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watch 'Find Me' - My first short using Canon 550D

P

Phil Bowman

Hi everyone,

Check out my new short.

It's about a girl who follows a trail of letters left for her.

Find Me by Phil Bowman

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This was produced from start to finish in a week as I was keen to use my new Canon DSLR to shoot something, and a lot of the projects my friends and I were working on were taking a lot longer to plan, so I decided to start and finish something quickly.

- It was shot in one day around East London.
- I edited it in FCP 6, graded in Color, and the opening title was animated by a colleague in AE.
 
I enjoyed that, very nicely put together. The shallow DOF was utilised well, rather than the constant rack focuses you see in some DSLR films. Good-looking cinematography (all natural light, I presume?) and flowed well, nice work :)

Out of interest, did you shoot with a barebones 550D or with a viewfinder loupe/shoulder mount/follow focus? What lenses did you use?

Oh, and welcome to IndieTalk!
 
Cool! Easy to guerrilla in those locations with a DSLR probably, eh?

Don't be afraid of deep focus...your shallow focus shots are gorgeous, but I'm thinking in particular of around 1:57 where she sets off down a path, it might have been nice to see her and the whole path in focus instead of merely the leaves in the extreme foreground.

I love these kinds of impromptu projects...a few folks and a camera. Excellent work!
 
chilipie said:
Out of interest, did you shoot with a barebones 550D or with a viewfinder loupe/shoulder mount/follow focus? What lenses did you use?
Click to expand...

Hi there, thanks for the feedback. All natural light indeed, I'm not a DOP at all, I'd like to be an editor, but I do enjoy shooting my won stuff. I was just going on some tips from a friend who is looking to get into DOP work.

I think the scene in
the graveyard
is probably slightly overexposed so I would buy some ND filters for next time.

I used the 18-55 IS Kit lens, but none of those shots made it into the film.

I ended up mostly using an Olympus 50mm, f1.8 and an Olympus 135mm, f3.5. Mostly the 50mm.

In terms of a rig it was just the camera, so at times I found it really hard to see the viewfinder because of the sunlight. Everything was shot on a fluid head tripod that my Dad has had since the 80s, apart from the stuff on the train which is handheld.
 
Ah cool, thank you, nice to know it looks that polished without mountains of gear.

I actually would have guessed you'd used a wider lens, given the crop factor of the 550D, might be using one in the near future, so was useful to know what you'd used.

Best of luck with your next film, anyway!
 
Nice work, I really liked it :)

The only thing is that I kept getting distracted by how much your actress looks like maggie gyllenhaal :P
 
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