Tangent: 5 minute short

This film changed my life...

This film changed my life...

I was going to buy drugs today... and thanks to tangent my life could have been over.. Tangent saved my life. By far the best film ever!
 
I thought it was pretty bland story telling with some great editing and fantastic camera movement. The mugging was laughable. Since I didnt know the characters I didnt really care what happend to them. Making an object as your lead in a story is doable (Red Violin) but it's difficult. This is true espically when you are making a short
 
Interesting story and I like the shots. Tell us more about your techniques. I know a lot of people aren't feeling the whole, "how did the $5 travel so far in such a short period of time" but I think I kinda get that it's just like a "what if" scenario. Good stuff man.
 
Yeah, I knew some people wouldn't like the timeline business. There's obviously no way the 5 bucks could be given to the drug dealer while at the same time just have left the hands of the drunk driver. But we thought it would be cool anyway.

The car accident scene was done in after effects by another creator of the film. I don't know how he did it exactly in post, but we filmed the shot twice, once with the girl walking into the frame and into the middle of the street, and then with the car driving past the frame. Then in AE, Jon basically "cut" the girl out and "pasted" her into the take with the car driving by. Then he just moved her off screen when the car would hit her and rotated her body. Sorry if this wasn't the most technical explanation, but I don't know AE very well.
 
in other words he probably "roto'd" her...not a very fun job.

Yea the whole timeline thing was fine with me to tell you the truth, I'd rather have it that way. I mean I did think about it a bit when she got hit and how it ended up there but, like what jaems said its a whole "what if" type deal.
 
Hey guys, sorry i just found this post.

The car accident shot was done in AE. I shot the girl walking into the street and stopping at a certain position marked on the ground. I then shot the car driving down the street in a seperate clip. After importing into AE, i rotoscoped out the girl and the guy on the right and embedded them into the car composite. It took some amount of time.

One issue i was having was that the headlights should have been lighting up the girl, but since she wasnt really there, she was dull. I ended up masking out parts of her and adjusting the levels to get it right.


Thanks again for all your comments,

Jonathan
www.shred444.com
 
Sorry for another late reply to this, but I just saw this today. Wicked! I too was going to ask about the car-hit scene. Nice work IMO. Overall this was pretty cool to watch. As for the FF summary at the end, to me it just added to the feel that the guy was thinking it over. If you'd just done the sequence and not recapped, it would not have had the same effect (to me).

To be a bit nit-picky here though, in the mugging scene, how would being thrown to the ground cause such a blood splatter and (assumedly) death? A bit overdone. But small. Nice work.
 
wicked opening! great night shots, man! that car scene was done really well too. i like the camera movement a lot.
 
Hey, its me...one of the guys who emailed you close to the beginning of the year about your short...I finally bought a DVX100b!!:D Pretty darn happy...except for the fact that I'm you know, broke and all. Otherwise, pretty darn happy. Again, nice work on the short
 
Hey man

For me, th beginning seemed like an educational video shown in schools than a short. Just the vibe I was getting with the acting, the sound effects, and (especially) the music.

It got better as it went along, some cool looking shots (LOVE that crane move you did when the girl picks it up out of the puddle!), but overall teh story didn't do it for me.
 
hey i thought it was super good, but is it just me or wouldnt the car still come by at the end? becuase for some reason the truck doesnt show up when the person decides not to get the drugs, but what would have happened if he did was the 5 dollor bill travels everywhere then to that truck driver, which is impossible becuase the drug dealer in the alley had the 5 dollor bill. hard to explain but does anyone know what i mean?
 
this was really well thought out. It's so refreshing to see an indy film that has a positive twist and ends on it. I really liked the music too. your composer did a good job. I can see how this would win at a film festival. Just curious how long did it take to make?
 
my 2 cents:

Pro: the story idea was great. fun. the crane shots were nice esp the last one really nice movement away to reveal open street and bring a closure to the end of the film. nice use of editing in the intro scene between camera angles, u get a feel for context by framing close ups and switching to far angles. loved the transition of the bus stop to class room!!!!

Con:audio wasnt great... sound effects also. and they two guys are wearing strikingly similar hoodies (both brown) you had an opertunity to increase your color pallette there to add some dynamics. too many crane shots in the intro.


did u try any overall cc? u could stylize your movie nicely cause u have a great variation in locations.
 
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