Reprieve - A Sentrosi productions film

[Moojangles]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3156/2531450778_01c30fe03f_b.jpg





Update: Shooting has begun, first min or so done, grabs to come soon. So far, so good.

Written by Nick, aka Conspiracy Penguin.

Writing has basically finished, now working on pre-production including finalizing actors and getting all my locations and sets ready.

Going shopping this weekend for costumes, filming to start Monday night.

This will be my first DVXuser Fest, i'm pretty excited and i'd like to thank Nick for helping me flesh out my not at all solid ideas :)

Also shout out to Matt Gettemeier for coming up with some of the idea that led to this script.

More info to follow.

Actors: Mike Ramirez
Rina Onoyama
Pat Campbell
(TBA)

[Moojangles]

New Grabs:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2361/2523139822_309a859796.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3044/2522316901_3b980f6c4d.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3082/2523138256_415fb7eaf3.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2265/2522315289_1a7b994403.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2095/2522134933_51bd4c15dc.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3075/2522134059_9320b68dd1.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2312/2522132309_7de44c5a76.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2001/2522133197_ccec48718e.jpg


No colour correction or anything yet. Just straight from ye olde DVX :) ... the SGpro helps too.

[Matt Sconce]

:cheesy:Welcome and good luck!:2vrolijk_08:

[Mark Harris]

Welcome! turning out to be a populous fest....

[ConspiracyPenguin]

I have had a gret deal of fun working on this project. We went through multiple options before I finally brought an idea by Matt (MattinSTL) back to the table. Brad liked it and added a few comments of his own and I took it and made it into the screenplay. I was able to have a lot of creative freedom on this project since we didn't have a whole bunch to go on and I was extremely surprised when, after sending Brad the first rough draft, he came back telling me no edits were needed and he wanted to use it!

Good luck Brad, and everyone else! This should be a great short and a great fest!

[Moojangles]

what can i say? I didn't give him much to work with and he filled in the gaps that my mind was struggling with.

I've passed it around to a few friends and talked through it with some of the actors, it should be a fun project assuming we can get the filming done in time.

I think a proper score will help so the goal i guess is to get this project filmed edited and find a good composer to finish it off.

thanks for the help nick, i've spent the whole day working on my set, hopefully it'll turn out the way i envisioned.

[Mark Johnson]

Welcome to the party. This is definitely turning out to be a really exceptional film festival. I do not believe we've ever seen so many international entries.

[Beat Takeshi]

Welcome to the fest.

[Moojangles]

new grabs!

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=1277443&postcount=2

[ConspiracyPenguin]

Hey Brad, thanks for letting me know there was an update. The grabs look great. It is always so great for me to see something I wrote in real life. Great work and I look forward to seeing the finished piece!

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Liking the new grabs! Best of luck.

Mike

[Moojangles]

Poster Added!

[Dustin R. Rogan]

nice job sir!

[ConspiracyPenguin]

Excellent poster! This is really rolling along quite nicely.

[jasonthewho]

Very nice poster

[Moojangles]

thanks guys, glad you like it :)

got a big shoot tonight, getting a hotel room for one of the last scenes. Hopefully all goes well and i don't have issues, i haven't actually been able to scout the hotel room so we'll see how it all plays out. I have the shots in my mind ready to go, just gotta shoot em.

Whew, i'm excited to get more of a rough edit with almost all the content in.

Also i've been talking with "FDL film music composer" to see what he can come up with for some music as well as a local group called the Lava Project to add some tunes to the bar scene.

it's all coming together :)

[Moojangles]

So yesterday we got a single hotel room just up the road from my apartment so we could walk all the gear there.

Of course this is a low budget production so we paid for the hotel and brought up all the gear in bags so as not to draw attention to ourselves. It was a bit of a tight squeeze with both actors. And the scene requires us to knock and make a bit of noise --
(most will have to be re-dubbed after anyway)
-- so i was slightly worried we might run into some problems but luckily we were way up on the 5th floor and no one bothered us.

