Even More Grabs from "Wages of Sin"

Nathyn

Nathyn

Low Budget Ninja
These are just a few more grabs from my film "Wages of Sin". This is some of the more recent stuff. Hard for me to believe we just shot some of this stuff this week. The blue footage was the Rodrego scene. Rodrego is a drug dealer who stole money from another dealer. The first shot is my character's limited investigation of the scene, with a scared witness (who pick pocketed him eariler by the way) in tow. The second scene is Rodrego's woman Jazz whose one of his customers so to speak. The last image is my character handing out butt whoopings to a couple of baddies in a drug warehouse (shot the week before last). On this project we had real stuntmen and martial artist. Enjoy.

-Nate

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Brandon Rice said:
Like that first shot a lot. Nice.
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I'm a fan Michael Mann night scenes. I've never knew anyone else with a love of the night texture until I heard about what Michael Mann was doing. I call it the "Cops" look. (Night scenes with the reality TV look). But since I was working in 24p I used a blue preset for this one scene only to add a grimmy feel to it and it came out wonderful. What can I say. You wait until I get my HDV camera. I'll be doing my night scenes at 1080i too but because I'm going straight to DVD so I will preserve the purest 1080i look for the night shots. Back in college I always wanted to shot an action/horror film on video (with the video look) and now I'd do it with the 1080i look.

Some of the actors were remarking about how close this was to Miami Vice, but my script was written a year or so ago and the story is actually inspired by the Jet Li movie "Kiss of the Dragon" and Brandon Lee's "Rapid Fire". There's a lot of shouts out to Roberto Rodriguez and Tarantino in this. The two cops whose killer I'm hunting is named after them.

twocik23 said:
First and second look good, the third looks a little washed out.
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That was a hand held motion shot I grabbed that frame from. Plus the lighting was very generic. We tend not to do too much lighting on the fighting scenes because we're usually rushed for time so we set lighting so we don't have to constantly change set ups. The quality of the fight take center stage because action fans will call you on bad fighting (think about all the complaints from Blade: The Series) before they call you on bad lighting unless the bad lighting makes the fighting unwatchable like in the Daredevil film where it was so dark you didn't know what was happening.

-Nate
 
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"Daredevil film where it was so dark you didn't know what was happening"


Very true. I think they do this on purpose, so that your wondering what the hell just happened (you know to keep you on the edge of your seat). Maybe try to crush the blacks a little, looks good though!


Can't wait to see the flick.
 
twocik23 said:
"Daredevil film where it was so dark you didn't know what was happening"


Very true. I think they do this on purpose, so that your wondering what the hell just happened (you know to keep you on the edge of your seat).
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They did this type of thing better in "BatMan Begins". It was done with camera tricks and CG. But I would love to see a movie where they really let Batman go into his martial arts a battle with Lady Shiva (the next comparable martial artist on the list) or Azreal or someone like that would be nice.

twocik23 said:
Can't wait to see the flick.
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Thanks, can't wait to get it done but I'm enjoying the process a lot more than before. (Now that I know what I'm doing). Film school simply isn't the same as shooting your own film with no controls. Only then can you get a grasp of what's really going on. My first film was riddled with mistakes but I've fixed most of those with this film and I can get into the look of the film more and things like that.

-Nate
 
Looking good! I really like the look of the first two grabs, although the second grab...Not quite sure what that's supposed to be? I've been staring at it for a long while but i still can't figure out why it looks as though half her face got cut off. Probably will make sense in motion. Ditto the comment on the fight scene, but it should look good if you crush the blacks and darken it a tad. Musta been really cool working with real martial artists as actors huh? Well, cept for the knowledge that they could seriously whoop your ass if you pissed them off...lol 'Alright now just do that drop kick again for the 200th time'
 
"They did this type of thing better in "BatMan Begins". It was done with camera tricks and CG. But I would love to see a movie where they really let Batman go into his martial arts a battle with Lady Shiva (the next comparable martial artist on the list) or Azreal or someone like that would be nice."



