First episode of web series. Shot with GH2 edited with FCPX

Finally, here it is. Last summer a group of us from school shot what we intended to be a short film, but we ended up liking the potential the characters have so we decided to split it in two and create a web series.

Here is episode one, part 1&2

Part 1



Part 2


I was the "DP" and editor for this project. I say "DP" because we didn't do any pre-production and I had only been shooting video for about 6 months when we started this. So I don't think I deserve the "DP" title yet.

Everyone that worked on this is graduating school this May and we plan to shoot another eight 10-minute episodes this summer. We've already started pre-production and the last two semesters at school made us so much better, so these next episodes will be a lot better.

If you like these episodes and want to see more, we literally just launched an Indie GoGo campaign. But that's just icing . Really I just want to show this baby off since I edited it on FCPX. Since I edited it last August, it was FCPX 10.0.3.

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions about my editing process. I've wanted to talk about this project for a long time, but we put the release date on hold when we decided to make it a web series.

Vince and Theo Indie GoGo

Having just watched part 1, a few comments come to mind. First, I loved the opening, that shot with the fades to & from black, the metal doors to title, works very well. Great dramatic effect. Unfortunately it goes downhill from there. Sorry, but I have to be real. The majority of the camera work & editing is serviceable, nothing particularly noteworthy or outstanding. Though when the 2 guys open the doors & we see that from the roof perspective it was a nice touch (added value), as well as a couple of the angled shots. Some color treatment to give it a bit more of a filmic look might help, as well as definitely adding a soundtrack.

The main problem I have with this film is that it screams amateur. Yes, I appreciate that the team are students & deserve encouragement, however it's my view that brutal honesty is the fairest form of encouragement. As I've said here before, it's extremely difficult to attempt to do drama or comedy with amateurs. One has to begin with excellent writing, then flesh that out with believable natural performances. Here we have neither. This piece isn't sure if it wants to be a drama or a comedy & the writing is so appalling it's actually torturous to watch.

Ten minutes is far too long for this, the whole episode should have been 3 minutes tops, then you might have had something. What you would have is less bad acting & less awful writing. Trim the fat, pare this thing way down. Get to the point! Oh sure, your friends & family love it, even your film school professor, but in the real world this film will be savaged. Nobody wants to sit there listening to 10 minutes of insipid drivel.

Whoever is writing needs to have a basic understanding of scene structure. Each scene needs to have a purpose, to drive the story forward. No purpose = no scene, cut it out. Cut 99% of this dialogue, it goes nowhere. Decide if this is a drama or comedy, or a bit of both, but be funny & be dramatic, right now it's neither.

Again, I apologize for the splash of cold water, but I want to encourage you to do quality work. The director & editor need to sit down & discuss the footage with an honest unbiased eye. Perhaps 15-20% of Vince's performance is usable, about 5-10% of Theo's, cut accordingly. Tighten everything up, color for the genre look you want, add the right music... & maybe.... you might have something.

But as it stands... I don't even want to put myself thru the agony of watching part 2.

You guys have potential, but be honest with yourselves.

Thanks for the feedback, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I have no dillusions of this being anything more than what you said. It's totally amateur, this was the first time we tried anything like this and did no preproduction because we didn't even know where to begin. Having gone through the experience of making this we really learned a lot.

As long a you think there I potential that's all that matters. We've learned a lot more at school over the past two semesters.

Edit: Now that I'm not on my phone, a few more comments.

This wasn't done for school and our professors haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure they would say the same things as you, that's what makes them great teachers.

The closest thing I can compare this to is the first time a band records a demo album. I had a band and our first three recordings sucked, but with feedback like this we were able to improve and get better.

Our goal with this is to learn from our mistakes (and there were a lot) so we can move forward and make new mistakes.

At this point we're still another 2-4 years away from being really good at this, but we need to keep shooting and making mistakes if we want to get better.

So if anyone else want's to be brutally honest about part 1 or 2 (part two moves faster, but the end is weak), go ahead and be brutally honest. This industry is tough and I've got a thick skin and appreciate all the feedback from everyone here, that's why I posted this because I know all of you will be able to provide honest feedback.

Just the fact that you liked those couple of shots makes me happy, like I said, I showed up on the shoot days with no plan and we just figured out the angles as we went along. I'm also very surprised that there weren't a lot of continuity issues with the editing considering the complete lack of pre-production.

Making the effort is a long way ahead of talking about it. Keep up the effort, and remember, the "learning" never stops. Ever.

You've got a great attitude, Julian.

