Proxy

[Jared Meyer]

Alright folks-

So has anyone had a chance to watch this yet?
I'd really appreciate any feedback!

Jared

EDIT:
I think there might be some issues in the uploaded version with slightly stuttery playback. Jarred refreshed the movie and re-upped it but I think it's pretty much the same. Or maybe it's just Windows Media on my computer.

[Jared Meyer]

Can anyone (if anyone has) who has seen this short confirm that the playback is or is not stuttery? Jarred gave us the opportunity to re-encode our own wmv files and post them for him to upload today and today only...So I wanted to find out if anyone had had a problem vewing.

[Blaine]

Playback look fine to me. I thought you had a good story. The acting was a little stiff at times and young, too. The doctor seemed a little young, but maybe that's just me. You had me with you almost all the way. I got a bit lost with the little girl at the end. She did a nice job delivering her lines by the way. I may be a bit dense right now, but I'm not sure what happened at the very end. The little girl delivered the same lines as the other, I caught that but... I'll be watching it again tomorrow when I'm fresh and maybe it will all make sense.

EDIT: I do realize that often we use the talent available to us, and I'm not slamming your talent. Just remarking on the ages for the roles they seemed to be playing. Of course, with the "implanting" that was going on, perhaps age is mute.

[conrad_johnson]

Very good job jaustere! I liked the short.
The only thing was: the dialogue sounded overdubbed, try room reverb or more ambient noise. good work.

[Jared Meyer]

Thanks Blaine and Conrad for your comments!

Blaine: No offense taken regarding the talent. You're absolutely right. We use what we have available to us.

Conrad: When you say overdubbed, I'm pretty sure I know what you mean, but to be clear, was it too clean? too loud? or was the music or occasional sound effect too low in comparison?

[wcs]

The dialogue did not seem to be in sync with the actor's lips.

[Jared Meyer]

Thanks wcs for the comment- I believe that is either an encoding or a playback issue.

[wcs]

One thing I noticed: media player classic lists the video at 24fps. Did you edit/export at this rate?

I rewatched some other shorts and the audio worked fine.

[conrad_johnson]

It sounds like their talking into a mic not in a room it sounds good and you can hear everything, but my ear dosent buy it. visuals and post were awsome though.

[Jared Meyer]

wcs: After checking it out, I can see that the dialogue at the beginning is a little out of sync. This, I think must have occurred upon the encoding that Jarred performed. (It is not present in the file I uploaded) The dialogue for the rest of the short seems to have stayed intact though.

And I actually edited/exported/submitted a 29.97 .mpg file if I remember correctly. The first .wmv that Jarred had uploaded, early this morning, showed the correct framerate at 29.97. It was pretty stuttery though, and I asked him about it so he re-uploaded a new copy...which, appears to be a 24fps file. Don't know if that's the cause of the slight out of sync-ness or not. Hope it doesn't bother anyone too much. The original movie file, of course, doesn't have these issues.

wcs: That aside, what did you think? :)

[Jared Meyer]

I would really like to get some feedback regarding some specific areas:

What was good or bad about the lighting? The compositions of shots? The editing and pace? Camera movement?

I've watched this thing so many times I can't look at it straight any more.
And God knows we can't trust our family and friends to provide honest opinions. :)

If anyone has anything that I can improve on for the next attempt, please, speak up!

[Kaz]

When the soldiers came busting in I felt like I was watching a CBS Hi-Def action show on a small screen. The look and camera work was intense and really caught my attention (though I did want more "oomph" out of those guns!).

The sequence just before, where all the exposition takes place was a mixed bag of good composition and lighting, to spot-on perfect composition and lighting (which, of course, isn't really a criticism).

I also thought the editing was pretty much fine. It slowed down when it needed to and moved when it had to. Only the VERY beginning is a little iffy to me, which brings me to....

The quibble I have is that the beginning sequence wasn't as well acted as the later sequences. The actors sounded like they were just going through the motions or were practicing their lines. Also, it REALLY needed a better, more interesting opening shot. Your film has so many good points that it's the little things that nag at you.

