth Brau

This really caught my eye when I had a few minutes to spare, and was viewing the HD channel on Vimeo...

I love the dynamics that the creator has carefully added, with an apparent and tremendous amount of effort in not only designing the typographic elements of the imagery, but also the path and journey shown through the way the video is explorers the words and sentances and creates new visual elements within this journey.

The message is that of a liberal ideal that all are created equal and therefore should the same resounding rights, with no exceptions because of creed, colour, beliefs, religion, background...

Depict '08 - My Favourites

It's been a while since my last post, but to assure people that I am still alive I would like to talk about this year's Depict Shortlist, and which are my favourites and why...

What's Virgin Mean?
Sandra Gorel

(Spellbound Films, 2008)

Alot of time and preparation has obviously gone into dressing & lighting this scene, with careful use of reflected light so not to hide any corners. This gives a nice and warm homely feel, mid-afternoon sometime.

Plus the wonderful use of shallow DOF and subtle amounts of camera movement keeps the viewers' attention firmly in place.
The director has also included a great variation of well framed and sized shots, which is always nice to see, again this stops the viewer becoming bored of the scene, and also gives emphasis where required to the mother and daughters' facial expressions.

The post-production is well considered also in my mind, with colour grading that enhances the warm homely feel, without going overboard.

With the product shot and slightly cringe-worthy punchline at the end this does feel like an advert, but due to the fact that it is well shot, well lit and well acted (thanks to Kate Isitt), I like it alot.

Crained
Merlin Crossingham

I love stop frame. Many because I was never able to do it. I found it enfuriating how long everything would take, so I give extra credit to anyone than can; take the time to do it, and acutally create a believable scene from it.

The colours are suitably contrasting between the beautiful sky and drab city, and the birds are a lovely touch. A lovely metaphor for the character's plight about being alone but not free.

The animation of the foreman makes me smile the most. This small blob conveys so much emotion so simply. Along with the fantastic sound design. Like morph and pingoo this would do well in any country.

Enough
Tor Kristoffersen

This is by far my favourite out of the bunch.
Tension for the word go, excellent close-ups and choice of shots. Wonderfully natural grading.
Didn't see the twist coming either... Always a nice suprise when it's a good twist also (take note Mr. Shyamalan).

I love the camera movement in this video, it really gives the viewer a sense of being there but detatched from the action, helpless to do anything but watch it all unfold.

My only critisims would be some of the acting, and the over use of the f word. To be gritty it needent be used too often.

Please take yourselves over to the Depict.org website and vote for your favourites.

Matt's Life - The Update

It's been a while since my last post so here's a quick run down of what I have been doing:

Looking for a job,
Found a job (that was easy!),
Went to France to gather the things I need to build my uncle a website,
Got roped into building a site for my new boss,
Had a small amount of time off.

My new job is for a production company called Smudge Film Productions UK, based just out of Nottingham.

We do anything video and offer a few more interesting services than any other company:

• Corporate Videos
• Training Media
• Health & Safety Videos
• Interactive Media
• Music Videos
• Event Videography
• Photography
• Shorts
• Feature Length Films
• Special Effects Make-Up
• Digital Effects
• Post Production Hire
• Equipped Crew Hire

AND

The Digi Construct Service.


Which is a particularly interesting service for all architects, home owners, engineers or planning/developers. It offers:

• Video Sequences
• 3D Animation
• Blue/Green Screen Capture
• 3D Walkthrough
• Compositing
• Still Images
• Shadow Paths

Check out my company, and the website I designed here:
http://www.spuk-films.com

There are images in the galleries and showreels to boot!

Relevant Practitioners #11

Living In Oblivion
Tom Dicillo

(Second Sight Films, 1994)

*** Warning: Contains Bad Language ***

This is a film i discovered in Fopp for only about £5. After finding out it starred Steve Buscemi and was about the woes of luckless low-budget director who's inept crew constantly ruin his chances of him completing his movie, I thought, this looks like it could be potential research.
That and I was sick of watching my movie collection and needed something new!

One of the things I liked about this movie can be seen in this clip, switching from monochrome to full colour to depict on and off camera.
The lack of colour hightens the often beautiful lighting and the grain is clearly visible which adds to the low budget feel.

Relevant Practitioners #10

What The Future Sounded Like

This 27min documentary, filmed on HDV and Digital Betacam (with a choice of Stereo and 5.1 Surround Sound audio), tells the story of the members of the Electronic Music Studios who used pioneering technology and ideas to create a radical new soundscape for the 20th century.

I love the style of the animation and the use of older footage and new HD footage looks FANTASTIC.

Artefact 06 - Conclusion Validation

I thought it best to test all the results i've getting for my Personal Research Project, just to make sure they weren't anomalies or that the results weren't solicited.

I put up 20 Questions that span my previous artefacts.
Here are the results:

I divided my 89 participants into two groups;
"Those that own an HD television", referred to as “Owners” from now on and "Those that have only seen HD televisions", referred to as “Non-Owners”, by filtering the answers from Questions 1 and 2 of my survey to gather the following results.

Both groups answered similarly when asked to choose descriptive words that relate to their experiences of HD. 92.3% of "Non-Owners" said that it was "Sharp" as opposed to 62.2% of "Owners". The same occurs with the the second top answer "Bright" which is 73.1% for “Non-Owners” against just 50% of “Owners”.

When ordered into a hierarchy of most to least popular adjectives, based on frequency of user choice, its only when we reach the 8th most popular word that we start to get words that describe the feel over the look of HD. Interestingly, a surprisingly high amount (50%) of "Non-Owners" chose "Over Real" as an answer at this point.

When asked what format of media they watch/would watch if they owned an HD television, Blu Ray/HD-DVDs was the most popular choice amongst "Non-Users" at 76.9%. 80.0% of "Owners", voted for Satellite or Cable HD content.

When asked what genres of programs the users would still enjoy in Standard Definition, both groups answered highest with "Factual/Documentary", "Comedy" and "Drama".

When asked what genres of programs they would enjoy watching in HD, both groups agreed on "Movies" and "Sport". The third most popular choice for "Owners" was "News/Current Events", as opposed to "Non-Owners", who oddly chose "Factual/Documentary".

When asked about older formats of recording and broadcast media, like Film, both groups thought that "it would look better on an HD television than on an SD television".
Both groups gave higher scores to the visual impact of Blu Ray/HD-DVD content than Broadcast HD television content.

The largest majority of "Owners" prefer to watch Blu Ray/HD-DVDs over HD television broadcasts, where-as the majority of "Non-Owners" say they like them equally.

When asked if there were any negative physical responses to those that had watched an hour or more of HD content continuously, both groups reported the biggest problem being Eye Strain/Ache. But this was marginal at 14.6% of the total users.