"Revelations" - film by JTyner and EditPhish

[EditPhish]

http://www.dangrabbit.com/video/revelations/poster_revelations_resized.jpg

Synopsis: A young man discovers that some card games are much more than what they seem to be.

Directed by: Tony Medina (JTyner)
Starring: JD Taggart & Ian Harvey
Executive Producers: Celida Manzanares
Director of Photography: Amy Medina (EditPhish)
Editors: Tony and Amy Medina
Score & Sound by: BeatnikHead Studios

Additional Cast:
Tony Medina
Dani Monti
Summer Medina

Filmed: February 5th and February 26th, 2011
Edit Locked down: March 4th, 2011
Color Grading, Title Credits and Scoring/Sound: March 5th and 6th, 2011
Finalized March 7th, 2011!

Shooting with mostly the GH1 and a little with the GH2.
Lenses used: 20mm f/1.7, Pentax Limiteds 40mm f/2.8 and 70mm f/2.4, Olympus 25mm f/2.8, CCTV 35mm f/1.7

More details to follow...

[EditPhish]

We're glad to be in another great DVX fest! We haven't participated since "MonsterFest" and are hoping to step up our game at least a little bit this time. FictionFest has been challenging for us from a writing and acting standpoint!

Here's our behind the scenes stuff...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aSrBkTvmrQ

More BTW below...

[EditPhish]

We started editing yesterday.

Here's some screen-grabs... raw footage, no color grading yet obviously.

http://www.dangrabbit.com/video/revelations/gun.jpg

http://www.dangrabbit.com/video/revelations/ian.jpg

http://www.dangrabbit.com/video/revelations/cards.jpg

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Cool grabbage! Looking good.

Best of luck.

[Hawk Teflon]

Nice BTS and grabs.

I really like your lighting!

[Matt Harris]

nice poster, great grabs, great gun!

[EditPhish]

Thanks Guys :)

As of tonight we have completed our editing (for the most part). Tomorrow we're dedicating to tightening things up and color correcting, and what's left of the weekend will go to scoring!

[Matt Harris]

congrats on locking the edit. that always feels good.

[Chris Messineo]

Fun BTS - I'm looking forward to the film.

[Charli]

Nice poster! I love the "ARTISTIC" quality to your BTS stuff. I can read lips and you are definitely one witty dude! ha ha ha. I'm still wondering if that's ice tea or scotch... hmmm...

[EditPhish]

Hey All... Just an update...

Saturday we worked all day on title credits, color grading, sound and soundtrack. It was a good productive day. Sunday we did our final tweaks and are nearly done. Hopefully we'll start compressing tonight so we can submit!

Here's more Behind-The-Scenes from Saturday... you can see we like to have fun...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6IcapnbZic

[Chris Messineo]

I love cupcakes. From now on I will demand cupcakes on all my sets. :)

[EditPhish]

I love cupcakes. From now on I will demand cupcakes on all my sets. :)

LOL! Our daughter is the caterer... she made us AWESOME homemade cupcakes. These were filled with coolwhip... YUMMMMMMMMM

[EditPhish]

Sometimes, our hobbies collide :)

I shoot a lot of photography... digital of course, but also film that I develop in our bathroom. I took of photo of JTyner while he was editing and actually developed the film on Saturday while we were all working our various tasks...

http://www.dangrabbit.com/photography/albums/film/editing.jpg

[ZazaCast]

Cupcakes & a film... nice!

[EditPhish]

Movie submitted! :)

[JTyner]

Totally stoked......and hope everyone enjoys our little flick!!!

[Noel Evans]

Totally stoked......and hope everyone enjoys our little flick!!!

Well I did. I have some other comments to add later after others have come through but good job.

[Charli]

*spoilers*

The opening was a tad melodramatic for me. You see a gun and then a suicidal individual. Eh. The star of the show was "Life." He was the most natural of the actors, he was believable. I actually got tired of the cliche phrases. You can use one, maybe two, but then I was just ready for "Death's" lines to be over. While I understand the whole mind-struggle one goes through, I really felt I was being told the story instead of seeing the story unfolding for itself.

