Slimothy-Blaine-khmuse -Thou Shalt Not-

Wow Edgen,

You are really, really picking up on things in this film, I am impressed!

Yep, with all the environmental sounds we were dealing with, nearly the whole film needed ADR, but we only had access to "The Kid" and "The Demon" so we got their ADR, but no one else. I tried to cut it together, but without complete ADR, just a few places other than the last scene worked out. The sound design is a bit weaker than I would have liked, but I hadn't planned on doing the editing myself and I had to leave the country on business in the middle of post so time was less than I would have wanted. A better editor and a real folly person and full ADR would have given us better sound.

The decision to frame and shoot 2:35 was again mine, so if it worked or didn't I will take full responsibility for the outcome. I do like the full wide that you get with this piece of glass when shooting in tight quarters, but I can see why some might have preferred 1:85. There are so many shots that gave me difficulty with the adapter, that I won't go over all them here, but I decided to shoot with it and both Tim and Blaine gave me the opportunity to make the decision myself, so I really appreciate the trust that they placed in me.

Again, I really appreciate the feedback you have provided. Your comments are well reasoned and very insightful.

Kevin
 
Hi All,

Yeh I dont want to flog a dead horse either, but I do agree with a lot of what's been said.

I really like the first half of this. The opening shot selection was very moody. The way they were all listening to him in the diner. At that point I felt this was really working well. I was captivated, I liked how the music built up when he was taking the guy's knife off him, good misdirection. But I'd say from here it began to get a little confusing and the pay off wasn't as grand as I was expecting.

Great lighting, sound, nice title sequence. Very pro looking. You got a lot of things right
 
Thanks Darkline,

The pace that we needed to move through the final action sequence was certainly quick. The choreography to get this accomplished was difficult and something that had to be worked out on location, it certainly could have benefited from a bit more running time. I want to point out that is the case for a few other films in this competition as well; I am not making excuses, we all knew the limitations of this contest, some choose to stay within them, others (like us) choose to try to tell a bigger story in a shorter period of time. The success of each is an indication of our ability to tell a story, ours need just a bit more time to be fully told.

I am pleased that you seemed to like the film or at least the direction that we were trying to take the film.

Thanks for your review, feedback is always appreciated, particularly when it is well reasoned and honest.
 
Yes its a brave risk to take, taking on a bigger project and I commend you. I have not had the guts to work with a big cast/crew yet; it seems to be a hurdle for me to overcome.

I imagine that with all those people in that location, time is of the essence and decisions need to me made quickly when things don't go to plan.

If you were to reshoot it right now, what would you change, if anything?
 
Hey Darkline,

If I were to re-shoot it? Holly Crap, my response could certainly exceed the 5000 character limit that is imposed by this board, but I will try to stay under!

First off, budget allowing, I would have gone with my first camera choice, namely the SDX900. I really prefer a great 2/3" camera for so many reasons.

Second, I would have gone for the high frequency ballast for the HMIs. I had issues with genny driven magnetic ones.

Third, I would have wanted a day to prelight the location and I would have wanted to lock down the location between shooting days. We had to return it to a working restaurant each night after shooting, this was a big obstacle.

Fourth, I would have wanted a gaffer. It was too much for me to shoot and light this without much assistance (not that I didn't have people helping, I just would have loved to have a real gaffer).

Fifth, I would have said since we are not using a sanctioned camera, lets screw the running time limit and tell a more complete story.

Sixth through Five Hundredth... I won't go into these but believe me I could fill them all!

All it would have taken is a lot more money. We probably spent more than nearly any other production here as we had away locations (that had to be paid for), transportation costs, accommodations costs, equipment rentals, etc.

So I guess the one thing I would have changed is I would have tried to find someone with really deep pockets to finance it. Blaine absorbed most of the expense on this one, so I am very thankful for his commitment. He is one hell of a guy to work with!

By the way, GREAT QUESTION!
 
Review | POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT! I watch the movies first time around strictly for enjoyment, second and third for review.

Hey dudes. I ended up catching yours on accident before i went down the line so before I forget about what I want to say, here's to getting 'er done.

Script - This is where it all fell apart for me. There wasn't enough information to tell me what the heck was going on during this short, and while you can't know everything, there's a massive hole in the plot and structure.There's a dead girl and a staticy TV that I really have no idea what's there for. I hear a guy telling a story all of a sudden and everyone's just paying attention, and then it turns around and these two "demons" are killing people. Now, I know that the people they killed were people who had kind of "sold their souls", but with everything going on you really can't tell. The dialogue either needs work or was delivered unjustly. And the pacing is staggered. Script might benefit from an overhaul on a reshoot and proper character and motive establishment.