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MalcolmOng said:
Looking good! I really like the look of the first two grabs, although the second grab...Not quite sure what that's supposed to be? I've been staring at it for a long while but i still can't figure out why it looks as though half her face got cut off. Probably will make sense in motion.

I framed it that way because I didn't want to focus on the actual drug use. Even though we know what's going on and it's more scenematic this way. The actresses in this film were all pros. You need to see her speak her lines hurriedly as she get's ready to snort coke in a dealer's apartment. That whole scene is wild.

MalcolmOng said:
Ditto the comment on the fight scene, but it should look good if you crush the blacks and darken it a tad.
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That's the next thing we're looking at, doing some tight post work with it.

MalcolmOng said:
Musta been really cool working with real martial artists as actors huh? Well, cept for the knowledge that they could seriously whoop your ass if you pissed them off...lol 'Alright now just do that drop kick again for the 200th time'
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These guys were great. And they loved to be thrown around and all that stuff (well we had mats so it was cool). The stunt guy did a couple of things without the mat and it looks absolutely great on camera. I did all my stunts on the mat though. I do my own stunts and fighting but I'm no Jackie Chan.

twocik23 said:
"They did this type of thing better in "BatMan Begins". It was done with camera tricks and CG. But I would love to see a movie where they really let Batman go into his martial arts a battle with Lady Shiva (the next comparable martial artist on the list) or Azreal or someone like that would be nice."
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Wouldn't it be cool if they bought something like this to the screen. Thinking on Batman's skills it would be like a superhero ninja film with great martial arts. I've proposed the theory before that Batman is simply a technically advanced ninja who dresses in a black batsuit (versus a black ninja suit). I'd love to see the Tim Drake Robin get some screen time too, as he was trained partially by Shiva. The Asian Batgirl would be good too she fought Shiva and knocked her out once with a broken shoulder. Lady Shiva would be a great catalyst for a new Bat-Film since they're moving along the lines of Bat-Man's history.

-Nate
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I want to see it but haven't gotten around to it yet. All my cash is spent on filmmaking. Go figure. The fight between Matt Murdock and Electra was good in Daredevil but all the other fights were questionable. Spider-Man is the reigning champion. He's got the best fights. Maybe a Captain American film would be good for superhero fighting. We'd get to see some boxing and Asian styles. (He's supposed to be on the lever with Bat-Man right).

I shot a lot of dramatic stuff today. Six scenes actually, and one in a car. As for crushing the blacks I'm actually turning the blacks up and post and it's looking very good. It add a dark saturation and makes the outdoors stuff look wonderful, especially the grass and leaves.

-Nate
 
I dont believe there has has been a decent Super-hero film yet.Apart from Super-man 2.The technology for realistic CGI is still at least 15-20 years from now...I liked 1st screen grab dude.
 
Thanks Noonansboy. You don't think the Spiderman films, nor Blade (nor X-men 2), were the bomb. We had a ton of good ones, not to mention the last Batman film. I didn't see FF (I saw Dr. Doom with "powers" and that was enough for me to stay away). I even liked the Hulk. I think Lee tried to give his audience more than they needed or wanted, but when the Hulk was onscreen it was like seeing comic book, right down to him picking up the tank and tossing it.

-Nate
 
I hated the hulk and the first spiderman, and felt that FF was a really 'teen' movie. Other than that i guess the rest of the superhero movies are good. Haven't seen superman yet though..gotta get down to doing that
 
A lot of people didn't like the Hulk. I loved Spiderman 1 and Blade 1 and 2 and felt they were the ruler all modern day superhero films should be measured by. It's hard to bring a comic book to life but when one does it well you're loving every minute. I think X2 was great, better than the first.

-Nate
 
nice grabs

i dont like the last one for some reason. Not sure how they do it in film, maybe the lighting, but whenevre i see DVX against a white wall, i just cry.
 
Comic book to life - V for Vendetta. That was def the bestest comic book adaptation i've seen. Ah damn i feel bad for hijacking this thread.
 
A trailer for the film maybe up soon. How much space do we have to upload on the member's space? (I'm on dial up so I'm probably only going to upload the one minute and the 30 second one).

-Nate
 
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