This has to do entirely with the script itself. It just wan't strong enough to give us a short film that we could find ourselves immersed in the middle of.

The beginning and ending were non-pulse bookends. I'm going to give props to Life because I would hire him in a New York minute to do a film for me. He's a natural.

[Chris_Keaton]

Like the concept, probably because I have my own take on this theme with much less dialog. I agree with much of what Charli points out. I think the card blanking thing and the explanation of it just felt tacked on. It's like you wanted a happy ending, but painted yourself in a corner. It looked good and I liked the girls fading in and out. Nice job

[Sarah Haley]

I enjoyed this! The ending was not predictable, the story engaging and satisfying. I also appreciated the underlying world view.

[Hawk Teflon]

I really liked your lighting and three main guys the most. Very strong and believable! However, I think my favorite shot is the very first one. It had a really dirty, grungy "Saw" feel to the place. It set the mood immediately.

[Chris Messineo]

I really dig classic struggles like this, a battle between good and evil for the soul of an individual. I thought your actors did a good job and I was definitely intrigued to see how the poker game would play out.

The "netherworld" that you create is very cool with the women moving in and out of the darkness. The music also really helped to set the tone.

I'm not sure about the ending, it did feel a bit forced. I wanted to see the young man do something to choose his fate and not just have it be thrust upon him.

Still, this was a solid film and I really did enjoy it. Well done.

[Hitaish]

The opening credits and scene was very stylized and dramatic!

However it took me some time to figure out who the main poker players represented (I had to wait till the closing credits to get confirmation). Maybe something added to their wardrobe or appearance to make it more of a visual distinction rather than only through dialogue.

[Matt Harris]

I liked the whole shebang, nice job. You had solid actors spitting well written dialogue. i love the concept with the struggle of life vs death.
Just my opinion, but the location was a bit stiff for me. It just seemed like it would be so much cooler if, instead of a stagey black room, they were in
in a realistic ratty smoke-filled back room of a shady gambling joint. But that's easier said than done. That aside, i really liked this film!

[EditPhish]

I liked the whole shebang, nice job. You had solid actors spitting well written dialogue. i love the concept with the struggle of life vs death.
Just my opinion, but the location was a bit stiff for me. It just seemed like it would be so much cooler if, instead of a stagey black room, they were in
in a realistic ratty smoke-filled back room of a shady gambling joint. But that's easier said than done. That aside, i really liked this film!

Funny you mentioned location... we had a disagreement about that part of the film. At the beginning I wanted to see it shot in a dingy hotel room that we'd set up to look like a real card game... However, JTyner insisted on the dark black backdrop... and in honestly, it was easier for us to accomplish in a short time frame. :)

[Shawn Philip Nelson]

Wow! Well done!

I enjoyed where you took this and the message contained. Difficult to do.

I'm not sure the breaking the fourth wall and super close ups worked, but it was a style decision and I applaud bravery in decisions.

I also liked the black void setup for the card game.

Well done!

[EditPhish]

Thanks Shawn... I appreciate your comments especially since your film is my favorite in the fest. I wanna be you when I grow up. LOL ;)

Hitaish... I appreciate your thoughts on wardrobe. I think the way we had it in our mind didn't come across as well when on set and on film. Their clothes ended up being more subtle than we had imagined I think. This is all a great big learning process for us, so we'll know to put more effort into the wardrobe front next time around.

Chris... Oh the ending. We shot three different ones because we couldn't decide how we wanted the story to play out until the 9th hour... and even then, it was sort-of thrust upon US while editing. It was actually different from the direction I was personally leaning, however, I ended up liking the tone of it quite a bit... though I do think we could have executed it a bit better. I think when making a film, it's all the little details that matter so much, and we're still learning how to remember them all as we write, plan, shoot, edit, score, etc...

More replies later...

