SHADOW BOXER

MAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for a moving experience.

Hey I would love some feedback from you on my latest. Thanks!

link

Hello, I am back with a new short.
Tell me what u think.
link

Glad to see you are on TV with this piece. Check out our latest pod earthrace.

Yeah, we're also on this amazing Irish blog gets a couple of million hits a week. Blogorrah.com it's a viral global phenomenon thanks to Current TV and just in time for the Current TV launch in Ireland March 12!
Getreel

Great video. There was good article by Tommy Craggs in SF Weekly in 2003 about Seamus that you can read here should you wish to find out more about Mr. McDonagh and that left hook of his.

Big GL. Very touching. Nice work Sandi.

Looking forward to seeing this piece on tv, in full res! Glad it was GL.

Im glad I found this and that it got the GL already.....I hardly ever get to watch the channel....just stop in here from time to time.....so...Congrats :)

Congrats! Glad to see you made it to a well deserved 1st. place!
Good Track

Hey gang, Seamus and I would like to thank the entire Current TV community for your support and all the thoughful comments which helped us get to #1! Wouldn't it be great if CTV had a party and we could all meet one day? Sandi and Seamus

Yayyyy....! well deserved!

zen

Glad to see the reedit paid off. Congrats!

Congrats, Just saw you were picked,
asm

Very nice piece. The music works great with it. I wanted to see more.

GL

Thanks so much IndeV actually, we can't have too many GL's, anything can happen by Thursday at 5pm, I've been here before. Alas, the vicissitudes of Current TV. I'm most thrilled for Seamus that Shadow Boxer has been so well recieved. Your thoughtful comments on my pods in the past have been greatly appreciated. We have a new one just uploaded "The Boxer" link Getreel

Although you prob don't need any more GLs, I figured I just toss one in and help call the fight. Really a cool, original pod. Nice.

Beautiful imagery and music. GL from me too!

Great story telling...short, but it said everything. Vedy nice. GREENLIGHT!

Awesome pod.

I love how he said he never liked fighting.

I got a new one up if you want to let me know what you think.Worry:Social Security and Retirement

GL. Congrats on being #1 as well

Thanks Zen. I actually use Sorrenson Squeeze on my website and it's amazing, link and I've tried it on my pods but it sucks even WORSE, too much compression! I will try your settings, I live downtown. Let me know when you're in town love to hook up. getreel@earthlink.net

Scroll to the bottom of this page. My original message is #1 in this thread on New Egg settings I use. There is a direct link to the New Egg PDF which you can print out, I've posted my modifications to this using Sorenson Squeeze, but also give workarounds if you do not have that software.

Where in NYC are you anyway, I get in there a few times a month.

-zen

Hey Zen, I was looking for you, somebody told me you have compression settings, I use stupid iMovies, and I can't find the email. Where would I find these settings? I use expert and Quicktime, still sucks. May I ask what you're referring to about TV, you talking about Telling Jokes In Auschwitz? Yeah I'm honored, maybe Spielberg will see it now. Just uploading a new pod on Seamus, "The Boxer", stay tuned. Getreel

Looks like you just got picked for TV - congrats! -zen

What a wonderfully distilled portrait. Everything from the music, editing, and shooting are very cohesive. Congrats and great job.
Feel free to take a look at my promo, "Leap off the Edge."

very nice work! GL.

Excellent job.

Great cinematography, music and concise storytelling. GL from me.

Also, thanks for the support

when you talk about being knock out you should show it but in like bam bam . So far it seems to be really good . I like how the music is so sad .

Great job, congrats

Great story... I love it when a charachter by himself, makes the story, keeping it both compelling and true. the music keeps it right in your gut, too. GL!
Thanks as well for the comments on my AD.
link

Fabulous Sandi!!
You are my hero. : )

Hey Lamp Man, yeah, CTV doesn't post instantly especially on weekends. My footage from New York City on New Year's made it into the round the world celebration, check homepage. Keep up your original series. Sandi

hello!. good shooting and good idea. the shadow boxer is really interesting. Like Hemingway, Philip Roth and Mailer, among others, he founds something beautiful in the act of fighting.

thank you for the lamp man comment. i had uploaded a lamp man video about new years eve (greetings) but current didnt post it i dont now what went wrong but i will try to upload again this week.

Brilliant

This is a very good documentery. good storytelling. greenlight from me!

