Redacted Pictures presents "At wits end"

[robertwerden]

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs283.snc4/40492_429898267341_689067341_4790489_5761095_n.jpg

[robertwerden]

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[robertwerden]

First day of filming was today. We got the first 3 min of the film done.

[Chris_Keaton]

Welcome to the party!

[kurtmo]

3 minutes done, your half way there (at least!)

[Charli]

Good luck!

[Jaime V]

Good luck getting the rest of your film shot.

[robertwerden]

Added screen caps.
Just have a couple more scenes to shoot.

[Darkline]

blowing his own head off! Cant wait to see that bit. Looks good fun.

[ZazaCast]

Looking good.....guns....a shower scene...how can you go wrong?
Looking forward to the film.

[Mike Manning]

Glasses in the shower?

[fieberland]

Exactly - wearing glasses myself, that one screamed "thriller"! :)

Lokking forward to it.

[robertwerden]

Something you don't see that often.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Looks interesting.

MAH

[robertwerden]

Uploaded. Hope you guys like it.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Glad you're in. You seem to improve every Fest.

Best of luck.

MAH

[robertwerden]

This Fest I actually had lights. The last 2 we used only natural light and work lights. I was amazed at what a couple soft boxes could do. I also have learned a little more about focus pulling and sound recording. We always have the same group of people for cast and crew each fest, but as time goes by I learn more about the job and the tools. Hopefully one day I'll make it to the top 10 during a fest.

I'm just glad that the people who are helping make my films possible are willing to put up with the learning I'm going through.

[Noel Evans]

I'm just glad that the people who are helping make my films possible are willing to put up with the learning I'm going through.

Well your doing something not everyone can or does, you complete your film, get it in and let us enjoy it. Good luck. Theres almost 70000 members on this site, and theres 300,000 unique visitors every month, there will be maybe 30-40? entries. I think that says a lot. Good luck.

[robertwerden]

I did'nt realize there were that many people on dvxuser. thats an impressive amount. I think the last fest that I entered which was twilight fest there were quite a few more entries than on this fest. I noticed that there was 50-60 threads promoting potential films and only about half were able to upload. I wonder why the drop out is so high? I know with my film the 6 min time limit forced me to rethink some shots and edit it down. I could have used about 3 more min to really tell my story to the fullest.

Maybe in the future the time limit will get extended out to maybe 10 min. with a 100mb file size?

[AJ Brooks]

You had me with "glasses in the shower".

I'm watchin'!



Well your doing something not everyone can or does, you complete your film, get it in and let us enjoy it. Good luck. Theres almost 70000 members on this site, and theres 300,000 unique visitors every month, there will be maybe 30-40? entries. I think that says a lot. Good luck.

Yeah, what's with that? I'd love to see 200 entries.

[Marlon Ladd]

Guns, a shower scene, daisy-dukes? Yeah!! Grabs looking good.

[robertwerden]

Oh and in case anyone is wondering, yes, Janson (the main character) just turned 18. And she is one of my daughters friends who has been not only in all my films, but has been a contributing writer as well.

[Chris_Keaton]

I totally got the story and would've been happy if you ended it at her killing him. I don't know if I needed to know the background. It was good for you to know it, to develop the character and feel. Maybe just her going to here girlfriend and saying it's over might've been enough. Either way good job.

[lawriejaffa]

Yep I might follow on with Keaton's comments to add that the backstory perhaps felt a little bit like too much inconsequential backstory. That is - we know already that our lady wishes to be free of this tyrannical chap, whether her motive is personal escape or a kind of (slightly insane conspiracy!) doesn't necessarily add to the story once the climax of her plan comes to pass. still an enjoyable enough romp, though perhaps a little too convenient with the guns - she had a veritable hand cannon!

[robertwerden]

I had contemplated placing the back story in, before the gun shot scene. I tend to over explain things and it showed here. I agree with both of your comments 100%.

[lawriejaffa]

Thats cool Robert - and you know, its perfectly okay to go screw you guys with your comments (well hehe best not to express that in the forum like i did in questfest hehe) there all just opinions - important thing is your making movies, learning (as we all are) and kicking ass!

[Richard J. Johnson]

Nice film. But i could not stop looking at her legs.:love4: The main issue i had was the gun shot. To me it was not brutal enough. Maybe I need to watch again, but i did not see her motivation for cold blooded murder. Either way nice job.

[Charli]

When she tried to put the bullet in through the nozzle, my first thought, "you're too stupid to have a baby" - sorry if I offend. But it did make me laugh. The suspense what not knowing what she was doing in the bathroom, if she had killed herself, good. She was smart enough to clean the gun but not smart enough to know her DNA will be all over the suicide note. She should have worn gloves. It was okay. I wasn't thrilled about it. But it wasn't not okay.

