Midnight

Man... that's quite something indeed. WOW. The beginning is simply breahtaking.. Man, that looks good. The acting and costumes and sets and that. Is this a serial TV drama? Something online? Man.. I think we need to find out more about this. Do you have any other info on the production? Budget, etc?


Something quite produced and looks very very good and a good fit for the HVX. Of course a lot of parallels to LOTR, but that's never a bad thing and only because of the impact and timeframe you are dealign with here.


Thanks for showing and anymore info would be greatly appreciated. Did you say that this was shot in Minnesota? lol... Man, quite a stretch from what I remember from there.... Mall of America and fish-on-a-stick.


Would love to see more.. THANKS!!!!
 
Yeah, this looked great. My only pet peeve was that it looked very digital. A few shots had a very filmlike quality, but the majority were very digital looking, maybe not enough contrast in skintones? Maybe thats what you were going for. Anyways, their was a project being shot on the HVX called "The Ore" which reminded me alot of this project. Keep up the great work!
 
Glad the trailer is being received so well. I'll definitely have more to post as time allows. As of right now we are still in production and have 6 shoot days left. I think the best scenes aren't in the trailer because they were most recently filmed, some cool action/fight scenes.

Yes, there's a LOTR feel to it- the world of Midnight (fantasy flight games) is roughly based on the idea "what if the shadow won?".

I'm hoping I can get the directors, DP, and some other folks to stop by and introduce themselves and field questions once we move into post and there's some free time.

Yes, filmed in MN and Wisconsin with local cast and crew. Distribution is being worked on, there's lotsa ideas floating around mostly having to do with future episodes done locally in mind.

That's if for now, about to head down to Indianapolis IN for GenCon and the Midnight trailer premier. Anyone attending Gencon should stop by the Midnight area at Fantasy Flight Games if you wanna see the HD trailer and meet the director and some crew.

-j
 
I thought some of the color timing and sky replacement looked pretty good, especially for an indie.

Having done many film festival question panels, I vowed never to ask these questions -- but I have to know...

what was your budget, and what sort of post workflow are you using? Did you farm out the effects shots to independent contractors, or what? I would like to know some more of the nuts and bolts about the project.

I would also like to see it!


Dean
 
I'll have to defer post workflow and budget questions to a later date, perhaps I can get a director/producer on to answer those questions. My job is sound, and anything else when MOS.

I can tell you that we have created our own digital effects department just for this project. Also that we have one of the industry's finest makeup artists on the crew.

The website just went up to correspond with the GenCon debut of the trailer and I suspect next week there'll be a lot more information up on the website.

There's also a link to a Midnight message board, which might have a better chance of getting seen by the folks with more information.

-j
 
That's absolutely beautiful, Jack. The presentation in particular was extremely professional. I love the music and the tones of the picture - very unified and captivating!

Invision, I'd say the reason I get the feeling as well that it still "looks digital" is really because of the very wide depth of field. The footage is undeniably beautiful, the sets are awesome, and the lighting is fantastic, but there isn't any way to fake what the lens is projecting. Ironically, I think you were one of the people who thought the DOF was too shallow in the project I recently finished, but I think that without it, as this piece shows, you're left with something that appears much less filmic. That's not to say that the deep focus look is bad by any means - there's just a significant difference, that's all. That's also why there has been such an interest in the plethora of 35 adapters lately - it's one way to combat the effects of a 1/3" CCD. I do not believe that 35mm adapters are the answer to the world's thirst for shallow DOF (in reality they're just good hacks for our present systems), but on very limited budgets they provide a good solution. With that in mind, I think on a 1080p HDTV, this trailer would look stellar. I would really like to see the full HD version when it is made available.

Great job to everyone who worked on this! :)
 
You should speak with Curugon. Somethin' tells me you guys would get along.

This is the kind of project I want to start by the end of this year. It looks great, man!

Please, inform us when the larger trailer is up so I can gank it from your site.
 
jack the fool said:
Glad the trailer is being received so well. I'll definitely have more to post as time allows. As of right now we are still in production and have 6 shoot days left. I think the best scenes aren't in the trailer because they were most recently filmed, some cool action/fight scenes.

