"Once A Hero" - Envision / 235 Studios

Hey all, this is Jeff Hawley, writer and (for two nights of filming) set lackey. Thanks for all the feedback! It's been a great experience working on the project, and I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of the submissions.
 
Hey Jeff, glad to see you on here! Even though you can't vote until you've got 100 posts, I bet you could give some GREAT feedback to some of the other films' threads. And if anyone else comes sniffing around Jeff for script writing, I found him first! :)
 
Welcome aboard Jeff- Glad you are a part of the community now.

It was fun to have Jeff on set- as well as helping out with various tasks, he was able to give some good insight into the setup, and acting.

I can't wait to see some of his bigger projects make it to screen- he has got some great ideas!
 
"Once A Hero" MOV file now up for download!

"Once A Hero" MOV file now up for download!

Hi Everyone, for those who've had issues getting the mp4 file to play, you can now download the mov file from the front of this thread by right clicking on the poster & saving it to your hard drive: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?p=575020#post575020

I've rec'd permission from Jarred on this in advance, and there have been no content changes to the file, though the sound compression is better, which I expected after hearing the mp4 myself.

If you've not seen the film, or would like to view it again with the better audio compression, please feel free.

Thanks,
Norm
 
OK dude.

Your my last film to comment on. I sorted by least comments and went through hitting the films with fewer comments and views first.

So then I wanted to save you for last so you'd be "special".

Congratulations man. Another quantum leap in production and filmmaking. I keep going back and forth on my score card between you cand Cache for top honors. You get dinged not on story but on this edit of the story and your mix (I watched the .mov after the mp4 and still there are times when the dialogue is overpowered by score or ambient sound or verb).

But it looks great -- REALLY -- and I liked your actors a lot, particularly the dude, and the production value and the way score and all of it worked together.

One acting note (even though he was my fav). I think you missed an opportunity (or two) to make the exposition about what happened at the bank more active. I mean why would he sit there and recount that like that? Makes even less sense in light of the fact its a lie. So two areas to have explored would be (or maybe one really since its a lie): If you play it straight he should actively be trying to get her to help him put the pieces back together "I can't believe you're alive ... I don't understand ... I saw this happen ... and this happen ... and this ..." etc. Right now its internal and seems like he's just voicing a bad memory out loud for little reason, where the former makes it externally motivated -- i.e., needing her to help him solve it ... the second option would be (and this would work nice with the camera angle) is that he's acting like he's reliving the memory while watching VERY closely too see how it lands on her. In otherwords trying to find out if she knows it's a lie or if she's aware of any chinks in his version of the story. Of course that would be the real motivation for either action, seeing what she's figured out on her own, and if he should feel threatened. Right now, again, it seems too passive and therefore expository, and I don't think there are any shots featuring her in that exchange (showing that she's legitimately confused about what happened, etc.) This is a smaller note than it seems because it took so much space for me to thouroughly explain it.

It's hard not to get sucked into this thing thinking "this is a movie. this is a REAL movie".

I'm definately in line for the full version! Can't wait. Even though I liked Pandora's Box better (jk) :grin:

You pointed out some simmilarites between us in my thread, to reiterate here and add a couple: you and I have both been shooting for nine months, are the only ones to have entered all three of the last contests, and we are the same age within a day. Spooky. We should have done a Sci Fi on us. (cue twilight zone theme). Also if you put out last names together we woul make a name brand hardware product line - Stanley Sanders, lol.


Jack
 
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Jack Daniel Stanley said:
You pointed out some simmilarites between us in my thread, to reiterate here and add a couple: you and I have both been shooting for nine months, are the only ones to have entered all three of the last contests, and we are the same age within a day. Spooky. We should have done a Sci Fi on us. (cue twilight zone theme). Jack
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That is very eerie...

9 months only? Wow, that is super impressive and I can't wait to see what you're putting out in 18 months...