[robertwerden]

I actually had that as a much longer scene, where she started with a 22, then a 9mm realizing they are all to small. I agree, CSI has spoiled fake suicides for everyone who makes films. We did think of the rubber gloves before shooting and in the rush of trying to complete the shots before everyone had to leave we simply forgot to put the gloves on. I disagree on the note though. In the investigation, in real life a wife or girlfriend would probably pick up the suicide note to read it. I know there are technicals one could argue all day about forensics investigative techniques, but watching CSI does not make you a smarter killer.

[Susanne G.]

I liked the story and found that your main actress is playing better than in "Halloween Handyman" - I believe it is the same, isn't it? Actually, very funny that you have probably by chance a similar story like the film from AmyO. Much luck.

Susanne

[Chris_Keaton]

Nah, don't let CSI full you. Most of that stuff is bullshit. No one would look for dna on a piece of paper unless they had suspicions and some bodily fluid on it otherwise they couldn't get any dna. That kind of technology may be available, but not to the normal police department.

[nouou]

I think you hit an interesting note with this big bearded religious fanatic character you've created. That is creepy and a brilliant idea and you pulled it off well. I like how most of your shots are completely locked down and don't move, and when you panned left to right it was very fluid. One thing that bugged me was how the main chick blew the guy's head off, then calmly took a shower, when there was no silencer on the gun. Overall I enjoyed it. Good work. Oh, and your lead actress is hot.

[Darkline]

I havent read any comments here so sorry if I retread. I liked this, it was fun. The set-up of his execution was very nicely handled. I kinda cheered! For me the coda went on too long, I think it only needed a single line or shot to show her motivations. Good fun.

[Matt Harris]

i actually liked the twist ending flashbacks at the end. personally, i needed that backstory for the film to make sense for me.
also i liked the murder plot idea of making it look like a "gun cleaning" accident. that's kinda clever. i like that idea better than the suicide idea because it's more original.
this was fun... and a bit creepy.

[4100xpb]

This film had some good moments, but for me didn’t come together as a whole.
The first thing that stood out to me was I didn’t buy a couple that young living in a house like that. Maybe I’m just broke, but it stood out to me. I thought the male lead’s performance was solid, but his voice sounded hollow compared to the girl.
I’m not keen on the choice to reveal her motivations at the end. It feels like a cop-out, like “here’s a short of this chick killing her boyfriend, now here’s a possible reason why.” You did a reasonable job of building the tension through her actions, I think having her motivations up front would have heightened that.
Overall a solid effort, thanks for putting it in.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Pretty good. I wanted his reaction to be a little more WTF over the note he found but aside from that it was good.
The acting wasn't bad and I liked the visuals. Just get a little more coverage.

Music seemed a bit strong early on. The effects worked for me.
Nice work.

MAH

[robertwerden]

I appreciate all the feedback. Trust me, I use it all when making my films. With each fest I go back over the feedback from the last fests and make sure I don't repeat mistakes.

I knew this film would be better than my last image wise because in the last 2 I did not have my glasses prescription correct and everything was out of focus. This fest I have a good pair of glasses, and I got a larger monitor to pull focus better. Having a good set of lights also helped with my image quality.

Script wise, I think we had a good one, the only thing that bothered me was we didnt stick to it. I cut a bunch of dialog that probably should not have been cut, but I did it because the audio was bad. Mostly the flash backs.
We also had cut the head shot time freeze I had planned. I shot the tracking shot 4 times but could not get it locked down. Even in this practice shot I had slipping. Had I gotten this shot in I would have been happier.

http://vimeo.com/14529800

I was originally going to have a police investigation scene, but could not get it shot by my own fault.

[elsmama]

Interesting movie - I saw a couple of technical/continuity glitches, but nothing too egregious. A little political, but what isn't at the moment? Liked it!

[tomten3000]

An interesting little film, nicely put together. I was a little put off (in a writing way) by the extremes of the characters - the gun-toting Bible thumper and the seemingly nonchalant murderer. It seems like it would be more convenient for the woman to have a series of one-night stands or save up for invitro rather than perpetrate a hoax with a character so seemingly vile. And the two women weren't evil enough (it seemed) to commit murder and kinda walk away from it. You know - shoot the guy in the head (extremely messy) and take a shower without showing some emotion more extreme than "gotta get this blood outta my hair." I only say this because I like the twist. It may have been better if the man was really rich and they were going after money, too. Or something .... I'll have to think about this. :) But overall, great job.

[MrKilloran]

Good work, after the climax it goes on a little too much with backstory that you'd benefit from naturally weaving throughout the narrative instead of adding an epilogue. I liked the girl though, the guy came on a little too much of a caricature but overall well done.

[filmcritic]

The acting hurt this film more than anything else. The end scene should have been shown earlier in the film. All in all good effort and I look forward to viewing more of your work.

[Noel Evans]

Advice for making the finals - Pretty simple this one, I think you had a really solid concept to a great story - the writing execution hurt you. My advice to you would be to simply find a really good writing partner. Thats exactly what I do. I have some great ideas and fail somewhat in execution.