FDL (aka Dr. Francesco De Leonardis) should be attempting to get some music together this weekend. Hopefully i can send him an edit that is further along to help spur some more ideas.

The final shoot with the main talent should be this coming monday where we fill any gaps and do one last major scene.
Otherwise just some odds and ends to film with extras and some props. Should be done filming completely sometime next week!

[Moojangles]

It might be a little pre-emptive to say... but WE ARE DONE FILMING!

I'm gonna spend all night editing to make sure theres no filler i'm missing etc.. but its pretty much a wrap with all actors other than a few short voice-over pieces to record.

And I received the score that Francesco (FDL) has been working on. It sounds crazy good. I'm excited to see how it all fits together.

Hopefully this week will see the finished first draft of the full movie together, then its off to grading and audio finishing!

weeee

[Simon Höfer]

Wow, congrats on the wrap! First time I saw this thread here. An entry from japan (I miss it )! Grabs and poster looking really good!

Can't wait to see it :)

[Moojangles]

Thanks Simon, was reading about yours as well. Sounds cool. Gotta love the small crews!

Update:

Finished Editing!!!

Woo, sent the finished images off to Dr. De Leonardis to sync the score up and finish it off. I still have to add the credits and good ol' DVX thank you as well as some last little sound effect work but it's pretty much in-the-bag!

I'm happy!

June 16th is comin' quick and i'm really looking forward to watching every entry.

I've watched alot of DVXuser fest films before but now that i'm actually entering it just makes things that much more exciting. The most interesting thing for me will be to see everyones unique takes on the theme.

I hope watching all them will help stimulate ideas for the next fest! I'll probably be back in Canada for that one but who knows?

Here's to Time Fest!

[Moojangles]

Final Audio mix is basically a done deal. Just going through and checking for any pops or clicks and making sure there aren't any scenes that are too dark.

Just have to figure out the export settings and we can kiss this one goodbye.

[Moojangles]

Uploaded! Let the viewing begin.

It's too bad i wasn't able to get any BTS stuff, hopefully next time i can tackle that more seriously.

[Moojangles]

Curious how mine came out. Let me know if anyone runs into any issues viewing.

[ConspiracyPenguin]

Since I was the one who wrote the script, I took a look at it before downloading the others. If you would like an extensive review I can see about doing that, but overall I thought it was shot well. My only issues had nothing to do with what you did, so :thumbsup:

Good luck!

[Mattykins]

Alright, you are up. Let's take a look.

Raw, unedited, review...Rolling and reviewing:

Nice intro shot. Puts it into perspective. Actually I enjoy the diffusion in the opening. I normally don't. But death by lethal injection that soon? Year long process. But I'll give you benefit of the doubt and assume this happened a few years in the future.

Not the smoothest guy in the world. But then again, I haven't picked up a chick in a while. So what do I know? The colorization in the shots around 2:00 were interestingly graded. As were the next shots. It seemed like a little overdose on Magic Bullet. But you are good at building suspense. Music went well with it too.

Pretty sad actually. The story. You seem to have some vignetting here especially around 3:40. WHich is where I noticed it. Maybe it was an adapter issue. Something to watch for next time around. You could also enlarge the shot a little in post to get rid of it.

Very nice location though. It honestly was. and the flash backs were cool too. I guess what goes around comes around eh? Lethal injection is a very expensive system.

I liked it. The score was great. Though my complaint was the CC.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

I liked the opening as well. This had a real cool look about it as well.
The scene of the girl being attacked seemed a bit off to me, especially when he attempted to unbutton her blouse rather than tearing it open.

Somewhat interesting story as well.

Cheers,

Mike

[ConspiracyPenguin]

Mike, I was thinking the same thing about the rape scene. I had hopped for him to rip off the shirt, it would create a better effect.

