watch Paddleboat Pirates! 2min short

Hi Everyone!

This is a very short pirate action/adventure film i made recently shot on DSLR's (Canon 500d & Pentax K7). Shooting on DSLR's was great because it meant we could shoot from the paddleboats if we needed to.

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I noticed a big difference between the way Canon and Pentax deal with colour in video mode, has anyone else made comparisons between the two?

I'd love any feedback or to hear anyone else's experience with DSLR video shooting.

Wow that is short, still there are some nice looks that I like, and some funny moments.
And you spend time on costumes, that's cool too. Well, story telling could be better

Did you do white balance? But different chipsets in cameras and quality is noticeable. Else I'm really low in camera knowledge

Wow. There was some actual genius at work there. You have so much stuff going for you in that little short. I am not sure if it was by accident or on purpose. But the pacing, story, editing, shots, and concept all seem to be working really well. You understood the fact that you can't make something like this go for very long otherwise it would get boring. You could definitely work on your camera work and some continuity work might also help. But for the most part it actually wasn't to bad. I even got a kick out of the kind of twist ending.

I watch a lot of shorts film, not just here but all over the internet. And in my opinion most aren't half that entertaining. How long did you take to plan it? Was it just a spur of the moment type of thing?

I thought this was a great example of working with what you have to create something that isn't boring. You didn't have audio, but that didn't mean you couldn't spend some time on sound design. You didn't have lighting, but that didn't mean you had to sacrifice picture quality. This should be a great example to anyone out there that you don't need a RED, or a 30 person crew, or a house with an art director to make a short enjoyable piece.

Bravo. I'll be looking for your next piece. Curious to see what you would do if you had to light a set and use audio. Again well done.

Thanks Brooksy!

I really appreciate your encouraging comments! Filmmaking is so filled with disappointments and let downs that it makes me keep hope hearing things like that.

In answer to your questions it took us about 2 days to plan but i spent a lot longer developing how we could cover the story. It was a spur of the moment type thing and we had less than a day to shoot the whole shabang. We only had 4-5 hours with the paddle boats because we couldn't afford any more (plus we didn't have council permission to shoot there, eep). So it was the epitome of gorilla filmmaking. Quick shoot it! Now run away!

I totally agree we sacrificed camera work and continuity by doing that but i guess like you said sometimes we do just need to get out there without big crews and expensive equipment to get things made.

We did recently finish a short film called, "How to be More Average" which had a set, lights and audio. It was a film school project and again we had no money but everyone has really enjoyed it and so far we've been getting "yes's" from festivals. If you would like to see it you can email me at charlotte(at)mangofandango.net and i can send you a special link.

This year i'm planning to work on a 15min narrative piece though and i'm going for 15k funding, so we'll see how it goes.

And Backlash, yes we white balanced but the cameras just still dealt with colour in completely different ways... Plus i guess we had 3 different people shooting stuff because of time constraints and they were all of different skill levels.

One thing i have definitely learnt: Paddle boats take a really long time to turn around!