Oh Plisko that's about the most gallante thing I've ever seen, you are a true gentleman. I'm off the hook cause I greenlit yours before we started duking it out up here. I was head of production at Mad Dogs & Englishmen, in advertising for many years, but I used to hire people to do this. Ha. It's really something doing it all by myself. I did use those compression settings of Zen's but you're right, there are some things inherant in the shooting which just make the footage strobe, it's 24P and camera and subject movement. I shot Twilight Ballet at the same location, but they were moving quite slowly, Seamus was dancing much faster. Thanks again for the classiest greenlight I ever got! I see you play in a Celtic band, they don't get much more Celtic than Seamus Patrick McDonagh! This music I got on stockmusic.net, it's actually Welsh, but, it was perfect and, as they say in Ireland, "It's perfect, it'll have to do". Good luck to you in getting back to your well deserved 1rst place and thanks again for the GL. Sandi

Sandi,

Great work. I'm going to GL it even thouugh that may knock me off #1.

The best compression settings I have found so far was Zen's settings he offered in the community pages. You export using the expert settings. Use the MPEG 4 codec set to highest quality. Make the size 640X480 letterboxed and deinterlaced. Don't optimize for internet streaming. The audio settings can be "none" or "Apple lossless" compression.

If you are shooting 24p that is going to enhance the jittery look that fast movements create. I have always thought it was overrated when it comes to projects that are finished on video. 30i is really not that visibly different other than much smoother motion, even when it deinterlaces during compression.

I have also found that boosting contrast a little can help loose some of the milky look when you push the brightness. It's hard to do much more with iMovie. If you have access to FCP then it is well worth the effort. I teach my basic production students on iMovie, however, because it is simpler so I can see how it would be something comfortable compaired to FCP's relative complexity. Once you get the basics, though, you will thank yourself. . .not just for color correction but for precision and audio control it is light years difference. Something like a split edit requires backflips through a flaming hoop in my version of iMovie. Creating a complex audio mix requires half blind mixing with clips all stacked on top of each other. I don't know if they fixed that yet in the latest version but man it was awful.

I love those shots of the guy wrapping his hands. goosebumps. GL!

gReAt jOb! GL

Interesting story! and nice shooting there!
Music flows well with the video.
Its cool to find about interesting people!
GL

A story well told... I enjoyed watching this, I like you shoot your stuff. Well done.
GL from me.

Very interesting and well done pod.
Boxing runs in both sides of the family tree.
The best known is Rocky Marciano.
We still have one of the his stools from his boxing days.
A GL for you.
Ciro'

Oh Thanks Filmsaz, yes, the compression on ALL my pods SUCK! It's heartbreaking because the film is so gorgeous when I shoot it, on my website I have someone do Sorrensen Squeeze on it and it's pretty amazing. A couple of problems here if you or anyone can help I would be much abliged. I edit in iMovies because I don't have time to learn FCP. One problem is low light and I push the gain which makes it miky, and, if there is movement in the shot like Seamus dodging around, it chatters, strobes. So, inherently in the shooting of this pod there are compression problems which are enhanced when I upload. But here is my problem, the settings in iMovie, I've tried everything from expert settings to fooling with the file size. PLEASE HELP. CAN'T BREATHE! Do you know anything about iMovies? It's my greatest dissapointment with CTV, the quality of uploads. Some pods look SO gorgeous, don't know how they do it, think movement in the frame and camera movement have a lot to do with it. Thanks for any help and kind words. Sandi

Thanks for your comment. This is a good pod! I used a DVX100 too. I think your spot looks great, but its compressed poorly. I'm not sure if this happenned before or after you uploaded it to Current. I would look into reuploading it with a better compression settings. Let me know if I can help.

Archiecheer2 I am very interested in that adaptor, are those still lenses? couldn't be that easy could it? Tell me more. How do you get the tilt and swivle effect, selective focus, with lenses and the adapter? And Jeff, you have always supported my pods in the past in such a thoughtful way and I do appreciate it. Choices, choices, I considered everything you said and this is just what felt true and it passes the cringe test. Every time I look at it I dont' cringe. Thanks again, Getreel

Hey there, thanks for the awesome comment you left me. I use a DV100A with a letus 35 lens adapter. It really adds a lot to the production value. I also have a preference for Nixon lenses. Once i get home from vaction i can wait to check out your stuff. My mom's computer doesn't have flash player. Thanks again for the support!!