[Moojangles]

I don't know that a ripped off shirt would have made THAT much of a difference, and it would have been difficult to do multiple takes. Logistically it didn't make sense to do it but ya, it coulda made it look a little more real :)

I appreciate the comments on the look. As for CCing i'm still a novice (much better at stills than video) i didn't use magic bullet though if that counts for anything haha. Just RGB Curves and levels etc...

I want to shout out to Francesco for the awesome score.
How did you feel about the music/sound work?

If you'd like to review this the things i'm concerned with are basic cinematography, what would you have done? What worked, what lagged etc?

More CCing advice would be helpful.

How was the pacing?

What was your fav scene, why?

Least fav scene, why?


I appreciate any feedback and i'll take it into consideration for my next film.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

I don't know that a ripped off shirt would have made THAT much of a difference, and it would have been difficult to do multiple takes. Logistically it didn't make sense to do it but ya, it coulda made it look a little more real :)

I appreciate the comments on the look. As for CCing i'm still a novice (much better at stills than video) i didn't use magic bullet though if that counts for anything haha. Just RGB Curves and levels etc...

I want to shout out to Francesco for the awesome score.
How did you feel about the music/sound work?

If you'd like to review this the things i'm concerned with are basic cinematography, what would you have done? What worked, what lagged etc?

More CCing advice would be helpful.

How was the pacing?

What was your fav scene, why?

Least fav scene, why?


I appreciate any feedback and i'll take it into consideration for my next film.As for the ripped shirt or popped buttons... sometimes one take is all you have. I worked with fake blood and a dog on mine. Sometimes one take is all I could get. I just think a little more force was needed for that scene.

The pacing was fine. I liked the scene when she opens the door and he barges in. The opening scene might be my fav.

[ZazaCast]

I liked this film. The opening was cool. The flashbacks rocked and the music was great. Really good job on this!

Spoilers---
* Rape scene was a little mild (but I imagine that's a really tough thing to do, perhaps next time cut it much faster w/tighter shots?)
* I seemed to see a lot of the female leads back in the bar scene, would have liked to see her face.
* Good story, but I don't understand how he died?

Great job to cast & crew!

[ConspiracyPenguin]

I liked the score, thought it went really well with the film, especially the opening sequence which was fantastic. The flashback parts were grde a with the fast paced flash cuts, etc.

I, too, had only one shot at a scene. It was the dune buggy scene and I could only run it down the hill once (for one we were on a property that was for sale and didn't belong to us - gorilla filmmaking! woo hoo!) because the neighbors were watching suspiciously and I didn't want to get into a confrontation. Of course that was the one scene where my camera guy f'd up the pan. Ah, well...

Oh, yeah, Reprive...cinematography was good for the most part. Hard for me to remember now, maybe I'll take another look later.

[pauly_the_hitman]

I liked the look of the film. It was a little predictable for me but interesting none the less.

[Matt Sconce]

SWEET opening and score! I think some more light was needed in the jail cell. Cool short!

[AmyO]

Great cinematography. I also liked the use of the fast cutting towards the end to ramp up the tension. Great film all around. :)

[Susanne G.]

This film took my attention the whole time. Fantastic color work. I love this intelligent story and adore the score. This film is one of my favorites. Thank you for done this. A big, big compliment!

Susanne

[FDL film music composer]

This film took my attention the whole time. Fantastic color work. I love this intelligent story and adore the score. This film is one of my favorites. Thank you for done this. A big, big compliment!

Susanne

Hey Susanne,
Thanx for score compliment, i like your short also :Drogar-Happy(DBG): and the score of one of biggest italian composer like Luca...

[Shawn Philip Nelson]

Very interesting. I didn't have fun per se due to the protagonist being a sicko, also I didnt understand why he died. That said, some of the shots were excellent and you had some great tense moments!

[Moojangles]

SPOILERS!

