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[johnhizzle]

I thought that this was shot and edited together nicely. The visual effects were good – they worked with the story instead of distracting from it (the distorted perspectives). Pacing was good, and I thought the chase scene into the woods was handled well. I don't like to critique sound with these kinds of things because you never know if it's an issue with the compression or what...the audio on this sounded a little echo-y, like the mic was too far from the actor's mouth. The dialogue was decent, but there a couple of lines that seem forced, but not too bad and overall it worked. And the acting...well, we work with what we get (if you've seen my entry, you know what I mean). I liked the fact that used an actress who looked like someone you'd see everyday instead of the typically favored “babe”-type; it lent the movie a more appreciable quality and allowed the audience to sympathize with the characters more. All told, I enjoyed this – good job!

Thanks man, yeah my sound guy way twisting the mic back and forth between dialouge I noticed it during the take and told him to focus on one character at a time. The audio got a little better after that. Thanks for the crit I'm reading some more screen writing books to work on my dialouge.

I thought this was a really good story and I like how you incorporated the writing with the actual story. I also liked how the woman almost got the villian. Would have been kind of nice if she did. There are a few problems here and I think the two that stand out the most are the audio and the sound effects. The dialogue audio is out of sync bigtime. At least on the video I watched. The sound effects did not sound realistic enough either. Even the initial closing of the front door when the girl comes into the house didn't sound real. Those two things are very fixeable though. I also thought the actors did a convincing enough job. The lighting was okay except for the last outdoor shot. It was really dark. I also thought the camera shots were fine as well. Oh, one other thing I just thought about. Her slamming his head looked kind of fake. You might need to re-edit that and add some more powerful sound effects to make that part pop. Anyway, all in all, a pretty good short!

Thanks man, the sound of the door closing was the actual door, meh can't win them all I guess. I do agree with you on the sound design but the audio dialouge isn't that far off I don't think. The typing is off, I totally see that but I can't tell if the dialouge is off especailly "Big Time" if it is though, it might be only a matter of frames. Will work on my sound design though for my later projects. Thanks for the Crit

really cool look throughout. but I think I missed something. needs another viewing. I'll do that tonight

Watch as many times as you want my man

Good entry, i really like the device of the writer writing the story vs the actual action. great title sequence! what i want to know is: how did you do the "day for night"?
It was really believable as night. Just a blue filter or what?

Well I took the footage into after effects and used Colorista 2 to desaturate the footage, then I turned the exposure and the highlights down. I then added a Power Mask around the actors and basically made a spot light on them. Then I went into Magic Bullet looks and used the Hue control and cooled the look down then lowered the opacity by 20% and bam Day for Night. I was really worried about those shots. I'll post some bts as soon as the fest is over to show how I did it.

[Matt Harris]

helluva process dude, so when i go to do day for night footy one day, can i email you the files? no but seriously thanks for that process, i will be trying that out.

[MrKilloran]

The bad news is I'm merely repeating from others of course: Audio, acting, sfx show potential but need improvement and for being "drugged" the girl had an awful lot of stamina.

The good is that the back and forth between action and intention was well edited and paced. You have some good shots and you've put together a nice little short it just needs more work. I liked it, Nice job

[kurtmo]

Solid entry. Nice editing. Awesome day for night. Audio was tough.

[Noel Evans]

Advice for making the finals. Sound was your enemy. Theres some good elements throughout. Intensity, thats the word we needed more of through the chase. Another factor to me that I think also effected your chase was overall I felt the shots were a bit unmotivated. I think you need to use the camera more to help tell the story. As an example when she goes in the house and he offers her a drink its a high head and shoulder shot of him. Something as simple as making this wider and then slowly moving the camera in through out the shots until she faints could add a lot to the visual storytelling.