[Mike Smith]

Hi Petar

Your English is fine – better than my bad German for sure.

Maybe I was a little harsh. From your work I guessed you were a current or recent film student; I would not have known you have no formal training. In those circumstances, you have done decently well with the technical aspects.

I fear we will not reach any agreement on the importance of story though. To my mind, that is where the answers to your length and predictability issues may lie.

There are those that agree with you of course. Josef von Sternberg put that view neatly in his “I care nothing about the story, only how it is photographed and presented.”

Still, I wonder whether you might benefit from thinking a bit more about story. There’s maybe something worth glimpsing among the humour from Terry Rossio at
https://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp41.Point.of.View.html

https://www.grapevinecommunications.co.uk/contact/story/story.html
https://www.grapevinecommunications.co.uk/contact/spectacle/spectacle.html

[Mike Smith]

So is that cam only ….? https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/733533-REG/Canon_4888B001_XF100_HD_Professional_Camcorder.html

[Mike Smith]

OK I’ll bite, though you may not like it. What are you not happy with in your film?

My reactions: this film is quite long for a little misdirection joke.

It has the feel of a student film, a technical (“5 finger”) exercise to work on a mood of menace, with no real payoff as audince for watching. To me, it has no content beyond a vague threat that something horrible may be about to happen, for no good reason. To me, this just says “don’t trust this filmmaker with your time” – but hey, there is an audience for horror – the Justine tradition lives on.

Characters – you introduce the woman in black dragging a chair, as if the car is not hers (why not bring it along in the back?), and then introduce the woman in pink as if the woman in black doesn’t know she was there. (why focus on the chairback, if you want to use those bars in foreground, and not on the legs walking away – if this shot works at all …?) The story you tell implies that this woman in black has broken down in her vehicle, and is surprised to hear noise from the boot.

But all that is misdirection, seemingly to let you pay off the tension and foreboding (bolt cutters, really?) with the nad haircut day joke. How would you expect people to feel, at that point, other than a little pxxd with you?

So I guess I’d say in response to the topic – how to improve storytelling – have a story worth telling in the first place …. comment on specifics of technique seems redundant at this point.

Hope it all works out for you.

[Mike Smith]

You just closed all the viewer windows or panels. Reopen project, search for your comp by name in your poject window and double-click on the comp name to reopen it = this should fix it for you.

[Mike Smith]

Your question’s not too clear to me.

It’s not the audio that’s the problem. Your audio will be recorded at your settings and will play back in time as recorded.

Most editing software should have no issues playing it back at the appropriate speed.

If you’ve filmed at 24fps and then play back your video at 30 fps then evidently your video is no longer in “real time” … is that what’s happening to you?

If you film at 30 fps and put that into your editor in a 30fps sequence then again your audio should just drop in and play accurately in sync.

So what exactly are you doing – filming in what rate, playing back in what edit software at what sequence settings?@

[Mike Smith]

Why would you want to add extras to a project you’ve agreed a fixed fee for? Is there a hint of having your cake and eating it here …?

Surely your challenge is to manage the project to keep it within the parameters set in the budget, and to flag early and clearly to client if you think you can reasonably say you are being asked to go beyond what’s agreed.

Working to a budget is nornal for a producer, and many clients are utterly reasonable about the point that we’re reaching the boundaries of budget here, we need to contain the small things to stay within.

Sounds like you’re lucky to have such a good client.

[Mike Smith]

Really Vipati I think Angelo has shown you the way, and until you’ve worked through the relevant Adobe help there’s not much more to tell you. https://helpx.adobe.com/media-encoder/using/add-items-encoding-queue.html

[Mike Smith]

The sdk = look at https://www.adobe.com/devnet/premiere/sdk/cc.html though it will really need some decent software skills to use it. If you are not a skilled programmer you are at least a year or two of learning away from being able to make use of it, and if you want to make cross-platform plugins perhaps longer.

Is there some other way to get to what you want – perhaps some other programme that will carry out whatever specialised task you have in mind?

[Mike Smith]

That would be a fairly flagrant breach of copyright. Or do we think it’s so old it’s now out of copyright … I doubt that.

[Mike Smith]

Hi Angleo.

Really I’m trying to help Dominic to find his own way around what he could manage with a compressor and why audio people routinely use them, as following the links might have shown you.

On the specific quote from me that you highlighted, I’m referring to the use of compression on an element-by-element (track by track) basis in the sound mix to help (alongside normally, at least EQ and reverb) overall sound. I’ve left aside compression’s role in “loudness wars” as not really helpful.

Overall level control contributes greatly to bringing things forward or back in the mix: the compressor is more help in taming expressive dynamic range by a single singer or instrument so that each lement has (can have) a more consistent place in the mix through its quieter and louder sections. Though of course any alternative creative or different use might be just what’s wanted for a specific project.

For the compressor of course it’s the ability to control relative levels selectively which makes its use different from a simple volume / gain control.