The story's a little confusing but still very interesting & enjoyable. And great job getting that little girl to act.

Looking forward to your next flick!

[Norm Sanders]

Okay, the thing I'm most impressed with here is getting the little girl to act and deliver such big lines for that age! OUTSTANDING!

I also LOVED the enterance of the guys with the guns, and GREAT VFX when you used them. Wowza! That F117 Stealth Fighter shot ... did you create that or was it just royalty free stock? Hot stuff.

Now, the nit-picks ... could have been compression, or could have been the 24p vs. 29.97 (why'd you do 29.97?? Weren't these supposed to be 24P?), but it did appear to be ADR throughout ... not only from the sync, but also from the sound at times (too close to mic, picking up bass from their voice that wouldn't normally be heard, etc.).

Did you ADR this at all? A little or a lot?

The acting was fine at times by the lead, and had a VERY Minority Report feel to it when he was bandaged up over the eyes.

Casting can be tough, no doubt, but perhaps in the future you'll want to write the parts for the cast you have at hand, to make the story more belieable ... as it is, the cast was too young with regards to the guy & gal that were in most of the scenes.

Okay, just went back & watched it again ... I'm still lost with the story, not really following you from A-Z ... could you spoon feed it for me/us?

But, that shot where the masked guys come in with guns blazing ... everything was spot on ... one of my favorite shots in the fest so far!

[Jared Meyer]

Thanks Kaz and Envision- a lot of what you said really helps. I'm beginning to get a good feel for the weak spots.

Kaz- thanks for the kind words. I think you are pretty spot on in your analysis. We did have a more interesting opening shot, but I had to cut it and jump right in due to the time limit. You might have noticed, our short is exactly 6 minutes, to the frame. How a 7 page script turns into a 12 minute short, I'll never know :) Having to reduce 12 minutes to 6 led to some problems. But hey, 6 minutes is 6 minutes. I should have shot less or written a shorter script. That's completely my own fault.

Envision-Thanks, too, for the compliments. The F117 shot....good call on noticing the type of aircraft :) was a very rough test that I made early on and was forced to use when our SFX guy kind of...bailed. It's an el cheapo model suspended in front of a green screen. We composited it against a landscape animation made in "Terragen," a free landscape generator software used mostly for still frames. We were able to script something that compiled a sequence of those stills together.

I shought in straight 24p mode and edited in a 29.97 timeline...Which I thought was standard? Maybe not. My final output was 29.97, but the source was definitely 24p.

I really struggled with the sound- yes it's 100% ADR. I have virtually no experience with sound recording and kept getting really bad results when I recorded sound live with an external mic through the camera. So at the last minute I had to re-record everyone's dialogue. Their performances on the day, by the way, were MUCH better :) C'est la vie. Does anyone have any tips for me on how to get better recordings? How to fool people into thinking its not ADR? :) Or is ADR a bad thing?

I'll post a spoonfed version in a little bit.

[conrad_johnson]

the trick to adr is to put the mic 2 or so feet back from the actor so the proximity effect is reduced, then use creative reverbs to make the dialogue soud like it's in the space your story is. Also when recording the adr it helps to have the actors listen to the on set sound right before they record their line. Then it's fresh in their mind. ADR is not a bad thing most movies you see are 80-90% adr and they shoot all their stuff on a sound stage. adr is key on indy stuff to make the audio hearable and not distracting.

[BrianV]

Dug the closeups (particularly the sideways close up of her eyelid). I'm a sucker for good closeups (Demme/Fujimoto, Mann/Spinotti, you name it). So you got points in my biased book :)

[Jared Meyer]

I want to point out that dvxuser member Noct aka Aaron Marshall really helped me out by coming up with two short musical/ambient pieces that worked very well for the short.

The heavy drumbeat track underlying the running at the beginning as well as
The light ambient noise that begins with the overhead view of Vincent on the operating table.

I forgot to put his name in the credits, but I wanted to give him props here.

Thanks Aaron!

