There are no tits, I lied. Well, not yet anyway.

I'm spending this year trying to put together a portfolio to get into a film and television course in Galway. Good news, I'm very excited about it. Bad news, I have no idea where to start.

One of the great thing about being a DLP member is the pool of extremely awesome resources you have at your disposal... if said resources aren't too busy masterbating to dolphin porn.

The requirements are here:

Seems fairly simple, yes? Well there are fourty places in the course and the points range between 600 and 700 each year. That means the portfolio I submit must make at least 350 points if I'm to have a hope of getting in.

All ideas and/or help would be awesome.

 

Something stop-motion could be both cheap, practical (no cast) and potentially cool.

Something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMoKcsN8wM8

But obviously a smaller scale. You could do it with people, with drawings on paper (basically animation), with real life junk, with models (e.g. plasticine Wallace and Gromit style), with lights, whatever.

Or you could do it with tits. Yes. Stop motion tits. Genius.

 

If you don't care about looking like a massive nerd, there is always the option of pirating a copy of Adobe After Effects and doing something like RyanvsDorkman and ConcreteHustle

 

If you wanted to combine some degree of stop motion animation with long-exposure light trail photography, you could do something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_9SYaWAQg&feature=related

And another one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGCVygpIIxY&feature=related

 

These are all pretty epic and I'm probably going to playaround with that a bit, but I think they're looking for something a bit simpler.

Anyone reccomend a decent and cheap camera to film with?

 

A few questions to begin with:
1. What's your background in film-making?
2. Do you have a specific genre in mind?
3. What's your budget/special resources?
4. Where do you live?

 

1. None. The course isn't aimed at advanced students.
2. I'd prefer comedy as it's a short 5 minute film.
3. 200-300 euro for a camera and adobe after effects. I also have a fairly famous rock band that have offered help if I need it. Probably won't go that way though.
4. Donegal in Ireland. I have my pic of beautiful scenery if needed.

 

Your budget is pretty low, so try to write most of your scenes outside and in daylight - shooting inside or in the dark means either more $$ for ligh equipment or shitty-ass frames.

As far as cameras go, rent Cannon 5D. Seriously, don't even think about, just do it.
It's light (being a DSLR), gives you commercial level HD photography, doesn't consume tapes and fits into your budget really nicely while leaving some room for extra stuff (filters, mounts, etc.). I'll help you with the accessories if you need but that comes later, after your script and locations are covered.

Pirate After Effect. Plain and simple - Adobe will survive without your money and nobody will check if you had a legal copy or not.

Like I said erlier, try to fit your story to your resources - don't plan on shooting a 70 minutes epic about unicorn-riding aliens who fight their oppressive dragon masters in your living room with only wheel-chair bound friend Timmy as an actor. But also, don't limit yourself. I've seen people doing some pretty amazing shit by using very limited resources in creative ways.

I'll add some more important points and feel free to any questions in the meanwhile.

 

I think me meant a video camera, not a photography camera.

I have a portable Sony (~300 euros) that gives a decent picture and is full HD, so I suppose most camcorders nowadays would be good. But you may think about renting a professional one, you should get a much better picture to work with, better lightning, etc. Bigger lenses is always better pictures. But then again, it's an amateur project and I doubt they expect a professional hollywood-looking short movie.

Besides, what you lack in quality equipment, you can fix it easily with After Effects if you're good with it. Better lightning, stabilise the picture, correct the colours or add special effects.

 

The Canon 5D can record videos, awesome videos at that and I want it badly now.

Unfortunately I like owning things and I'd need to take up prostitution to buy that so I'm probably going to keep it fairly simple.

Now to think up an actual story. Doubt they'll be interested in live action FF.

 

I don't know crap about movies and photography, other than knowing I enjoy some of them more than others.

I can help you with the writing and ideas though, and I'm sure other writers in this forum would help you, too. The 'rules' say the judges will watch up to 2 or 3 minutes of film, so you've got that long to make a good, solid impression.

What are your ideas so far? You mentioned comedy/humor as a preferred genre given the length. Have you thought of something you'd like to polish, or expanded on?

~3 mins of film and humor makes me think College Humor. Is that more or less what you have in mind?

 

Also stuff like the Mitchell and Webb look is good to try to emulate. Short sketches. They have pretty tight writing though.

Proper Language Use

Homeopathic A&E

And my favourite, Brain Surgeon

 

I fealt a disturbance as I oggled flipper hentai. I was being beckoned.

Alot of friends were ogling VFS over here and they talked nothing but portfolios.

What I got from portfolio composition was that the registrars were trying to weed out the casually interested for those who were already talented or mediocre in the field.

Since this is such a visual field, yes expensive equipment would be great, but honestly if you can impress them with simple equipment used really well that would mean more.

Demonstrating good use of the equipments features prior to editing will mean more than just a pretty picture of a dog.

Suggestions:

Astro photography requires intermediate use of relatively cheap equipment, and require you to be patient and litterally sit around doing nothing half the time. Get some buddys go camping, and bring a camera with some relatively decent controls regarding shutter and iso settings and your golden.
It requires a good understanding of the camera and how ISO works

Macro shots are nice but they have to have context. But if done right they are jaw droppingly good.
I would suggest participating in the gizmodo photo contest or trying to recreate shots after they explain how it was done.

Painting with light is the it thing now so it might not hurt to try but, if I was the registrar I would be so bored looking at those by now; it would be a good entry level standard so one good creative shot would be welcome.

Playing with shutter speeds and finding a camera known for unique tweeks would be beneficial.

I can't fault the suggestion for the canon 5D II whatever. That is the standard tool of serious pro photographers but buying or even renting one without any understanding of how to use one or to truly take advantage of its features, would be a waste of money and would get you no better results than a standard camera.

Your portfolio should have an overal visual theme.
Not saying cowboys and clowns birthday theme, but a design/stylistic theme.
It should look profesional in its layout. The more it feels like it came from a buisness that wanted to attract customers with asthetics, the better.

If you really want to spend some money maybe register a domain, learn to make a simple website in terms of style to showcase your updating work. It doesnt need alot of bandwidth just enough so you can upload a couple videos and pictures and alow maybe 20 people to view your content a month.