The purpose of the talking is to clearly articulate the vision. You wouldn't believe how much talking goes on before the shooting starts on a feature; script readings, rewrites, storyboard sessions, endless meetings, all for the purpose of communication. Running out & shooting without a plan is one way of making films, but not big successful ones. It's ok for loose skater vids, but you're attempting more here. Preplanning is essential. If you've got a 3 or 4 minute film that looks to be the calibre of a feature, & leaves people wanting more, then you're building something with drawing power & scaleable growth potential.

I was thinking about part 1. Not much really happens. Perhaps a stronger sense of drama or motivation for Vince is that he struck a man with his car, thought he killed the guy, panicked & hid the body. Goes to his buddy in fear, needing help to dispose of the body. Lose all the arguments & other superfluous conversations about nothing. When we get to the storage, Theo realizes the guy is still alive, this presents a new dilemma. Maybe then might be an interesting time to realize exactly who this guy is. Might be nice to add the sound of another one of those metal doors being opened in the distance, they're not alone in the storage facility, ups the level of tension & anxiety. In this new heightened level of tension, there is a moral quandary, do we kill the guy? No, he doesn't know anything, let's take him back & say we found him by the roadside. This episode can end with them standing over him in the apartment as he wakes up. But we really need to end on some kind of a twist, maybe the guy freaks out, & calls someone, or there's something to do with his business & maybe gambling debts to the mob, etc. Maybe he was on his way to make a payment when he was hit. Sure that's a bit cliche but it's just a suggestion to prompt the imagination. On a low budget film, especially a series, we want to leave things open ended for development. Antagonistic 3rd & 4th parties increase our levels of urgency & tension. Also they can be filmed or even added in post with no extra actors needed. For example, you can show the car driving & add a voice over conversation in post that completely changes the direction of the series, no new shooting needed. Or show the injured man's phone ringing with a blocked number, the boys are conflicted. Or a blocked call that when they answer the caller hangs up. Or Theo looks thru the curtains & says there's a black van parked out front. You don't even have to show it, but you've added all kinds of possibilities. End on something that compels people to see the next one.

There's another shot I like in the storage facility when they approach the door from either side of the camera, but every shot is held too long. Like the scene of them in the car, "You got my back?" Why do they have to go over that 5 times, just move on after the line. Then instead of lingering on the empty car for 10 seconds, I'd prefer we were doing a slow zoom in post during their dialogue, the cut on the door close.

Still, the whole thing should be 3 minutes, trim it way down so it moves along.

The dialogue with all the needless swearing makes me think you guys are trying to be like a bad version of a Kevin Smith movie. Swearing, shouting or anger is for putting added drama into a scene, here it's all just meaningless, very off-putting. The attempts at humor are falling flat, the dildo, asian hookers, the whole pot thing is just a distraction, the TV discussion, the reading of the letter... really? You think a guy is going to be sitting around reading letters when he has a body in a locker? On a plus side, there is one throwaway line that is fairly funny, "She's probably hot."

Of course all these are just ideas, but precisely the type of talking that needs to go on before you start shooting. Compelling stories place interesting people in pressured situations, especially ones where they are forced to make difficult decisions.

Ok, since you promised part 2 moves quicker, I'll sit down & watch it...

The issue we had with preproduction was time. We finished school and were on summer break and unlike everyone else in our department, we wanted to actually go out and accomplish something over the summer. At most we had about three weeks to plan the shooting, but when we sat down to do that we didn't even know where to begin, so we just went out and shot. The biggest benefit was that I shot and edited which means I had to edit my way out of my bad shooting. This was a great experience because the best way to learn is from your mistakes.

That's the whole reason we want to shoot another 8 episodes, more learning. If we can make it through another 8 episodes (be them good or not), all that experience will make us so much better and that's really all we want to get out of this.

So with this project we basically learned how to do preproduction during the post production process.

And when I say part two is faster, I don't know by how much, so don't hold me to it too much. Also the ending is weak and I had to work so the director shot some of the stuff which changed the aesthetic.

Rather than go on about what we can do differently about the first episode, because we are over it and want to move forward, what kind of potential do you see moving forward, if any? We have a lot of ideas and we are bringing some women into the project to help with the writing and creative aspects, too many dudes on this project just makes for a very shallow perspective. We have also added a second writer and everyone plans on really tearing the scripts apart before we start with our shot lists and storyboards.

To sum up this project, I will leave you with a quote.

“Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.”
― Stanley Kubrick

Just replace "film" with "SD Cards"

Also, thanks for taking the time to watch and provide feedback. It is appreciated.