Getreel,

Finding good subject matter is no small achievement, so I congratulate you on hooking up with someone who has lived courageously and can tell about it!

In my humble opinion, I think you found a great visual idea, but allowed it to be repetitive. And why did you use the image of him taping up his hands at the end? It seems to imply a beginning. I would have varied the shots. I would have had close-ups of his face as he was shadow-boxing and used the trusted and true slow-mo. But what most seemed to be missing was drawing out the final moment in the voice-over when he describes being dropped by Evander Holyfield and questioned what it was all about. That would have worked nicely with a close-up and a follow-up question.

I truly admire your pluck!

nice work! great to see complete
stories under 2 minutes.
peace,
P

Nice biography. I like pieces like this. One of the things I miss about living in NYC is that there are all sorts of interesting people everywhere. Seamus seems quite the person, especially after reading his history. Well done GL

Wow. Hey Boo3gie. be glad to pass along anything I can to you and any other Manhattanites. I have the Panasonic DVX100A shoot everything letterbox 24P and edit in stupid iMovies. it's all I got. Anyone can email getreel@earthlink.net and I'll meet ya under the FDR for a lesson, be kind of fun for a bunch of us to hook up and make a pod together, day in the life sort of thing. Thanks again for the amazing comments, I am humbled. Getreel

this is cool.. I like your storytelling style.. I did notice you shot shit in the same place where you shot the ballet dancers.. cool!! this guy makes for a great little story.. he deserves this bit of attention.. great job.. gl

wow. this is really great storytelling; seamus has amazing presence and i can almost feel his tenacity as a fighter way back when. thanks for sharing this story. man, getreel, we both live in NY...one of these days i'd love to get some in-person tips about shooting. you do so well with this one, and with the ballet dancers as well -- you have a simple but strong style of shooting. would love to get together sometime in '07 if you have time. keep up the great work. i KNOW this one will make it on air :)

Thanks all. Yes Seamus is future podworthy for sure, have to wait for him to come back to NYC though. MBS, it was tempting to make this longer but I felt it was a mood piece with one storyline and I found this perfect music on stockmusic.net. Adding supers and oncamera interviews, as suggested, would break that spell in my opinion. Personally, I feel shorter pods work better on the tiny screen, but I come from commercials so that's my discipline. Mavifilm, in the words of Lily Von Schtup, "You got it MIster." Seamus and I are very grateful for the way Shadow Boxer has been receivied, you should know, we shot the whole thing in about 10 minutes. Getreel

I left you a GL and a comment yesterday and now I don't see it.. In case you haven't read it, I wanted to tell you I enjoyed your Pod thoroughly! You're right about Seamus, he's a blast! (some pun intended ;) Your story telling and camera shows that "yoooou've done this befooooore!!". Great job!
Thank you also for your colorful comments on my work! You made my day! To answer your question, no, I'm not doing this for a living, but it sure is luring! I think I'll stick around a little longer :)
I'll be following your work closely! Cheers!

Hi there...Thank you for your comments & GL!
The 1st part was created on Soundtrack Pro & the 2nd part was royalty free music. Thanks & keep up the good work! ~MBS~

Excellent. It made me want to know more about McDonagh and boxing. Is there a sequel in the works?

Nice job...a bit short...I felt myself wanting to see & know more about him & his experiences. Do you have any shots of interview with him or of him talking? BEAUTIFUL MUSIC & loved when he's wrapping his hands. GL

I only ever met two prizefighters in my life, Joe Louis and you. Sure glad I had a camera this time. Art is a two way street Seamus, thank you for being my muse. Sandi

Thank you Sandi. I just bounced around, threw punches, said a few things about my boxing career, and you put it all together and made an artistically moving and blossoming flower out of it. Again, thank you. Seamus Patrick McDonagh

Timely and great, love your pieces. Green.

I always like many of your pieces, this one is no different. GL!

Excellent camera work and perfect fit of music. GL

I want your opinion about my work, Thanks!

Southernacho

">link

Great piece, it appeals to my Irish hertiiage and love of boxing-the music fits well. GL! Thanks for the comments and GL as well.

Spectacular pod. Great story, cinematography and music. I keep going back and forth between whether I would have used a clip of the fight somewhere. Hmmm.... I think your way is very pure and aesthetically pleasing.