[ZazaCast]

Love the concept of the film, it's been done a million times...and could be done a million more, each time with a little different twist. This version stumbled a bit for me.
The only reason I say this is I don't see what caused Bill to have this revelation. Normally the person commiting suicide actually pulls the trigger (or whatever) and there they are
in limbo. I don't think he pulled the trigger...so he just thought this out on his own? He wouldn't have been thinking straight to begin with...right?

I was pulled out of it as soon as 'Life' looked me straight in the eye (as Shawn mentioned)....is he talking to me or Bill? Is Bill talking to me or 'Death'... you get the idea. This also made it feel more like a play to me then a film.

Nitpick: the shot glass. The image on it is facing me when Death sets it in front of Life....then it's not when Death fills it....then it is again when Life sets it back in front of Death...then it's not when Death drinks it. Continuity is king. (that stuff just bugs me, but most people won't notice it... happens all the time to me :shocked:)

Now the good stuff (and there's lots!):
All of you did a great job with the acting...so that goes for the direction too.
The set worked fine for me. I think limbo IS a nondiscript location.
Opening titles ROCK!
Sound design & score was great.
...and you get extra points from me for the HeftyCat logo!

All in all, a very good film. I look forward to your next...keep them coming.:happy:

[Zim]

Great job on the film.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Loved the opening shot! That rocked.

Really enjoyed the whole concept behind the card game and the look of it too. The dialogue flowed quite well.
Music was a little overpowering at times. It's not that I didn't like it, I loved it. Just a bit loud at times when people were talking.

Really intriguing story. Very strong entry in the fest. The acting was quite good as well.
Glad you got this one finished in time.

[lawriejaffa]

Spoilers//

Quirky film that was pleasant enough to watch and avoided the cliche'd pitfall of a suicide end. Like Michael I enjoyed the opening shot and found the set up, with the cad games and two card players fascinating. Generally the three chaps held up the acting okay but the girls were perhaps miscast, they didn't appear too committed? The general cinematography, lighting, ambient, music etc worked.

I think really it is (im sorry ladies) themselves that are the main draw back here. The younger card player in particular managed to retain interest with his kinda mysterious nice guy 'charisma'. So - some nice work and it goes to show what can work with limited resources too.

[4100xpb]

Great hook. I love the concept you had here, and I think you pulled it off fairly well. My main issue with the film is it came off rather expository – the guys were explaining a lot of what I thought would be pretty clear through the game and the ‘voices.’ I think if you could really focus down what they are saying into the visuals, this would be even stronger. Good effort, thanks for putting it in.

[Matt Harris]

If I didn't mention before editphish, really nice lighting in this. And I have to say I liked that Life and Death were both "characters" and were visually interesting. Had Life been a squeeky clean looking character, and Death was all dirty and rotten, it would have been too cliche. I like the decisions you made.

[Anthony Todaro]

I’m a writer. This is my kinda joint. Here’s the long and short. The production is pretty, sounds great and the lead acting is on. I liked the music too. A couple of strange cuts/directional looks, but no biggie. Where is the writer’s credit on the film? I saw it on the poster but not in the post or the actual film. Bummer.

This is an awesome concept. My problem is you gave it away with exposition. Now don’t get me wrong, it still works and well. The lead acting, shots and the feel are there. I’m saying, if you held back some of the dialog we would have been forced to figure it out. You have clues everywhere. The title, the book, the banter about who their friends are. So, no need to explicitly tell us. Less is less and that’s a good thing sometimes.

Conversely, it has a one act play feel. There is an old video taped theater production of Sartre’s ‘No Exit’ that is all dialog in one room, but the concept is brilliant, done quick and cunning, much like what you’ve presented here. Anything on par with Sartre is fine by me. Great package here. Way to make use of the short genre and add a little spin as well. Much style points, intended or not.

[MrFluffy]

This was enjoyable and well produced. I thought that it might have worked better if the first shot had come later and cutting from being an observer to being first person didnt work for me.

The story was good, well executed and interesting.

Well done.