[Norm Sanders]

jaustere, if THAT much of your movie was ADR, then I'm blown away for a couple of reasons. It wasn't SUPER obvious you did ADR, and since it's tough to do in the first place, you did fairly well for your first time. The other thing that's impressive is the AMOUNT ... I would HATE to have to ADR my entire film ... as it was, the entire coffeeshop in mine was ADR, and we were certainly too close to the mic ... but we kind of had to be, as my office isn't set up for audio recording (padded walls, etc.)

Conrad Johnson gave you some good tips. The distance from the mic is a judgement call, as it really matters on if you're in a good recording facility or not. If you're in a place that's not properly padded for sound recording, then getting away from the mic will pick up an ambiance that may be harder to get rid of vs. just working with the proximity issue of if you're too close ... if that makes any sense.

[pabloabad]

I agree with Envision, the acting of the little girl absolutely impressed me. One of the best in the whole fest.
Pablo

[Captain KickAss]

This film is easily in my top five for the sci-fest. I thought the cinematography and editing were top knotch, and the story was definitely a creative and orginial one. The acting, as has been pointed out, was a bit unbelievable at points, but overall, a very nice film.

As for your opening, I kind of like it the way it is. I like how it jumps straight into the action. Plus, since its not innitially clear what is going on during this opening scene anyway, adding more on the front of the film before the real action starts may cause many viewers to lose attention. But I could be wrong.

[Aaron Marshall]

Jared,

Good job on your film. The entire thing opened up with the dialog being present. I liked your camera movements and lighting. Especially on the operating room table. The dead flower motif was neat too.

The one thing that slightly bothered me was the actor who played the doctor. He just seemed too obviously inexperienced as an actor. That's no big deal though. Overall you did a very good job at putting this flick together. I'd say it's in my top 5 as well.

-Aaron

[Jared Meyer]

Thanks everyone for the continued feedback!

It seems that a few different people really liked the little girl who played Emily :)
She sure is a cute kid, and she'll get a kick out of hearing that she has some fans.

The kind words are appreciated, as are the very helpful critiques.

Thanks again for the tracks, Aaron. Glad you enjoyed the short.

[THX-1138]

One of the best...you know that.

I have one general coment and one nit-pickey one. Then a question.

This short was poorly cast. You needed some age in there to round thing out. The girl, little girl and the main guy were right the rest could have been better. I only say this because youre short was near perfect otherwise.

Why the extreme dutch angle on the little girl on the floor? Just curious. Hit me a bit funny...like it was supposed to. So why that choice?

What if any extra gear did you use for the shoot...ie lens adapters etc and how did you do the CC?

Near the top for me. With two good older actors in there you'de be #1

Thanks for the hard work I enjoyed it....It's definatly a multiple watcher for me.

Kip Kubin

[Jared Meyer]

Thanks Kip! I'm thrilled that you liked it.

Your comment about the casting falls in line with what others have been saying. I will tell you- only the young woman who played Jane has had any acting experience before.

As this is my first DVX project, first semi-seriously attempted project period, I was nervous to seek out the local professional actors. It's kind of a Catch-22. I don't expect actors to give me their time and energy for free (and I really can't pay anyone at this point) when I don't have an impressive body of work to show them to give them some guarantee that their efforts won't be wasted, but how do you get that body of work without using professional actors???

The people you see in "PROXY" are all good friends and family. We had a great time making the film. But even they have said after watching it: Jared, you better get some real actors next time around. So, that's defnitely something I'm going to focus more energy on for the next project.

The extreme dutch angle was supposed to show you, or at least hint at, the little girl from Jane's perspective, who is lying on the floor after having been shot. It was supposed to be jarring, but more because Jane was seeing that her daughter had been hidden in that room all along. I was hoping the off-kilter angle would make sense in terms of Jane being sideways on the ground.

I didn't use many accessories. A 10x macro lens for the eye closeup, A few lights here and there but mostly available light. We used a few white reflector cards for the hillside scenes. It was actually daylight for almost the whole shoot so we had to put roofing paper over all of the windows.

For color correction I used the 3-way visual corrector in FCP. There was a huge amount of color correction to do, and some very drastic, as we had had some white balancing issues :) Fancy way of saying that I forgot to at one point. The fluorescent lights in the shack didn't make things very fun either....I had green, yellow, red, and purple faces to match. You can see some pretty strong differences as it is now, but I think the whole things's pretty much in the same ballpark.

