The Recipient - Macchu/chrisdvx

[chrisdvx]

Hello everyone!

This was our first short.

"The Recipient" was filmed in Raleigh, NC.

Written/Directed by: Chris Daniel/Matthew Southers

Camera: Chris Daniel

Constructive criticism welcome!

[Mark Dog]

i liked it great shoot out at end im assuming that they basically operated on him and he became like the bionic man am i right ??? and u used a dvx or hvx on this film i belive u used the dvx??? alsoo what u use for CC??? and edting what program and ur lighting setup , also i liked the way it ended be cool to see more of his adventures

peace n luv

Mark Dog

[Matt Sconce]

I enjoyed this movie, but was slightly confused as to why the organ transplant changed him. I LOVED when the bad guys come into the restaurant and tell everyone to get on the ground and he doesn't. That part was definitely heroic! I liked this alot and hope people give you more comments!

[Macchu]

Hey, thanks for taking a look at the film and leaving your feedback!

Chris and I had a great time working on this with the cast and crew. We did indeed use a DVX for shooting, and three sets bounced/diffused work lights straight from the local home improvement store. All chops/cuts were done in Vegas.

The hospital scene is a bit confusing! We were going for a mysterious transfusion as what had changed him, but perhaps we made it a bit 'too' mysterious! :)

[Mike McNeese]

Nice job guys. Took some guts to take on a night shoot...the lighting in the night scenes distanced me a little. Try some blue gels or blue diffusion, and in night lighting, backlight it what it's all about...seperate your subject from the darkness.

Interesting camera angles...cool idea to truck up with the knife when he contemplated lopping his digits off.

Well done!

[Aaron Marshall]

This film had some hard hitting violence. I think it was well done. The VO seemed insincere, or indiffernt at times to what was going on visually. I really liked the shootout scene. The convulsing table scene was very intense.

Overall you did a very good job. I look forward to seeing your future films.

[Edgen]

My thoughts:

I was a little confused at the beginning. I didn't know if the 'hooded guy' was the person in the VO. Then after I saw "maxwell" I was confused. I wish I could have seen maxwell as the dood who whacked off the head. Damn. That was pretty cool effect.
When maxwell was getting stabbed, I would have liked to see 'stab wounds' where the thug (which I thought was the same guy from the beginning) robbed
his life. It probably could have been achieved by cuts or a little AE rotoscoping.
Maxwell.. did he look at his blood on the garage door as he fell? oops.
Still.. i liked the dying performance.
I Really like the ER room with all the whites.
Music was very effective. I thought it fit really well.
I think the restaurant scene was pretty cool too with the two bandits.
The sound FX with the guns just didn't seem right. As if you needed some more spacial awareness or adjust the room tone/reverb.
hhehehe.. the 2nd thugs dive move and 'last breath' made me laugh. Dunno why.
I did however; like the CG gun effects.
The VO was ok too. (hella lot better than mine :) )
Opening credit sequence was superb. very nice.
Lighting could have been a bit better with the night shots, but those are hard as hell to pull off.

I enjoyed it. Good to see other villains or 'bad blood' in these films. :)

cheers and congrats on the submission.
/j

[chrisdvx]

Thanks for all the comments!

Yes, the night shots could have been lit better. We actually had some pretty nice shots that night, but decided to cut them to keep this under the time limit. Unfortunately, since a portion of the opening was cut out, you miss the introduction to the main character/hood guy "Maxwell".

I also agree with the stab wounds and wondered if anyone would pick that up :) We may CG some wounds later (we were a little pressed for time).

Again.. Thanks for the comments.. and keep 'em coming!!

[Ian Slessor]

Hey Chris,

I have to echo at least one of the statements from above.

I was VERY unclear on the male in the hoodie at the beginning. I figured he was..."heroic", I guess, and then you have your hero getting shivved by... a male in a hoodie.

Personally it was confusing and threw me off for the rest of the short.

Having said that, the knifing of the protagonist was VERY convincing. I think you pulled off the right mix of sound fx with the stabbing and the motion although I think the sound was a frame or three off from the impact. The scene itself I found disturbingly authentic. That's a good thing. Kinda. ;)

The music was OK.
The camera work was all right. I found the shot in front of the waitress should have ended on him at the table with her walking out of frame to the left. That's just me being a monday morning quarterback, though.

AS others have said I think you need to clean up the story a bit. Yeah. His "transformation" was too mysterious. We don't need all the facts, we just needed more than what we had.

An admirable job, nonetheless.

sincerely,


ian

[Dahopafilms]

Chris,

For a first out, this was really, really good.

Violence is hard to pull off (needs both context and matching visuals) and I think you did well here.

Some really nice tension on the kitchen knife scene. Really liked that. Also liked the fact you got a restaurant location. Nice.

