CARCEL - 14 Min - short Action/Drama film

Geoff_R

Geoff_R

Veteran
This is the first film I'm posting on here. 'Carcel' was shot last year but I never thought of posting it until now; it's basically follows this man whose fiancee is murdered... It's a violent story about revenge. We're really interested in feedback and your opinions of the film.

http://www.rawimagefilms.com/films/carcel.htm

Some production notes:

It was shot with a DVX-100a, no adapter, straight F6 setting. Small light package with three 250w Lowell DP lights. Sound; Sennheiser Me66 straight into cam.

Shoot was approx. 12 hours spread across two days. Very small crew enabled us to move really fast.

All gunshots/smoke/blood in the end are FX; done in photoshop and Apple motion.

All the cops are 'real cops' that we got to help us out. They came with all their cop cars, awesome day!

Any questions, feel free to ask. Enjoy!
 
Unbelieveable

Unbelieveable

I have been visiting this site for over a year, just to get tidbits and advice, but after see ing your film I had to join just to post a comment, that your film was beyond beeing an incredible DVX movie, an incredible movie in general. The story, cinematagraphy and sound design were top notch. Congrats, I love revenge stories and this one stands head and shoulders above most that are out there.

-Atrain
 
wow man, very touching. very very nice story and well edited if i may say so mister pro.

The acting varied for me, but over all good.

nice work!
 
I'm interested in what tripod were you using. By the way great work! You got some very nice cinematography in the intro section of the film.
 
Thanks guys! I really appreciate the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Badlaa, we ended up using a $150-$200 Manfrotto. It wasn't that great of a tripod; there were a lot of shots where we had to retake because the tripod would bump a little... and even in some of the final shots, they are a little jittery but we had to move on and go to the next shot. I wish I had the money to get a focus :)
 
Nice job. Agree with posts above me... editing was great, story was nice, and it was all put together very well.

If you're looking for constructive criticism, here's mine:

The acting was pretty good from most, except the girl. She was pretty bad.

I think a little color correction would really help the entire piece, and it's not too late for that.

That's it.

-brown

p.s. how'd you get the cops to come out? just make a phone call, or go to the station and ask? I was thinking about doing the same thing for a small project I'm working on. I really just need one car... but lights and all are necessary
 
actually those lights are easily done iwth little LED's

those under cover cops always haev those in their front grills, front windows and back ones as well.

alot easier than getting huge lights ontop of the car. and you get the same effect, just a bit cooler :) lol

then its just up to sound and costumes.

but great stuff
 
Can't seem to download the movie. Does it have to do with the bandwidth?

I will try to download it later on.

All the best,

Fidel.
 
PaPa said:
actually those lights are easily done iwth little LED's

those under cover cops always haev those in their front grills, front windows and back ones as well.

alot easier than getting huge lights ontop of the car. and you get the same effect, just a bit cooler :) lol

then its just up to sound and costumes.

but great stuff
Click to expand...

Yeah... but who's going to believe my red BMW with little LED lights in the front is a real cop car ;)

I guess I could trade for a crown vic... but not sure if it's worth it for a 10 minute short:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
rcbrown,

Yea, I was looking for someone to do the color correction but it was a problem finding someone after a while, I just stopped looking. Is there any scene in particular you think could benefit from it or just overall speaking does it need some cc?

As far as getting the cops, we knew two of them beforehand and they had always talked about acting and wanting to be in films. We asked them if they'd be willing to help out and we just made sure we shot that scene on their day off. What was great is that they brought some more friends with, that i didn't expect. We were originally only supposed to have the two guys and one car. I was inside shooting some B-roll for another scene and rushed outside with the camera to find three cars and five guys. It also helped that the location was right down the street and we only needed them for about an hour so we weren't cutting into their busy schedules.
 
Araujofh,

Not sure why it wouldn't work... I've got a 10 gig daily limit and it's only at like 3 or 4 for the day. You will need Quicktime 7 to watch the movie as it's a H.264 file. I can't really make a WMV version right now since I'm in LA and all the computer which the movie is on is still in Chicago for the time being.
 
I think the entire project needs some CC. I did these in about 10 minutes... Your original shot is on the right half, and my quick CC shots on the left half. I had to pull them from the compressed QT vid you had, so they don't look so great, but I hope it helps a bit.

Picture1.png


Picture2.png





Notice the "blue sky/green tree" contrast on this one.

Picture3.png


Picture4.png


Picture5.png
 
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Thanks RC, I really like what you did with a lot of those shots. Once I get home in August I'll probably try to do some CC on the film.

How are you boosting the color so well? It looks much more rich and vibrant in a lot of your CC stills.
 
It's a mixture of things, really. I start with "levels", then I'll tweak a bit with "color corrector 3-way". On the outside shots, I also threw in a "gradient sky" from magic bullet.

But, to answer your quesstion... "levels" are what does the "boosting". I use the "G Levels" from Nattress, but your editing system should have levels in there somewhere.

Let me know when you're ready to give it a try, and I'll get a bit more in depth of what your options are... or send me the film and I'll do it for you. It's a really good short, and it deserves the attention.

-brown
 
Brown,

I'll definitely contact you in the future regarding the CC. Thanks again for the feedback.

Cheezgoblin, Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it! But what do you mean by shooting the second half?
 
Hey Geoff,

Good work. Very good story, shot composition, editing and acting. However cc that bad boy and make it shine.

I do have to agree with the others re: acting and the wife character.

The scene with the lawyer and the suspect was top-notch acting-wise.

One thing, though, and this is really minor but I know the guys I work with, and the situations I've been in, where if the lawyer ordered me or an officer to take the cuffs off a suspect (especially for murder) the lawyer would get dick from us and the cuffs would stay on.

Just saying.

Otherwise, well done.
 
Thanks for the feedback Ian,

Good point about the lawyer scene and thinking about it that way; it could have played in our favor if we jacked up the intensity of that scene and had arguing/tension between the cop and the lawyer over the cuffs issue.
 
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