Direction - An interesting gathering of shots. A lot of static ones that looked okay. I saw a few that stood out as good, like the dialogue coverage on the cook and the lady at about 2:15 or so. Other than that, I suppose I really can't say much. The camera was to static for me for what wsa supposed to be a really intense action scence. I also think you might've benefited from the right dialogue coverage. There were a lot of wides going on.

Acting - I think I might've expected too much. This is where the hype killed a facet of someone's movie for me, the first time anyway. I expected top notch acting for some reason and it was sub-par. I think I expected miracles after seeing the talent list. Line delivery was plastic and unbeleivable, the larger demon's acting was more comedic than intimidating. I just couldn't get into them. Did you guys go through the motions before hand with the shooting scene enough? It seemed really off.

Cine/Lighting - I can see that you had to spend a while turning the darkness til it favors you. I like the red scenes, behind the brunette/dark haired gal. I'm always a fan of colored scenes and maybe it was done on purpose, but it doubled as her "sin". What I don't understand is why the lights had to go off in the first place. It seems it was an uncessary hurdle to leap. Was there a certain reason for that other than "mood"? This was actually the stand-out facet of your short, though. Got a lot of good lighting in where you could.

Editing - The cutting wasn't horrible. I can't identify any issues aside from the beginning. Intercutting the girls dead body with the redundancy of that vehicle... I wasn't too keen on that. Didn't know the purpose behind it, and it looked like it could've saved time in the end. Maybe this also contributes to the Dialogue Delivery. It's a tad off. Maybe you can tighten that up before you go to pitch it for funding?

Sound - Score wasn't up my alley. I won't say much more on that. A lot of entires haven't been for me so that's nothing important. Sound effects were off. The gun shots were kinda weak. I could hear what the people were saying which was good, did a decent job on the ADR.

Special Effects - Lack of muzzle flash actually caught me. It might've helped sell the death. And being that it's horror, a blood splatter? The stabbing looked good. The slit throat lacked a lot of blood. I almost thought she had a bow-tie on when I first saw it.

Scariest Moments - When the lights in the place go off. I hate when lights go out. =(

Overall consensus - The production had a lot of potential and maybe I got a little too hyped about it. It came up short on a lot of areas and maybe it was because of the lack of funding? You can tighten a lot of it up in editing, even shorten it a minute or so. Lighting was good. Especially the red-scenes. I liked those. Overall a good go at it. Thanks for exhibiting guys.
 
Thanks alot guys for your in-depth reviews: I have to head off to Arizona in a bit, but will be sure to comment on all of the films when I get back.

Kholi: You bring up a point that I was concerned with for a while and that was the demon coming in and sitting down and talking. Normally people would be like: WTF? We originally had it so that he was already in the middle of his story, hence, already having everyone's attention, but we kinda got twisted up a bit once we actually shot it/edited it. The scenes back to the hotel were supposed to be more of like flashbacks of what he was talking about but after reading the feedback, I don't think it came across that way. I was afraid from the get-go about "over-hyping" and it was something me and Blaine discussed extensively, but near the end I felt we might've been falling into that pit. It's hard not to when you're excited about everything.

Darkline: Excellent question. If I could change some things, I probably would have gotten an extra day if possible allowing for alot more coverage. For the major kill scene, we were only able to do two takes and I was REALLY worried about that since you don't get the chance to see any reactions, etc to what is going on. I would have also liked to see more blood. I'm a fan of gore, and I think it might've helped to sell some things better. Namely the girl in the hotel. Like Kevin said, time was our enemy.

Thanks again, I VERY much appreciate everyone's comments/feedback on this. Constructive Criticism is the shizznit.

Tim.
 
i thought it was good. It looked more llike one scene from a larger projectt hn a stand allone film. ACting was good. The demon was actually pretty cool.

i like the red light shot and tht girls scream was blood curdling.

Nice work!
 
I thought the lighting and acting were the standouts here.

Another great performance from Concannon, and very differen. I think I saw a little of my avatar in his first bit with the wallet, but always his own and very believable.

I was confused as to some of the relationships and then generally trajectory of events though it all made sense by the end.

All in all I liked it, thought it had a great consistent mood, good look and nice performances. :thumbsup:
 
Glad you liked it, Jack. I'm glad to see it came together at the end. That was the intent. We wanted all the information to be there so that by the time you got there it would make sense, from the point that Gina (Julie Horner) catches herself and has to cover the fact that she was at the hotel to where Travis (Nathan Johnson) doesn't think it would be a good idea for her to work with him, considering they're the ones having the affair.

That whole scene was added late. When we were casting, we needed some dialogue for the female characters and it was written for that purpose. As it turned out, we felt it was essential for advancing the story, so in it went...and another page with it...
 