Some thoughts on the film perhaps to influence you next time:

I didn't like the lighting set-up for the opening shot of the woman running. I just thought "video" as opposed to "She's in peril". It took me out of the film before it really even began. The opening shot is crucial to hit a home run on - or at least a single..
The blood looked like chocolate milk on my monitor, and the facial wound/scar looked pink. Blood is hard to do (I am hopeless at it, so I use industry fake blood products).
Yep. The hoodies were confusing. Assume that much of your audience are a little dim (such as I) and that you have to really lay it out for them unless your goal is to confuse - which itself can be valid depending upon the story.

Having said that, I liked this one. Nice job.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I thought this had a nice mood to it.
never a fan of voice over for the whole film.
Some really great looking shots and the perfomances were believable.
nice work guys!

jack

[conrad_johnson]

Hello -

Good work.

Was the ER scene green-screened? If so, why did you choose to do that?
It looks stretched.
Blood coming out of your protaganist's mouth kinda looked like diarrhea. might want to play with your blood recipe, or fix it up in post.
i question why he shot the bad dudes at the end. i was expecting him to do something superhero-y, not make some quick moves for the gun and just shoot them.
liked the voiceover, LOVED how the voiceover wrapped up at the end.
MY...NAME........IS.......MAXWELL. I wish my name was maxwell. i would introduce myself like that to everyone. MY...NAME.......IS...MAXWELL. I really liked that. Heck, nevermind my name. I'll just start telling everyone my name is Maxwell :).

good work!

[WilderWorks]

I enjoyed the concept of this one, the transfusion, quite a lot.

There are several nice moments, and I particularly like the transition where he's ready to cut his fingers, and then the tomato sauce drips on the table.

Some of the lighting was a little under-done. The blown out directional exterior night stuff and the flatness of the restaurant come to mind, but those are both very difficult locations to light on a budget.

I agree that v.o. isn't the strongest way to tell a story, but there's an internal nature to the idea of a transfusion that didn't make it particularly problematic for me here.

[Norm Sanders]

I've not read the other posts, so I apologize if this is redundant ... I'm relaying my notes in here as I watched the film:

What's with the head coming back up at 00:20 and then the eyes going wide afterwards?

00:34 Well THAT was cool (head coming off)! :) That said, we should have cut away sooner, or seen the body fallen out of frame.

Wow, the first minute or so, I'm SEVERLY confused.

1:08 - 1:19 the sound is really bad ... just the repeating sound of the door sliding down (or something), and it's missing the SFX of some hits, etc. ... unless it's just supposed to be off as it's a flashback.

At 1:43, in comparison to the red cut he's got on his head, the blood looks like Cattleman's BBQ or A1 Steak sauce.

The VO delivery just isn't working for me.

3:46 Who drops tomato sauce on the counter, then purposefully touches the plate down on it just long enough to then pick it right back up again?

4:04 Taken out of the scene again by the HOt light that the waitress stands right next to, lighting her up (over exposure) in comparison to the patrons ... not to mention the shadow she casts on the girl.

4:20 This is where a bounce card could come in REALLY handy to help fill in the lighting & get rid of the shadow on the guy eating.

4:52 When the guys come in with the gun, this would be a PERFECT place for high shutter speed use (at least 120, if not 250) to give it a nice edgey stuttery action look ... really amps up the volume & intensity.

5:20 Body twitches/kicks about 1-2 seconds after the last shot? SFX were off during this shooting sequence too & the hit on the first bad guy.

There could be a lot of potential for this, but the story just never really made sense to me. It could be that I was too busy taking notes, but the films that really GRAB me don't allow me to think about taking notes because I get too into them. Otherwise, if I'm seeing a lot of things that will stop me & take me out of the story, which you'll want to address on the next project.

Great job on getting it submitted though, which is a heck of a lot better than most were able to do this time around! My hat's off to you.

[chrisdvx]

Thanks for the positive remarks and quality feedback. Keep it coming.. we can take it.

[chrisdvx]

A little about the lighting.. We had no budget, and used a couple of worklights from Home Depot for the whole thing. I totally agree with all the bad lighting comments.

The VO:
Yes, I would prefer to tell the story w/ out a voice over, but it seemed like the best way to tell our story. Maybe next time, we will try to make the story concept a bit more clearer :)

Looking fwd to the next fest!

[jpbankesmercer]

Guys I know I'm not supposed to say this but I loved the violence in this. You guys should defo enter the HorrorFest Kudos for Make-up, I like chocolate milk effects :). Loved the head coming clean off. You told a simple story well. Liked the camera going up with the knife, nice payoff with the spaghetti. You put sometime getting good locations - it did pay off. Must agree was lost a little at the start but hey!
I enjoyed this want to watch it again...
Great job.

[Cryogenic Filmworks]

The makeup and special FX were very good. The music at the beginning kept repeating and just didn't seem to fit. Again the last bad guy goes limp before the last shot, then a second later twitches. Again on the sauce on the counter, setting the plate down and picking it up.... was there a reason for this? Again did like your makeup and FX a lot.