Yes, there's a LOTR feel to it- the world of Midnight (fantasy flight games) is roughly based on the idea "what if the shadow won?".

I'm hoping I can get the directors, DP, and some other folks to stop by and introduce themselves and field questions once we move into post and there's some free time.

Yes, filmed in MN and Wisconsin with local cast and crew. Distribution is being worked on, there's lotsa ideas floating around mostly having to do with future episodes done locally in mind.

That's if for now, about to head down to Indianapolis IN for GenCon and the Midnight trailer premier. Anyone attending Gencon should stop by the Midnight area at Fantasy Flight Games if you wanna see the HD trailer and meet the director and some crew.

-j
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I go to Beloit College in southern Wisconsin and if you need help, and if help is needed, I'm very interested. I'm in Seattle, WA right now.
 
The trailer looked nice enough. But it is my belief that fantasy films are one of the few genre's that cannot be done justice with an indy production budget.

The idea of creating an entire world realized on film(or digital as the case may be) is expensive. This felt like a fan made film from LOTR fans. It comes off to me as a poorly constructed LOTR knock off.

Without proper context I cannot be 100% sure, but the acting was pretty bad in the trailer. Nobody looked like they believed anything they were saying.

Another beef i have with indy fantasy productions is the costumes. The always look like they are store bought pieces, thrown together, or that there is no history behind the clothing. Which drives me nutty since a great deal of "fantasy" relies on established history or perceived history in most cases.


Technically the film looks good, but it also looks like it could be an episode of Xena. It has a really "digital" production look. This isn't a bad thing perse, but it tends make things a lot more wooden, and also brings out the limitations in production design a lot more.

I was impressed with the locations however, and think that is the greatest asset of what i saw.

I am raining on the parade here I think, but I don't feel like giving a candy coated message this time.

(downside to LOTR is it has risen the standards for all fantasy to everest heights)

EDIT: I will add that the sound is very good, and I liked a great deal of the camera moves.
 
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I thought that was quite impressive, and offer a big kudos for you and yours having the balls to take an indy fantasy project on. I wish you the best of luck.
 
WOW! looked great... been waiting to see some of this footage, I was very impressed by the moves. But then again, I hear you have a wonderful Dolly Grip. ;-) Also, I wasnt so sure about the extra in the 6th shot... the guy on the far right of the frame. I heard he was a lot better in that Alternate Route movie. Haha, anyway, drop me a line when you get the chance. Looked amazing though. (and definitely SOUNDED great!)
 
Loki I don't know what you are smokin' dude, this looks way more pro than a "fan film". I'm going to watch it again...it's that good!
 
I'm not really into fantasy movies but WOW, that looked like something on TV.

I forgot i was watching video, this looked like a fuji stock. Iam VERY CRITICAL about footage i watched and this camera fooled me.

Thats why iam excited to buy it in the next two days.

oh HVX I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME. I LOVE YOU
 
Well this is the most impressive work I've seen yet from the HVX. I am a HUGE fan of the Lord of the Rings films, so this is right up my alley.

The image looked incredible so far (can't wait for that HD trailer). The special effects were also VERY impressive for an indie production. I was actually wondering if this was a TV show or something. Was this shot in 720 or 1080? Any 35mm adaptor used?

The acting was very well fitting IMHO. For this genre, I thoguht for the most part the actors were well cast and performed well. Great voices too, and the sound was perfect. The only qualm I have is that some of the characters looked a bit too clean shaven or not "scruffy" enough.... Other than that, the makeup artist really shined so far. Hopefully in the Hd version everything maintains the same quality.

Hope to read more about it and I want to see it!
 
kramergfy said:
Was this shot in 720 or 1080? Any 35mm adaptor used?
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I'd say it's pretty clear they didn't use an adapter (at least I'd hope more people would be able to tell the difference)! The only parts that have any kind of shallow DOF are scenes which appear to be greenscreened or static shots where it's obvious the camera is zoomed in quite a bit. That being said, I maintain my original comments that even without the adapter I do think it looks great. The color work is fantastic!
 
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