Kholi said:
Special Effects - Lack of muzzle flash actually caught me. It might've helped sell the death.
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Hey, Kholi, just thought I address this one quickly. The gun was pressed against the body, so I'm not certain we'd see a muzzle flash on the shot to Travis (Nathanael Johnson). There was an exit wound which is tough to see because it happens so quickly and it's dark. Perhaps we could have played that up a bit more... There was a muzzle flash when he fired at the Kid (Miko).
 
Nice job on this one! I got a chance to watch it today. I thought much of the acting was believable and the content was scary! Keep up the good work
 
Blaine said:
Hey, Kholi, just thought I address this one quickly. The gun was pressed against the body, so I'm not certain we'd see a muzzle flash on the shot to Travis (Nathanael Johnson). There was an exit wound which is tough to see because it happens so quickly and it's dark. Perhaps we could have played that up a bit more... There was a muzzle flash when he fired at the Kid (Miko).
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That makes sense. After checking it out again I saw how deep it was against the clothing. It had been too dark for me to pick up that it was too close in the first place.

Thanks, Blaine.
 
Excellent critique Kholi! Really appreciate you taking the time and effort to write this. I will just make a comment on some of your observations.

Kholi said:
Direction - An interesting gathering of shots. A lot of static ones that looked okay. I saw a few that stood out as good, like the dialogue coverage on the cook and the lady at about 2:15 or so. Other than that, I suppose I really can't say much. The camera was to static for me for what wsa supposed to be a really intense action scence. I also think you might've benefited from the right dialogue coverage. There were a lot of wides going on.
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If we had more time, I would have shot a lot more coverage, but we didn't and I choose to try to cover things in much fewer shots than is typical. The reality of the difficulties of the location did not become apparent to me until I arrived (late due to traffic) on location the first evening of shooting. I quickly came to the conclusion that I would really have to be careful in budgeting my time as things were going to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Looking back, I should have taken a day and driven to the location to fully survey it first, but the 5+ hour round trip just wasn't possible with the schedule that I had with other projects at that time.

So, I wouldn't blame direction (Tim) here much, he, like myself would have also wanted more coverage, but it wasn't in the time budget.

Kholi said:
Acting - I think I might've expected too much. This is where the hype killed a facet of someone's movie for me, the first time anyway. I expected top notch acting for some reason and it was sub-par. I think I expected miracles after seeing the talent list. Line delivery was plastic and unbeleivable, the larger demon's acting was more comedic than intimidating. I just couldn't get into them. Did you guys go through the motions before hand with the shooting scene enough? It seemed really off.
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Here I can't say that I fully agree. I understand that it isn't my place as DP to comment directly on the talents performance, but given the fact that most of these people had never seen each other before their call time (and one, Nathan, was a last minute replacement) I thought that they all did a damn good job. This of course is a matter of taste, but I felt that the talent was the best thing we had going for us.

Kholi said:
Cine/Lighting - I can see that you had to spend a while turning the darkness til it favors you. I like the red scenes, behind the brunette/dark haired gal. I'm always a fan of colored scenes and maybe it was done on purpose, but it doubled as her "sin". What I don't understand is why the lights had to go off in the first place. It seems it was an uncessary hurdle to leap. Was there a certain reason for that other than "mood"? This was actually the stand-out facet of your short, though. Got a lot of good lighting in where you could.
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Glad you liked the lighting choices that I made. They were fairly quick decisions, but I tried hard to make them work to set a mood for the story line. The choice to have Travis (the cook, played by Nathanael) turn off the lights was that I really wanted a reason for the interior illumination to change tone. It was after all past closing time, so it seemed like a reasonable thing to me. I tried to use the practicals that I established on the exterior to provide a motivation for the lighting that followed. Again, more time (and wall spreaders would have been great if I could have come up with a way to rig them) would have given me more to work with. But overall, I am not totally unhappy with the lighting that I achieved.

Kholi said:
Editing - The cutting wasn't horrible. I can't identify any issues aside from the beginning. Intercutting the girls dead body with the redundancy of that vehicle... I wasn't too keen on that. Didn't know the purpose behind it, and it looked like it could've saved time in the end. Maybe this also contributes to the Dialogue Delivery. It's a tad off. Maybe you can tighten that up before you go to pitch it for funding?
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As I don't consider myself an editor, I will gladly accept "...wasn't horrible"! Sorry that the opening sequence didn't fully come across. It was likely also a victim of not having enough time to fully realize. Am I beginning to sound a tad redundant with this part of my response?