TrixTrax9000,

Agree with a lot of your assessments, but I have to ask why apologize for providing feedback? You're being honest, not cruel.

Well Julian you've certainly gotten further than a lot of people. You actually went out and did the shoot (something I myself haven't done for scripted video). I watched Ep 1 and here are my thoughts as a movie watcher with no experience in production:

1. I liked the camera shots.
2. Script was poor
3. Acting quality was all over the place for me. The script did not help them, that's for sure. I think they can do better with a better script.
4. Pretty good overall for a first attempt.

I think you would do well follow Trix's advice.

Hehe... well, Grailz ... at first I didn't really know how Julian would take it. There are some students who come from a school where there's very little critique, the only thing of importance is that you're participating. There's no good or bad, everything is fine. This PC style of teaching insists that all competition is evil & that even the worst production is to be applauded. "Hey, good for you." or worse "Like!"

This method is not only the opposite of talking, it's the opposite of thinking.

Julian just provided a quote from Stanley Kubrick, at first glance it may appear simplistic almost proverbial, but it's my contention that Kubrick & indeed all great story tellers or filmmakers are in fact deep thinkers. So you have not only the fanciful imagination but also the churning intellectual processes to bring this thing out into reality, yet the pride-less flexibility along the way to change things if a better idea comes along.

That's a tall order for a lot of young people, especially those who have been surrounded by "Likes."

Just the other day I similarly critiqued a short here , for a film that had been accepted into a film festival. The filmmaker didn't like to hear what I had to say at all. Nor did she want to engage in any kind of discussion. We've seen a few of those, as well as some that go absolutely ballistic. There was a young guy here who posted a rap video I think, or some kind of music video, quite a few months ago. He didn't like my advice at all, in fact he let loose with a tirade in the forum & even sent me some nasty email flaming my site.

For the most part, people have been good about it, but when you slave over something to produce what you feel is artistic, it really contains so much of you, a kind of expression of your soul. So people can take any kind of critique as a personal attack on their value as an artist. Also, when a production pays you a large sum of money to consult & provide a detailed analysis they have a tendency to value the report, because they paid for it. Advice offered for free is often dismissed as worthless or just someone's opinion.

Finally, I really do want to soften the blow, not knowing the artist's background, I don't want them to give up or go away. The current environment in many schools, as I've outlined above, doesn't prepare people for the real world which, as you know, can be quite brutal.

In Julian's case, I really was impressed with the opening sequence, it was so good, that the expectations were raised to broadcast quality. When I say that I mean in thematic elements not technical ones. A lot of tech people might be upset to hear this, but the technical side, is easier to master than the thematic side. Yes there are plenty of artistic choices one needs to perfect the technical side, but to write content, & perform it, is truly the crux of whether a project works or not. Content is king. Because Julian's opening was so good, it made the rest look so bad. Again I need to clarify, "look" is probably the wrong word, as technically it was serviceable but thematically flatlining.

Which brings me to Julian's concern, why bother discussing what's already been done? Especially when they want to move forward. Because, a lot of what we're discussing here aren't exactly "mistakes" per say, they're more like choices. So when we discuss options that might have been in the ones you've already shot, we're opening doors of possibilities in the mind. Once we begin to think along these lines, on the future projects we could say, "hey, instead of our guy doing this, what if he went this way & it created a dilemma regarding the other guy?" Sometimes when watching a film something happens & you think, "what a brilliant concept, I didn't see that coming." You're engaged, you're interested. Some films are so good, you don't want them to end. That's what we're shooting for.

Happy to hear you're bringing some feminine energy onboard, it would be nice to introduce a female character too. Oh, just remembered, there was one very slight technical issue in part 1. When the boys are talking in Theo's apartment we have a shot of Theo talking from Vince's POV. Theo is sitting, Vince standing. It looks like you matched the camera angle exactly, but the problem is that cinematically the angle is too steep downward onto Theo. It maybe correct to Vince's eye-line but unappealing for viewers. In a case like this we "cheat" the camera lower so reality is shifted slightly for the purpose of the audience.

Ok, enough talking, let's look at part 2 finally...

Part 2

You're right Julian, that was a lot better. Mainly because the story began to take off into some interesting branching possibilities. You also created a delicious sense of tension & the humor was handled better in a couple of spots. The character of Theo became slightly more likable here (in a kind of Cheech & Chong sort of way), a component missing in part 1. Vince is still over acting with facial contortions in some places, I think mainly in his scenes with Theo.

