Beautiful work. Very inspiring. If you like creative camera angles rent The Bourne Supremacy and watch the chase scene. Paul Greengrass (who came from independent film by the way) used some of the most imaginative camera angles I have seen in an action film. His chase scene IMO has finally surpassed my all time favorite (the chase scene by William Friedkin in The French Connection).

John

The Vegas levels are identical to the photoshop levels...just have a different approach to adust them. The very top slider is your black point, the one below is the white point. I usually find that DV footage lacks really rich blacks..so the first thing I do is crush the blacks a bit. I so so until I actually see a little clipping in the left side of the histogram. I use the gamma slider to bring back any mid-tone detail I might have lost.

Next I'll adjust the colors using the color corrector. I'll make any necessary white balance changes, and even warm or cool the footage for aesthetic effect. Lastly I'll add a glow filter to pop the highlights and give skin tones a soft glow. Remember to hit the arrow tab under the FX menu to the left by the "glow" filter if you have any animated pan-crop movment. The glow filter doesn't mix well with animate pan crops. It creates a flickering effect at the edges of the frame.

Yeah I saw the Borne Supremecy- very exciting action sceens. I did, however, find the camera movement (shake) a bit distracting. I know it's supposed to add an element of energy and exciement but at times it looked as if the camera was shaken purposefully. Some TV shows are filmed this way...handheld, keeping the shakes in...even on normal dialog sceens.

Have you seen Man on Fire. I thought there was some nice artistic editing/shooting in there as well.

I did, however, find the camera movement (shake) a bit distracting. I know it's supposed to add an element of energy and exciement but at times it looked as if the camera was shaken purposefully. Some TV shows are filmed this way...handheld, keeping the shakes in...even on normal dialog sceens.

Have you seen Man on Fire. I thought there was some nice artistic editing/shooting in there as well.
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Greengrass has handheld cameras for much of the shoot. He wanted that effect. For the chase scene he didn't want to rely on CG. Called them "cartoons". The use of a specially made non-flippabe high tech car plus scenes shot through the windows as cars came at him from every angle made it look realistic which is what he wanted. I loved the shots taken with a camera mounted on the floor of the passenger side of the vehicle aimed up at the driver. Incredible.

Even for the explosion of the building where the swat team was approaching he avoided CG. He used cranes to yank them backwards onto a safety net as if they were blown away........unlike the "Matrix" which was all CG.
Man on Fire interests me. I plan to see it. Thanks

John

Yeah I think that's great that some aren't using the aid of CGI. The majority of the time CGI is too apparent. Especially in the new Star Wars movies...over half the characters and terrain are CGI. I prefer the old animatronics fromt he original Starwars. However there are rare movies which it really did work- ie Jurassic Park

The music is BEAUTIFUL! Where is it from?