MattHawkins Online - Film Making Forum

Like I said, the boom mike was plugged into a laptop with no mic boost coz the one with a boost was exploding due to Windows Vista being hopeless. Where can you hear the camera move? I must have missed that coz I wouldn't have let that get into my film if I'd caught it, even a pointless fun one like...

Yeah, this whole thing was done in about two weeks of planning and 4 days of shooting. Again, I stress, I was not attempting to win Sundance. I just wanted to have a little fun. Sorry if you don't get the joke or whatever, but I put this together, with a lot of effort on some of the scenes (It's obv...

Hahaha, yeah. Funny thing is, I WAS using a boom! The only problem is, no amplifier, not even a mic boost on the laptop we were using (the one with is on the fritz. Stupid Vista.) So then I had to amplify stuff and use noise reduction and you know what happens then. Glad you liked the car chase. It'...

I typically use muzzle flash stock footage instead of painting in a flash. There are some cool ones with smoke and everything on detonationfilms.com that I use whenever I need to do something like this. I've always found slide movement to be irritating and time consuming however...

My latest film is a school project based on the Second Act of Macbeth, modernized. Basically, Macbeth realizes he could become king if he murders the current King, Duncan, who is spending the night in Macbeth's castle. He daydreams about what life would be like as king. He then sets out to do the de...

For special effects I use After Effects - but only for visual effects, not sound. You can pick up a legal copy off Ebay like I did and there are plenty of tutorials online (plus people here who can help) to get you started. It's good that you have a really powerful machine for doing things on, means...

What is the best way to make someone's hand pass through an object? I'm doing a modern adaptation of act 2 of Macbeth (remember where he is halucinating and sees a dagger? Well, I want Macbeth's hand to go through a gun) The curret thing I am trying is either masking or blue-screening the gun into t...

Hehe, thanks for watching... My little brother is thrilled with your response as he is 13 years old, but yes, we decided that would be part of the comedy after the guy who was supposed to be playing lincoln got sick and couldn't come. (Hence the first line in the film, "So he had to go and get ...

Wow, it is amazing how many people have randomly punched through walls here...I especially like your attitude towards it here: I have punched two holes in the walls at my house and I have to (i havent got around to it yet) fill them in. I would go with a small prop and a close up, so you can't see t...

Cool, thanks! I hope you enjoy it.

Legally, check eBay for older versions of After Effects and Premiere and the like, they are often cheap because they are old and the seller just upgraded to the latest version, but that doesn't mean the old ones are any less good.

In case I'm scaring people away by using history words, this is not a documentary...It's a comedy. In real life, Lincoln's guard went to get drunk, allowing the assassin, John Wilkes Booth to get in...So we make fun of his guards for letting an inept Booth succeed. Please let me know what you think ...

UFP: What I did for the cartridge was to find a picture of one online and take it in photoshop. Then I erased the background, and brought just the shell into AE. Then I put it behind the layer of the slide so it appears for the first frame to be exiting from inside the weapon. I added a motion path ...

Yeah, that's pretty much what I did, but three times for each shot, masked over the film in AE. Then I added the cartridges with backspin and the muzzle flashes from detonationfilms

Please take a look at my Abe Lincoln film while you are here, I'd like to get some feedback! Thanks.

Hmm, I could give it a try like that, but the problem would be the gun in the layer beneath would have a non-moved slide. In my animated version i was able to make the slide move around the barrel and the guiderod so they stuck out. Of course, it's over so quickly that it may well be worth an attemp...

Yes, I agree, the shot straight out from the neck was a little random. I don't know if that's how it would work in real life, somehow...

Other than that, as far as dramatic dying, that was pretty cool.

Hey, thanks to all who helped me get the movie up and running! I'm happy to announce that it is now up on google movies. I reccomend watching it in original size for best quality by clicking the bottom right corner arrow button and selecting 'original size' from the menu. Please feel free to add any...

I use DV/DVCPRO-NTSC .avi It will still be large, but it typically will be less than half the size of uncompressed and I've never noticed any introduced factors into the film. It seems lossless, though something must be getting chopped off I suppose. An example of the power of this compression is I ...

Hmm, well, It had its goods and bads in my opinon. There could have been more extensive lighting controls and line learning, and the film got off to a bit of a shaky start, I thought. I did not like the fact that there were black boxes around each letter in the title "1812" that created bl...

*to wildstorm* Um, that wasn't a blank firing gun...you DID get that, right? everyone else: I suppose if it won't be that visible in real life then it isn't neccesary. I used three slides for each shot, one half back, one all back, one half forward, perhaps I should have had more blur and less physi...

Yes, but nowhere near as much fun. Plus, I've used one that has a slide, the response time wasn't as fast as it should be and the slide doesn't move enough...however, that clip was enough work that I don't want to do it for a full movie...So you're probably right. What did you think of the effect, f...

Ok, well, this took me forever to respond to, but I now have my own webspace so I can show you all the results:

Clicky

I did a cartridge ejection in my latest Abraham Lincoln Film, but there's no obvious slide on an m4, so no slide motion

you mean like a lens flare? There is the "Blade" kind of dusting, which is fire, bones and dust. Or the "Buffy" Way (My way) which is only dust and bones. :) Ok, here's a rule...NEVER do a canned photoshop/after effects flare. Those are cheap, and pretty obvious. I liked the eff...

Some other things that help include turning on every light in the vicinity where you will be filming and using reflector boards to bounce sunlight through windows etc.

No, I don't mean the eyes thing...I mean the actual ghost effect...layer/opacity change or masking or both?

I've been thinking about trying something using masks so I can do a twin thing...like, dare I say Lindsay Lohann in The Parent Trap...
(except two of me > two of Lindsay)