There's a very slight technical issue when Vince is talking to the man leafletting. When we swap sides the color shift is a marked difference. It only happens once early on in that conversation, but I think the darker skin-tone look in that one shot should be closer to the grade you want, the look we get in all the other conversation shots is washed out & a bit over exposed. Everything outside is a bit blown out, as during him racing the car back. I liked the up angle of Vince walking as we approach the leafletting guy.

The opening scene with the lads talking in the apartment is the weakest, this is where we have scripting issues. Meaningless dialogue needs to be cut, pare it down so we have interesting lines. Loose details are like red-herrings, the mind of the audience is annoyed by distractions that don't contribute to the story. With that in mind, I'm kind of unsure about the look of disdain the vegetable shopper gives Vince. If you want your character to do something interesting, does it have to be antagonistic to our lead? What value does that add? How about if the guy is picking fruit & veg & drops one on the floor, looks around sees Vince didn't notice so he leaves it & exits the frame.

The scene with the leaflet guy went well (although a bit long, but I know you wanted to build tension), I guess the moment when the film came to life was when Vince reads the handout. Enjoyed the comedy with the leaflet guy, as well as Vince tuning out to hear his spiritual advisor. Probably one of the best scenes was Theo with the cannibal in the living-room. Cannibal's agonizing "No blood in the nutsack," was funny, but I wished Theo had a better line after. Maybe a quizzical look & "umm.. do you want some ice?" or "Umm...I've got Motts Clamato."

There's a joke that's broken near the end, where Vince has the bat & says the chair is like 4 bats. This is almost funny, but the delivery takes too long, it'd be funnier if it had no explanation, they're in a hurry & a stressful situation, "I've just got a bat, you got 4 bats!" Things like precise grammar or explanations need to be sacrificed for getting to the punchline. A joke where the audience has to think for a millisecond is funnier than one explained.

Our final scene is kind of lullified with the soothing voice of Quai Chang, or whatever her name is. I wouldn't mind a tiny bit more tension just before that. Maybe as they're creeping thru the darkness, we hear some rustling, or a rat, maybe as they pass by us we see a strange shadow move across the wall or lens, making us think they may get jumped. Also as they're heading towards the light, & she says "Congratulations, you've just reached enlightenment," at that moment I wouldn't mind a zoom in on them (added in post) silhouetted by the light from the doorway, then flare up the light & we flash fade to white, instead of fading to black. Then have your first title in black on white, then we fade to black as the rest of the credits roll.

Just a few ideas...

Much, much better this time. Thanks for sharing, Julian.

Thanks for the additional feedback. I'm on my phone now so I'll reply to that later.

I just want to mention that in this industry, if we want to make money, our videos will always be made for someone else so it's important to be able to handle feedback appropriately, otherwise what will you do when a paying client says it sucks? This industry is about being good at rejection.

For example, I created a thread on reddit asking people to just rip it apart. I got some good feedback from that.

TrixTrax9000 wrote: Oh, just remembered, there was one very slight technical issue in part 1. When the boys are talking in Theo's apartment we have a shot of Theo talking from Vince's POV. Theo is sitting, Vince standing. It looks like you matched the camera angle exactly, but the problem is that cinematically the angle is too steep downward onto Theo. It maybe correct to Vince's eye-line but unappealing for viewers. In a case like this we "cheat" the camera lower so reality is shifted slightly for the purpose of the audience.

Ok, enough talking, let's look at part 2 finally...

That shot... oh man, that is the one shot that I really really hate. The living room scene was the first day of shooting and it was the first time I ever shot a dialog scene. We ended up shooting like 5 takes from about 6 different angles and that one line had major issues in every take, that shot was the one that worked the best, but I hate it so much. We also didn't get an over the shoulder looking at vince and we had to re-shoot, that's why the lighting is different for some shots.

Also, that shot of theo is majorly cropped because I framed him wrong. All of the two shots are also cropped because I went way too wide.

Overall I'm very pleased with the way my shots turned out considering I had no idea what I was doing and we did zero planning. Most of the shots are pretty boring, but there are a few that are actually pretty cool and that's what gives me hope for the future. The big thing was the I was still able to edit these shots together without any real issues which still amazes me.

As for the scene where that guy is handing out flyers and the lighting changes, it's because I used a different lens and didn't really match the fstop. For that movement shot I basically held my camera strap and the legs of the tripod, so I used my 14mm lens with OIS, but it was an f4 (at the lowest setting), then when we went to dialog, I switched to the 20mm at like f2.

Here's my on the spot DIY rig.


And yeah, that's the stupid reflector we used and it was super windy so it ruined the shots. Need to figure out a better way to do that.