Mexican American War Tease

We showed this tease way back in...March? Anyway, now that we are going to air on Friday, I thought I'd post it:

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This trailer has not been color corrected.


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Cool! Great job. Love the music and ya gotta love a boxer being the host of a historical doc.

Seriously, looks great and looking forward to it.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Great work. I will definitely check that out.

He is too good looking to be a boxer.

Thanks.


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<<<He is too good looking to be a boxer. >>>

I always thought so. The first time I saw him on a billboard; "Whoa! Who's that?"

I'm taking the course in pronouncing his name.

Koz

There's gotta be a story with the sound. You don't just walk up to a cannon with a microphone--or you can do it once....

Koz

Excellent work.
To bad it will air on friday, i just left from New York to Lisbon. (I haven't yet figured the Baseball Rules...) Probably it will air here next year!?
"This trailer has not been color corrected." The footage is really good.

Rui Barros
Editor Colorist Trainer
Lisbon, Portugal
RTP Post-Production
Apple Certified Trainer FCP 7
Apple Certified Pro FCP 7

Quote

Shane Ross Wrote:
He is too good looking to be a boxer.
Thanks.

If he's a GOOD BOXER, he stays pretty
Oscar was a GOOD BOXER.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Hey Shane - great job - great atmosphere and it's tight. One thing though - I don't buy the sparkles at the end of the cannon shots. (dunno what the technical term for that is).

I know you haven't colour corrected yet so I thought I would mention that they seem too bright and stood out to me.

The synopsis is an excellent example too . . . 'America wanted a border that stretched from "sea to shining sea." So they set out on a war with Mexico to take away nearly half its land.'

And then what happened? Narrative question only, makes you want to see the show.

Koz...the audio was recorded onto the camera tapes from a boom mic (heh...pun). Of course they had to turn down the input levels.

And Jude...those "sparkles" are from the cannon. That is REAL LIVE CANNON FIRE. That is why the one ton cannons are recoiling 6-10 feet. This was a live fire competition that we filmed in San Diego.

So...sorry that you didn't buy them. They were real. This is due to the fact that every other show you see with cannon fire has them shooting very smokey blanks.


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<<<Of course they had to turn down the input levels.>>>

It's usually a little more exciting than that. The actual mic pre-amp way up at the front is usually non-adjustable and if you have a dynamic microphone (as opposed to ribbon or condensor) it will clip that first amplifier. You could damage a ribbon microphone from overextension and a condensor may "touch" and damage one of the sound plates which are usually metalized mylar.

Same thing happens when you have a healthy trumpet player in front of a mic. The fine products from Boeing and Airbus will do it, too. I think both Shure and Electro-Voice make brute force microphone attenuators to go between the mic and the mixer.


<<<REAL LIVE CANNON FIRE. >>>
<<<So...sorry that you didn't buy them.>>>

So I'm standing in the parking lot in the very late afternoon behind two graphic animators criticizing the sunset. "Look at that," one said pointing at the sky. "Very poor choice of reds. Nobody would ever buy that."

Koz

>>That is REAL LIVE CANNON FIRE.<<

No way! That so looks like animation. I was impressed with the flare, but that sparkle .. I swear - its animated!

So, I wonder, when animators do that kind of thing, and it comes off looking animated, do they make it look *less* animated and therefore *less* realistic so that we will believe in it? And do we therefore expect the real thing to look less animated because of our expectation about how things 'really' look? Does my head in.

I guess what I'm saying is, if I look at it and think - animation - and it pulls me out of the moment - does it matter of it's real or not?

BTW - really nice compression on the trailer. It loads quick and the quality is great. You should post the recipe for that.

speaking of real and animated see if you can spot the CG effects in the Neill Blomkamp short I posted above. Bet ya can't.

Michael Horton
-------------------

> I guess what I'm saying is, if I look at it and think - animation - and it pulls me out of the
> moment - does it matter if it's real or not?

I think you just answered your own question, Jude.

I have a crushed nose from childhood, so I get nosebleeds a lot...and when I do, I always notice that real blood is really, really red...not the dark stuff most mainstream films use (and I'm not talking about crime scenes, eg. dried blood; I'm talking about squibs, knifings, etc.). Real blood is really a lot like Shaw Brothers blood, or original Dawn of the Dead blood.

But the red, red blood looks almost too heightened, so they darken it.

It's all expressive.


www.derekmok.com

Reality getting TOO real eh?

Watch the show and see if ou can spot the Green Screen shots. The first three unfortunately are fairlyy obvious, but the other 13...i dare ya.


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We go through a lot of test and reference videos before every effects movie so we know where we're starting from. Nobody expects to finish there.

I think it was "Storm Of The Century" where we had to produce snowfall. The New Hampshire people will notice (if they thought about it at all) that you can't have snow like we had. If it's snowing this hard over here, you wouldn't be able to see the major plot point traffic light way over there. We had to do the snow in distance zones so we could squeeze the story in.

Producers expect to be able to tune natural effects on cue--sometimes well beyond reality. Otherwise, they would have just flown to Manitoba and shot real snow.

Koz

I couldn't watch the trailer on my old pc; the browser crashed everytime.

But I did watch the show on the history channel.

I was watching for the cuts, then I forgot myself and got involved with the story. Then my wife asked me what I thought of the editing, and I said, "oh, I forgot to watch for that." LOL

I saw some very nice dissolves and I couldn't find any fault in any of the editing.

Again I forgot myself and was drawn into the documentary ...

Shane, you did a marvelous job as an editor.

As for the quality of the panasonic and the HD -- I remember you describing it -- I was very impressed. A lot of it was as good as 35mm, but I don't have to tell you that. The main thing is that it was very good, and the whole shooting and documentary were very well done. I've watched many history channel programs. This was on par with all of them ... as far as production goes.

I sort of think that the editing in this one was better though, but maybe I'm biased in your favor :-)

Good job, Shane...

Vic

I'm glad you were drawn into the story and not distracted by the editing. That is the point...invisible art and all.

Thanks Vic.


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