Forum Archive Home -> Short Film Competition 2005 -> Entry: Baldrick - City of Tomorrow
Entry: Baldrick - City of Tomorrow | ||
| vitualis posted 2006 Jan 13 18:12 | ||
Download here: http://shortfilm.videohelp.com/video/city_of_tomorrow_(small).avi Author: Onnie Granados Name of short film: Baldrick - City Of Tomorrow Short blurb about the film This short film takes us on a brief tour of the city of Baldrick, and also presents a brief history of the town and some of the special attractions that make Baldrick a wonderful tourist destination. In case it's not clear from the actual movie itself after viewing it, the film is a farce, a joke, a made-up history, a mockumentary, consisting of public domain film footage (from the Prelinger Archive), along with DV video footage shot by and of me (Onnie Granados) of actual people, places, and things but presented in a farcical and completely bogusly explained manner. Behind the scenes: I made this film because I wanted to make *some* kind of movie for this "contest," not so much because I cared to be rich and/or famous but because I love movies, love making movies (started with 8mm film as a kid), love the whole history and world of film and video, and hoped that I could make somebody laugh (even once!) with this movie. The idea came to me pretty much at the last minute -- I'd seen the post on videohelp about it, thought it seemed like fun, looked forward to seeing what other people would do with the idea ... but I didn't have the slightest idea what I could possibly make a movie about that somehow contained the name "Baldrick." That is, not just to show the name in there somewhere but incorporate it, perhaps subtly, into the story. Yeah, sure, but what story? What can you possibly do, I thought, in two to seven minutes? So I pretty much gave up on it until I was riding my bike home from work one day, looked up at Mt. Tabor park (it's a very, very small "mountain," more like a really big hill, but it was a very small volcano many thousands of years ago) which is only a few miles from my house (in beautiful Portland, Oregon), and I thought, "Ah, beautiful Mt. Baldrick." And then instantly the whole thing came to me, just like that. :-) How this was done This film would not have been possible without some really cool tools from Adobe; I work for a college so I get serious discounts on Adobe products and boy, am I grateful for that. I recorded the sound (narration) using Adobe Audition, did all the photo editing in Photoshop, and edited everything together using Adobe Premiere. I've really only dabbled in Premiere and Audition, and this movie was a real experience in finding out, "Hey, can I do this?" in Premiere. Thanks to web searchs and the help files, I figured out how to do an animated map (drawn in Photoshop, animated in Premiere), using other people's guides and then dinking around myself, and then I have one major "effects" shot where I use chroma key to suitably cool/cheesy effect (I hope); I couldn't have done it without Premiere! I may not have followed the contest rules closely enough, however; I didn't read everything carefully in detail when I came up with my idea and made the movie -- I did create the "original" story, did all the DV camera footage myself (Panasonic PV-520 camcorder), and came up with "orginal" ideas and explanations for the stock footage I use in several places in the movie, but strictly speaking not every frame was created by me. Obviously you can tell when you watch it, and it wouldn't have worked otherwise because part of what I'm hoping is humorous about the film is the contrapuntal nature of an image or footage a person might "recognize" as someplace else or someone else, but the narration tells us otherwise. Ugh, I hope it plays better than it reads. ;-) However, I did take care to make sure that every shot, every image, and all soundtrack music is in the public domain -- I was very careful to obey copyright law to the fullest of my abilities. I hope that this does not disqualify my film from the competition; however even if this disqualifies me from any prizes, that I don't mind and hope that you still see fit to post this with the other submissions, as I do have an ego and would love to have other people watch it and see if any of my jokes actually worked. :-) Sponsors I put it all in the end credits ;-), but basically this entire production was written by, directed by, produced by, and starred Onnie Granados (that's me!), and the budget was pretty much non-existent. I do want to loudly and specifically thank the Prelinger Archives and www.archive.org for all of the film footage used in the movie; also thanks to the US Department of the Interior (!!!) for the photographs of George Armstrong Custer and former President Jimmy Carter. Oh, and the real town you see in the DV footage is my own hometown, Portland, Oregon, and it really is a great place to come and visit! :-) | ||
| offline posted 2006 Jan 15 23:14 | ||
| I liked this one but as a judge I can't vote here :( Anyway I'm bumping this up as it deserves a viewing. | ||
| daamon posted 2006 Jan 16 00:23 | ||
@ Onnie Granados: There was a thread a while ago about animating a red line over a map... http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=279213 ...and there were a fair number of proferred solutions that worked, but definitely not (to my mind) as effectivelty as yours - especially the little 360 degree loop just off the western coast. Can you, in the above thread, enlighten us as to how you achieved your impressive red line on a map effect please? Thanks. | ||
| Kingnog posted 2006 Jan 16 14:18 | ||
| This definitely looks like it took the most effort to create (and it came out good!)
I'm giving it a 5. Oh yeah, I found it amusing how you pronounce "renown" :-p | ||
| MrMoody posted 2006 Jan 18 18:15 | ||
| Hammond Deggs, har har.
Comedy: 5 Acting/Narration: 4 Editing/Effects: 5 Sound: 4 Photography: 4 | ||
| ROF posted 2006 Jan 18 21:11 | ||
| After finally sitting down and watching a few of these shorts I must say so far I like this one the best. It held my attention the most and so far seems to be the most close to professionalism I've seen. I've only watched three so far because that's all I had time for tonight. Congrats Hammond Degg, so far you've got my vote. | ||
| dipstick posted 2006 Jan 26 18:32 | ||
| Very Nice. I realy enjoyed this one. I think you missed your calling. You should be doing skits for Saturday Night Live or something.
Very well edited, great storyline and effects. Five stars from me. | ||
| ozymango posted 2006 Jan 26 19:49 | ||
I love you for that comment, and if I had any money I would leave it to you in my will!!!!! :D | ||
| ozymango posted 2006 Jan 27 17:01 | ||
| Not wanting to bump my own movie ("Baldrick - City of Tomorrow") or anything, what with there being only one more day to vote for your favorite movie (e.g. "Baldrick - City of Tomorrow"), but I do think it's worth noting, for those of you who haven't seen and/or voted for my movie yet ("Baldrick - City of Tomorrow"), that there have been 10 people so far who've voted this film a "1" or a "2" out of a possible 5 (five).
And I don't know whether it's a cause/effect thing or simply a corollary, but independent studies have shown that 99% of those who vote "1" or "2" re this film ("Baldrick - City of Tomorrow") suffer from acute lack of sense of humor, and/or tiny, malformed genitalia (among the males in the study). However, it should also be noted that no blame or bad thoughts of ill will should ever be aimed at such people, and they should only be loved (if also slightly pitied) for their limitations, such as they are. :roll: P.S. I'm totally kidding here so I hope I don't actually offend anybody! But I do feel bad if you actually didn't enjoy my movie, not because of hurt feelings on my part but I hope I didn't bore you too much! |
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