I wanted it really dark and contrasty in any case, so the whole thing is shot with Master Pedestal at -15. Which I think also accounted a little bit for some of the strange flesh tones.

Thanks for watching, Kip!

Jared

[Z B Brox]

Hey, I liked this one a lot. One of the most professional-looking shorts I've seen here. The lighting was generally really impressive, though it got a little *too* dark, to my eyes, during the gun fight. Quite liked the plot, though I think the script in general could've used a little work. Also, generally very nice effects. I think the guns could've been a bit more convincing, and the sound in general may be your weakest point in terms of production (as I'm sure you realize given the trouble you mentioned with dialogue.) Very nice, though, good work.

[Jared Meyer]

Thanks, Z B, for taking the time to watch it. I'm glad you liked it and I appreciate the critiques :)

[EditPhish]

Hi Jared,

First, let me say the story was a bit over my head... I didn't quite get what was going on.

Your lighting was good... and I loved your use of color... it had that "dark" look that really can create a sense of tension... but my criticism goes more to the editing. It seemed to be paced a bit "off" in the sense I didn't always feel that sense of tension you seemed to be trying to create. It LOOKED edgy, or like it should be filled with suspense, but I didn't alwasy FEEL that edginess or suspense.

The only cinematography criticism I'd have was during the gun scene... I do think I understand why you went handheld... but it was just a bit TOO shakey... I found it a little disorienting to watch.

I can totally appreciate your acting limitations, and given that you did very well. And the little girl... she was actually VERY good.

Thanks for sharing your film!

[Jared Meyer]

Thanks EditPhish! Hey, I haven't asked anyone else this yet, but would you mind telling me what you DID undertand in the story? I realize that it's very confusing....But I wanted to know what the viewer can come away with as it stands.

If you could explain to me what it's about from your perspective, to the best of your ability, that would help me see where it's especially confusing. :)

[Z B Brox]

What I came away with was this:

there is an organization that, for whatever reaosn, intends to use this soldier as a puppet. He's been brainwashed, with his "trigger" being this flower. When he sees the flower, he beleives he has to rescue a child, so he goes toa specific location. This belief was actually created by kidnapping the child of one of the medical techs working at this location and using the scenario created. This scenario was then wiped from the tech's mind and she continued to work there. The soldier figures this out and tells her; she begins to rebel. As this happens, the government shows up, presumably having traced the soldier. They kill the doctors working there and free the soldier and the child. However, the doctors have already finished implanting a new command. The child (presumably brainwashed herself) then triggers this command with the same sequence again.

Mind you, I watched this a couple days ago now, so I may be remembering a bit off. But that's how I followed it.

[Jared Meyer]

Z B Brox, thank you!

You understood it perfectly. That is pretty impressive. Wow. You didn't miss a single beat! Bonus points for you, man.

Hmm....so where does that leave me. Is this short just confusing for some and understandable for others?

What could I do to make it clear to a higher percentage of viewers? :)

Seriously, Z B, how did you come up with that?? It's like you were looking at my story treatment or something. Crazy stuff. I honestly didn't have hopes that anyone would be able to summarize the entire story without missing anything, let alone 2 days after watching it. You're awesome.

[Z B Brox]

Wow, good to hear! Like I said, I liked the plot. ;) I thought it was just complex enough to work in this time frame, and it was clear enough to be understood without explicitly stating everything. And, y'know, everyone is going to find that balance in a different place, so I understand why some would be confused. But feel free to stamp that summary on the back of your DVD box one day ;)

[iSTy]

The sound wasn't all that good but the picture was clear I still noticed the jerkiness (which I have in alot of the films). Initially the speech didn't match with the lips.

It's true what they say about doctors getting younger everyday. I thought the doctor, didn't look like a doctor at all.
Although the little girls acting was very good, I didn't understand what she was saying.

[Jared Meyer]

Ack! The whirlwind comment guy strikes again...

Thanks for posting...I think...