The tag line is "The scales of justice reside within"

that being said, the end of the film is supposed to demonstrate his inner turmoil and guilt overwhelming him to the point where it all boils up. The gate (in his mind) is his reprieve from his emotions. By entering it he is finally put out of his misery and killed.

Obviously by having to explain this i didn't do quite as good a job at showing it in the film but i didn't wanna slap you in the face with it either.

The title reprieve also suggests that while he is dead and has gotten away from his current torment, a reprieve is only a temporary break... perhaps he has ended up in "hell" for what he has done.


THOUGHTS? After reading this, does that clear up the story? Do you like it more, less? How would you have done things differently?

[totitefilms]

You got an interesting story. It's very difficult to show the inner guilt and I can feel it in your movie. If I were to change the story, I would let the guy come to the girl's family and do some deeds then surrender himself to the police. He doesn't need to kill himself. Anyway, the acting in your movie is good however the rape scene can be improved. The girl should have fought a little harder :-). I'd like to see how the girl died also. The lighting can also be improved. But you did a great job. The flow of your movie is smooth and easy to understand. Congrats!

[jasonthewho]

Some cool stuff going on in this short. Really awesome locations, and some good shots.

I guess for me the biggest problem with this is the first line tells us what is going to happen, and then there's no surprises.

I kept hoping that really he didn't rape and kill her, and we were going to find out he was framed or something.

Also, I'm not sure of the likelihood of someone so young being so close to being put to death. At least in the U.S., people spend years on death row.

I can see a lot of promise in this short, and I'm looking forward to your next one.

[Horncastle]

Brad,

I did enjoy this film - I thought it had rhythm, colours and cinematography were good, there was a certain tension. I also liked the still photos you used for his memories and how you edited them into the film. I agree with totitefilms that maybe the girl could have struggled a bit more, but I had no need to see how she died.

Yes, reading your explanation above makes the story clearer. Obviously his tearing at his own clothes was supposed to show his guilt and inner turmoil but I took it as turmoil for the fact that he was soon to die. I think one way you could have shown his feelings of guilt would have been to make much greater use of cutting back and forth between his anguish in his cell and flashbacks to his crime. Maybe accelerating the rhythm could then have been used to give the idea of him bloiling over. I don't know if that would work, internal anguish and the reason for it is obviously not the easiest thing to portray visually. Maybe you would have needed to change the storyline a bit to bring it out better.

Anyway, you made a courageous effort to portray something difficult. And the end result certainly has a special feeling to it.

Jason

[Blaine]

Brad, this was a sleeper. I enjoyed watching it. I thought a couple of scenes could be trimmed a bit as they were a bit long. You even had me looking to see if Japan still has capital punishment...it does.

The acting was a bit spotty but my biggest complaint would be the warden and the doctor. Both occidental. It completely pulled me out of the story...

[Danielleus]

Hey,

Just caught the flick. I liked it. I thought it started out strong but left me feelings like it needed more or needed more to get what you wanted out.

I enjoyed the look overall. I liked, for instance, that the prisoner at the beginning is in focus and everything else isn't. Throughout I thought the look you got was great, sans a few parts that looked a little "cheap" (jail cell, hotel room, etc.) But what can you do if you comparing between a bar and and interesting looking city, these other places are kind of passe.

Better lighting would have helped this piece, I think. The jail cell and hotel could have been lit better/more stylistic/varied to achieve what the mise-en-scene lacked.

For me, the verbal acting was hit and miss. The audio was also a bit much for me. It just seemed a bit manufactured (at least, to me, the SFX did).

I thought the idea of your story was a good one. I just couldn't see it/sense it. I don't think we really see what you were going for. The actor in his cell doesn't look like guilt/anguish/regret but rather just waiting for his time to come. I know you tried to convey this is the flashback bits but I don't think it comes across. For me it's hard to see the character's motivation and thus, hard to know if we should feel sorry for him (or why he would even regret what he did). Why does he even kill her? Or follow her? I don't think we are shown/know enough about it to find out and thus, can't really understand what/why he is doing what he is doing.

