excerpt mm

[Klaus Hoefs]

wip mm:

A story of a solitary man who has stranded in a little seaside town far North waiting for a response of his woman. There is only this one way left for them both: to meet here , he can't go any further.
He claims to be something like an audio engineer, taping the sounds of mussels and shells with microphones. But it comes out that he has been a pilot in the air force and suffering from a phobia of sea. He is trying to connect to people of the fishing town without success. The stubborn people are pretending to do their daily work as usual but the sea is empty .

So introducing mm, excerpt:
http://www.inf.fh-flensburg.de/hoefs/+m ... 12_08.html
streaming flv

some shots:

[Paul Fierlinger]

Ahhh... you have discovered the simple thin line because it makes animation easy. I like your progress very much and of course I like the collaboration of narrator and his picture; one makes the other come to life. The music is a bit too melodramatic for my taste, but who knows what's going to develop from here on... so then the lively music springs up, and yes, there's the lively little creature entering -- but to my disappointment he doesn't skip around and the music gives up on him.

There are a couple of awkward cuts to my taste, namely the first one from wide shot of man to the closer one in which he turns around. He turns around too soon and too quickly so that we don't see his face. Is that intentional? Why cut to a CU if it doesn't unveil anything new to us?

But I hope you keep this one up ... it looks like it's really going somewhere ... the story sounds good too; did you make it up yourself?

[Klaus Hoefs]

Thanks Paul for watching this new wip. I made everything by myself including the story.
Concerning the cuts I will have to talk with the editor asap - tête-à-tête.

[Paul Fierlinger]

There are more problems with the edits; most of them are jump-cuts. When you cut from your blue coat man in a CU to the left of the screen to a wider shot of him, he jumps to the right of the screen. This is because he is in the same position relative to your camera in both shots. These two shots need a cut-away shot placed between them; perhaps of the gull, turning his head, following the man. Then we cut to the wider shot and the man has truly moved over to the other side of the screen, just as the gull indicated.

Each time you cut from man to a wider shot of the man, it will be a jump cut unless you move your camera to another angle. The angle must be a drastic change but don't step over the 180 degree line.

When the narrator says the man is waiting for the woman, we see his woman entering... wait, it's not his woman; it's him but he has taken his hood off and it looks like a woman's head -- see how you can confuse the viewer? You have the fish throwing man lined up where I would expect to see our man if the woman would show up behind him. True, after a blink or two, it all gets cleared up, but that's no good; there must not be a frame of hesitancy for the viewer.

Also your little captain pulling his boat on a string is much too close to the screen's edge. Half of him will be cut off on a TV screen. Check it out either in TVPaint (bottom of project window where it says display), or in Vegas, the little cross-hatch icon on top of the project window, select "safe area".