EDIT: Not rain on the eerie parade though...we did also enter the last three contests (BRAINS!!, Signal Decay, and J.U.L.)
 
We also have boring English Names. Nothing worse than an English Name. Norm Sanders. Jack Stanley. Might as well be Vanilla Vanilla. I'd kill for a good Irish name like Shaun Patrick for example. But best are latin names like Escobar Villa de Los Lobos ... maybe I'll change mine. :cheesy:
 
Shaun Patrick said:
That is very eerie...

9 months only? Wow, that is super impressive and I can't wait to see what you're putting out in 18 months...

EDIT: Not rain on the eerie parade though...we did also enter the last three contests (BRAINS!!, Signal Decay, and J.U.L.)
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D'oh. Brains is one of my favorites from all of the fests. I forgot that you did signal decay. I knew I would probably forget someone that was a 3X vet.

Shaun Patrick said:
Sounds likes you're already working on the horrorfest idea...:locks door:
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Yes and now I'm in Brooklyn, so my psychotic break only has to last a few train rides.
 
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Shaun Patrick said:
Sounds likes you're already working on the horrorfest idea...:locks door:
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LOL! Yeah Shaun, I knew you'd been in all three too, but didn't know how long you've been filming. 'Bout the same time?

I'm saving yours for last, as it's gotten a lot of attention, so I'll be watching & giving notes today. I only jumped on Jack's right away because we've been kind of keeping each other abreast of our productions during the various phases, so I was excited to see how it turned out ... and wasn't disappointed.

BTW, thanks for the stab Jack about liking PANDORA better. Funny stuff, but since that was SO vanilla (Oh gee, scientists unlock some power they can't control - THAT'S original!), I could never believe anyone saying that.

Also thanks for the notes. Though it's too late now, I do like your first idea of having him see if she can help him piece it together, but the second wouldn't work as that would tell us sooner than something's up with him. As it sits right now, I really like it it in that we're thinking right along with her that he's the good guy & truly distraught. Only when we watch it the second time do we know that everything he's telling her is absolute BS, so it should give us a different emotion/feeling when watching the second time.

Not to mention, this scene was CHOPPED in several spots, taking it to less than 1/2 of it's original, so the full cut is even that much better for this scene as well ... some good emotion in there.

Thanks guys!
 
Envision said:
...Though it's too late now, I do like your first idea of having him see if she can help him piece it together, but the second wouldn't work as that would tell us sooner than something's up with him. As it sits right now, I really like it it in that we're thinking right along with her that he's the good guy & truly distraught....
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yeah obviously too late now, hope it doesn't feel like I'm mentioning it just to poke a stick at you, it's for future reference on a simmilar scene.

I think the watching carefully thing could be done so its not telegraphed, but just seen as him being suspicous as to why or how she could have gotten here.

Oh ... you know what ... Aram is a three time vet too ... who else?
 
hey.. nice work, your craft is getting better with every film. You have some good production value here. The rain shots were very nice. Im curious to how much the budget for this film was, since you had access to two letusflips! I checked ur lighting list.. how much light exactly did u had to blast at your subject for it to be expose right?
 
Hey Ramon, thanks for the kind words.

For lighting, it depended on if it was interior or not, but often times we had at LEAST 3,000 watts going, if not sometimes 4K+. Our brightest bulbs we had were 1K tungstens, so we typically had at least 3 lamps going, sometimes 4, with an additional home depot set up as well.

The Letus Flips wouldn't figure into the budget, since they're equipment that would be used on future projects, so the hard up front cost for this was between $800-1K, which $450 of it was just for food for the 4 days and a cast & crew of up to 25.

Going with the deferred pay method (there's a thread in the Hero forum for this), it's more likely around $10-12K ... which I aim to be able to make in eventual sales & surprise our cast/crew with some actual cash for their efforts. Especially since none of them have ever seen a dime from deferred on other projects they've worked on with other producers/directors.
 
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