So I think that's my main beef with this piece. IF we don't know the character, for me, I don't care if he gets relief or what. If he was some psycho who kills women at random, I prefer that he suffers and I'm happy that he doesn't escape certain death/forever torment. But we don't see that. However, since he sort of comes off sympathetic in the bits where he's "tormented" or searching for Reprieve, we don't understand why he killed the girl and thus, can't sympathize with him.

At least that's what I think. But overall all, a valiant attempt and a fine first film. Keep going. I can only see you getting better.

Hope that helps.

[Moojangles]

You got an interesting story. It's very difficult to show the inner guilt and I can feel it in your movie. If I were to change the story, I would let the guy come to the girl's family and do some deeds then surrender himself to the police. He doesn't need to kill himself. Anyway, the acting in your movie is good however the rape scene can be improved. The girl should have fought a little harder :-). I'd like to see how the girl died also. The lighting can also be improved. But you did a great job. The flow of your movie is smooth and easy to understand. Congrats!

thanks for taking the time to comment, i agree with the rape scene needing some more force, these were beginner actors who weren't overly confident. I attempted to coax out some emotion but we were on limited time as well. Acting and lighting are the two big things i want to improve in my next film.

[Moojangles]

Some cool stuff going on in this short. Really awesome locations, and some good shots.

I guess for me the biggest problem with this is the first line tells us what is going to happen, and then there's no surprises.

I kept hoping that really he didn't rape and kill her, and we were going to find out he was framed or something.

Also, I'm not sure of the likelihood of someone so young being so close to being put to death. At least in the U.S., people spend years on death row.

I can see a lot of promise in this short, and I'm looking forward to your next one.


Thanks Jason,
Obviously i took a little creative license with the sentencing but you never know, he could have been in the court system for a long time before we see him being led off down that hallway at the begining of the film. Right? :)

The "surprise" iwas going for s that he wasn't killed by anyone but himself and not even that, his inner-self. But it is a vague hook and maybe needed more time/dialogue to explain.

thanks for watching I can't wait to make another attempt unfortunately location wise i'm moving back to canada soon so no more cool Japanese streets and stuff.

[Moojangles]

Brad,

I did enjoy this film - I thought it had rhythm, colours and cinematography were good, there was a certain tension. I also liked the still photos you used for his memories and how you edited them into the film. I agree with totitefilms that maybe the girl could have struggled a bit more, but I had no need to see how she died.

Yes, reading your explanation above makes the story clearer. Obviously his tearing at his own clothes was supposed to show his guilt and inner turmoil but I took it as turmoil for the fact that he was soon to die. I think one way you could have shown his feelings of guilt would have been to make much greater use of cutting back and forth between his anguish in his cell and flashbacks to his crime. Maybe accelerating the rhythm could then have been used to give the idea of him bloiling over. I don't know if that would work, internal anguish and the reason for it is obviously not the easiest thing to portray visually. Maybe you would have needed to change the storyline a bit to bring it out better.

Anyway, you made a courageous effort to portray something difficult. And the end result certainly has a special feeling to it.

Jason

Thanks for the kind words. As you said i think there was "some" tension to this film but ramping up the pacing to portray the boiling over of his guilt leading to his death could work well near the end. I suppose i kept flashing back to the image of the Tori Gate which in my mind referenced his escape from what he was feeling, when i should have been reference "What" he was feeling.

I really liked your film as well, i'm off to watch it again and comment.

thanks for writing.

[Moojangles]

Brad, this was a sleeper. I enjoyed watching it. I thought a couple of scenes could be trimmed a bit as they were a bit long. You even had me looking to see if Japan still has capital punishment...it does.

The acting was a bit spotty but my biggest complaint would be the warden and the doctor. Both occidental. It completely pulled me out of the story...


