How do you get your work into the Gallery?

Pretty simple, we encourage you submit your work for review. We prefer it be in HD, but all submissions will be considered.

Send us a link and a short synopsis of the project. Tell us about yourself, your background and the process of your work. Include any specific challenges, creative and/or technical, you had to overcome. The more information you can share with the community, the better chance we will be inclined to select your work for display.

Can I submit my demo reel?

Sure. All reels from individual artists will be considered free of charge. During our initial launch we will be hosting a limited number of reels for free, after which we will be unveiling a tiered services hosting plan. We are also happy to embed from established sites such as Vimeo and Blip.tv

What about my company’s demo reel?

Yes. Commercial work is accepted on a sponsorship basis. Please contact us for further details.

Why should I submit to the HDFilmtools Gallery when I can post to YouTube for free?

YouTube is a phenomenal resource, and it’s our personal philosophy that if you want to build a career as a filmmaker or other digital media artist you need to post and promote your work via as many outlets as possible. What makes our Gallery different from the vast amount of material at YouTube is that we’ll provide a filter. A way to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak and highlight the work of what we believe are the most exciting and talented writers, directors, cinematographers, editors, visual effects and motion graphics artists, sound designers, composers and animators.

There are no other restrictions for submission and we encourage filmmakers from throughout the spectrum to submit their work. In addition to the more traditional genres this includes, documentaries, social issue projects, PSA’s non-traditional/non-linear storytelling, trailers and even advertising.

Do I give up any rights as the content creator to display in the Gallery?

Absolutely not. The Gallery is just the beginning of a host of new features, resources and services HDFilmtools plans to launch over the coming year.

We look forward to your participation and to getting the word out about your work.

Here is Part III of our interview with Dan Lebental.

In this segment Dan gives us some great insights into the feature film editorial process. We discuss topics such as what it’s like screening the “first cut” with the director and starting out on the directors cut, bringing the length of IRON MAN down from 3.5 to it’s final running time of 2 hours, exploring variations of the film and reinventing scenes, and something he fondly refers to as “index card death row”. We also get to talk a bit more about his long term working relationship with director Jon Favreau, getting the studio involved and the editorial muse. Finally we discuss an issue that confronts directors and editors on many visual effects films, the time quandary. Specifically, the amount of time it takes from the director’s contractual (DGA) 10 week cut to lock VFX sequences and get them in the “pipeline”.

Today we present Part II of my interview with Dan Lebental, film editor of Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment’s, IRON MAN.

In this segment Dan talks about his experience cutting on the Avid Media Composer, working with the visual effects team (upwards of 800 people) at ILM and the economics and intricacies of cutting a film with nearly 1000 visual effects shots. We go on to discuss the state of, and need for, industry accepted digital post production workflows. Finally, we talk about cutting IRON MAN utilizing the Avid DNX36 codec, and his first experience cutting a studio feature in HD. Enjoy.

Last Friday, I had the good fortune to visit the offices of Dan Lebental’s editing company, Splice-Inc. in midtown Los Angeles. Many of you know that Dan was the “film” editor of this summer’s first box office breakout hit, “Iron Man”. Not only is the film doing incredibly well in theaters, but it has also become one of the most critically acclaimed pictures in the genre.

Posted here is the first of our 3-part interview with Dan. In it, Dan tells us how he initially became interested in film editing, his “big break” which made him one of the most sought after music video editors of the early nineties, and how he developed a working relationship with director Jon Favereau.

On crutches and awaiting knee surgery, Dan was kind enough to give us an insider’s perspective of what it is like to participate in such a massive creative endeavor.

You will need Apple’s QuickTime 7 to view this properly.