I think this proves that pods can be very very short and still present a compelling and captivating story. Well done, GL!

My Pop Secret V-CAM: Cavemen

cool story!

It's good to be able to see another one of your pods. Your camera work is great, and you are really able to capture the audience' s attention through your sharp editing and storytelling techniques. Very nice job. Keep them coming! GL from me!

If you get a chance, please give me your feedback on my new pod: ”A Humane Society”. Thanks!

Nice work geetreel. GL!

You asked me about making links. Do you mean like this: link key is to add the full address with the http but no anything after the video number 17946247

So http : // www.current.tv/ studio/ media/ 17946247 but no spaces

Dreamy piece. I liked the music element. Coulda used a tad more b-roll (like the picture of him clocking Holyfield). Still, this is a job well done. It's really suited well for Current and I'm surprisd it hasn't gotten more greenlights. It's a damned shame if you ask me. Hey, I can relate. My stuff isn't exactly a GL magnet. Alas, that is the way of the world. GL.

Also, i appreciated your kind comment on my pod, but you forget to actually GL it.

You are always bringing suprising talent into the fray. First with Ellsberg and now with Seamus. I hope you keep it up! A GL from me.

Thanks Dan for GL, I love CTV, you guys always make my work better and I thank you all and for link info. I finally figured it out, all I had to do was paste the URL. Duh! Getreel

Much stronger, much tighter -- in shape now for a GL.

Saw your note to zenbeer -- are you looking to insert a hyperlink in your comments? That's done with a very simple "anchor" tag. Instructions on how to code are here (and that's an example of the tag in action). Just code it directly into your comments, and click on preview button and test the link before you submit.

Actually Scootman, this is what Seamus is up to these days, he lives in San Francisco
link Thanks again for your thoughtful comments. Getreel

Getreel,

After writing my post I then read the description you wrote about the pod. Why isn't this info in the pod? This is a great story! Why not use more slates throughout the pod to tell this, such as...

"Larger than life Irish actor and writer"

"an honors degree in English Literature"

"At 21 and getting very disillusioned with life, getting back into the ring seemed like the only way to try to achieve the American Dream."

Rising from obscurity Seamus became the Golden Gloves Champion, knocking out all his opponents"

"As the 3rd ranked Cruiser-weight in the world Seamus moved up to the heavyweight division and in1990 against all odds, fought Evander Holyfield for the Heavyweight Championship."

That's a story! Why is it not in the pod. Add this info into the pod as well. This is good stuff. It's all there, it's just not being told.

When I first saw this pod a few weeks back I had the thought that this has the possibility of being one of the better pods I’ve seen on Current. However, it lacked a story. The emotion and drama were there but the story was not. Now that you have added the comments from Seamus it works a lot better. I am giving you a well deserved GL but would also like to add some thoughts…

The potential for greatness is here! How often do you get to interview and capture raw shadow boxing footage of a person who has fought for the world heavyweight title? This is a great story that could easily be 4 or 5 minutes, but the fact that it less than two is ok. I just feel that it could have a greater impact. The story that is central to this piece is Seamus’ one shot at the world heavyweight title! What I wanted to see was more stills of the actual fight. When he talks about being knocked down and being on the canvas, it would be powerful to see that still shot of him being hit and then another still of him on the canvas. Then when he talks about rising to his feet and getting into that boxing stance he had learned his whole life, show that still shot, that would be moving. Also, I would close the pod with another slate telling us what Seamus is currently doing with his life. I think if you added these stills intermixed with his shadow boxing, and closing it with another slate it would have a much greater impact, and yes it would be one of the great pods on Current.

These are just my impressions, but I feel strongly about this piece, that’s why I’m sharing them. But, what a great idea, congrats.

You capture such great emotion in your work. Beautiful film, too. Is Seamus single??? I know an Irish girl in NYC who he'd be perfect for (not me, I swear!) haha. Good job. GL. Check out my v-cam when you have a chance: Freshman Fifteen. Thx!

Thanks community for your comments, added a voice over by Seamus, works much much better now.
getreel

Wow, I could 'feel' the force of his punch! For that, a GL! Would love to hear the sounds he's making as he's punching. We're in NYC so let us know where we can see SPM perform.

Elle Empire

I would have loved to hear some words from the man himself. The description says it all, but that won't be seen on TV.

Shola