Hey Blaine, Thanks for watching and commenting. As for "sleeper" that's a good thing, right? :)

Which scenes would you trim? The bike riding perhaps? The reveal of her death? The bar dialogue?

And yes, Japan does have capital punishment. If you are accused of a crime in Japan it is very difficult to get out of it from my understanding. No big name lawyers over here to bail you out.

I made you look that up and you made me look up the word "Occidental"

I understand where you're coming from, everyones Asian in Japan so to add realism it would have been better to cast japanese actors. I would have loved to but logistically it just didn't work out.

I would have loved to do the film in Japanese, maybe that's next time.

[Moojangles]

Hey,

Just caught the flick. I liked it. I thought it started out strong but left me feelings like it needed more or needed more to get what you wanted out.

I enjoyed the look overall. I liked, for instance, that the prisoner at the beginning is in focus and everything else isn't. Throughout I thought the look you got was great, sans a few parts that looked a little "cheap" (jail cell, hotel room, etc.) But what can you do if you comparing between a bar and and interesting looking city, these other places are kind of passe.

Better lighting would have helped this piece, I think. The jail cell and hotel could have been lit better/more stylistic/varied to achieve what the mise-en-scene lacked.

For me, the verbal acting was hit and miss. The audio was also a bit much for me. It just seemed a bit manufactured (at least, to me, the SFX did).

I thought the idea of your story was a good one. I just couldn't see it/sense it. I don't think we really see what you were going for. The actor in his cell doesn't look like guilt/anguish/regret but rather just waiting for his time to come. I know you tried to convey this is the flashback bits but I don't think it comes across. For me it's hard to see the character's motivation and thus, hard to know if we should feel sorry for him (or why he would even regret what he did). Why does he even kill her? Or follow her? I don't think we are shown/know enough about it to find out and thus, can't really understand what/why he is doing what he is doing.

So I think that's my main beef with this piece. IF we don't know the character, for me, I don't care if he gets relief or what. If he was some psycho who kills women at random, I prefer that he suffers and I'm happy that he doesn't escape certain death/forever torment. But we don't see that. However, since he sort of comes off sympathetic in the bits where he's "tormented" or searching for Reprieve, we don't understand why he killed the girl and thus, can't sympathize with him.

At least that's what I think. But overall all, a valiant attempt and a fine first film. Keep going. I can only see you getting better.

Hope that helps.

First thanks for the long reply!

I agree with the fact that its pretty hard to relate to the character. He doesn't even have a name, you don't know really anything about him other than the fact that he's in jail and later that he is a rapist/killer.

So in that sense i agree and probably should have made some effort to connect the viewer to the character.

Lighting is something i really desire to be able to do, at the moment i simply don't own enough lights, and being that i'm about to leave Japan it doesn't make sense to buy any. I'll get into the lighting department upon my return to Canada. :)

Im glad you liked the locations, my favorite is the tori-gate at the end, that place looks great especially when its raining.

I did add quite a few SFX, mostly atmospheric stuff to try to play with emotional responses or add to the locations. How did you feel about the score? Was it working well? Overpowering? Did the SFX take away from it?

Thanks everyone for commenting, this is definitely helping me shape my next ideas for a film. I can't wait to do the next one.

[Danielleus]

Hey Moo,

I actually thought the score was quite good. I liked that you matched the tones of the scenes you were going for really well. And you handled scene changes/cuts very expertly (no harsh breaks, random sound cuts, etc.). Sorry I didn't mention it. Definetely handled well.

And actually, the sound isn't bad at all. In fact, I think it's quite good. I would just check the balance, as all of it kinda sounds (from what I recall) to be at the same level. Maybe some variation in volume/balance?

Overall, a good flick.

[Edgen]

This was different. The film was pretty creepy but kept you interested throughout.

It was well shot and the actors did a wonderful job.

I really enjoyed the music feel and vibe for the film, but I wish it had a few more dynamics as the scenes flashed in and out.

Congrats on entering the fest.