Kholi said:
Sound - Score wasn't up my alley. I won't say much more on that. A lot of entires haven't been for me so that's nothing important. Sound effects were off. The gun shots were kinda weak. I could hear what the people were saying which was good, did a decent job on the ADR.
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I liked the score a lot, but again this is a matter of taste. Full ADR would have made my editing task easier, but we only had access to two of the actors so I did what I could with what I had to work with.

Kholi said:
Special Effects - Lack of muzzle flash actually caught me. It might've helped sell the death. And being that it's horror, a blood splatter? The stabbing looked good. The slit throat lacked a lot of blood. I almost thought she had a bow-tie on when I first saw it.
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I think that Blaine has already fully addressed these comments perfectly, so I don't feel the need to add anything else here.

Kholi said:
Scariest Moments - When the lights in the place go off. I hate when lights go out. =(
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For me it was the scene where Shirley watched Gina get killed and the event was seen in her expression of horror. It really gave me chills when shooting it and did to a somewhat lessor extent each time I watched while cutting the film.

Kholi said:
Overall consensus - The production had a lot of potential and maybe I got a little too hyped about it. It came up short on a lot of areas and maybe it was because of the lack of funding? You can tighten a lot of it up in editing, even shorten it a minute or so. Lighting was good. Especially the red-scenes. I liked those. Overall a good go at it. Thanks for exhibiting guys.
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Thank you too for your great comments! Very appreciated.

Kevin
 
Thanks for taking the time to respond, dude.

I'd like to add on the ACTING section-- No practice before call time reflects the acting. I can totally see what transpired here and I can imagine that it'd be ten times better when you go into a feature version (if planned).

A good thing about the DVX fest (amongst other obvious ones) is that you have the chance to get feedback. This is the time to really mess-up, when your peers will tell you honestly and help you out. On a real festival circuit, there's no justifying things. It's either did or did not and that's pretty much it.

Great job, all of you. I'm still crazy jealous of everyone who entered.
 
RebeccaD said:
Nice job on this one! I got a chance to watch it today. I thought much of the acting was believable and the content was scary! Keep up the good work
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Hi Rebecca,

Thanks so much for your comments. I am so pleased that you found it "scary" that is all that I could have hoped for in a Horror short film. I think our talent was our best asset on set and seeing your performance in R.E.M. I know that you are fully aware of good performance so your kind words go even further for me.

Kevin
 
Well, let me begin by saying I had very big expectations for this film...the caliber of acting, the DP, the hype, the Grabs. I want you guys to know that I was not dissapointed! I think you lived up to everything and even went above the hype. The only thing that hurt this for some people is the audio mix. I think when they were unable to understand, they lost the story and missed the kicker at the end.

*************SPOILERS******************

The cinematography here was amazing. I loved everything about it. It felt natural and subtle where it needed to be. I liked how the light color reflected emotions. Red for the sheer terror the actress was feeling. Angles rocked too! Tis is definitely one to see on the DVD as it works better bigger than 400 lines wide.

Acting was excellent. I really enjoyed the performances.

The editing helped create a nice flow, and could possibly be tweaked to make the adultery thing less confusing.

The payoff of realizing who the two guys were was priceless. Two angels or demons hunting commandment breakers! AWESOME!

Yep loved it, definitely up there in the top group!
 
Story: very nice, thought it could use some work coz I had to watch it twice to fully understand what was going on...for example, when the guy enters and talks about the blood at the motel...the others seem to pre occupied with their own stuff, like who worked there and why and say she's sorry....i mean...a guy just walked in freaked out, talking about a possible murder....

Cinematography: strong one! loved the lighting and the choice of direction, i dont know why you chose the red light for the blonde girl when she's screaming...

Editing: thought it worked well though I have no clue how the blonde ended up running to the door when in the previous shot she was collapsing by the wall...

Acting: natural, not the best but in top10 spot

Score/Sound: nothing to go ballistic for but it fit the context...a few problems with the two 'angels' in the end...i couldnt make out their lines and i thought it was recorded in post...thought i saw some off sync lip movement with the guy sitting and his line

Overall, very strong, very nice images and concept, could go all the way for a very interesting short feature
 
Kholi said:
Thanks for taking the time to respond, dude.

I'd like to add on the ACTING section-- No practice before call time reflects the acting. I can totally see what transpired here and I can imagine that it'd be ten times better when you go into a feature version (if planned).

A good thing about the DVX fest (amongst other obvious ones) is that you have the chance to get feedback. This is the time to really mess-up, when your peers will tell you honestly and help you out. On a real festival circuit, there's no justifying things. It's either did or did not and that's pretty much it.

Great job, all of you. I'm still crazy jealous of everyone who entered.
Click to expand...

It was my absolute pleasure and what I felt to be almost an obligation to write as your post was full of very useful feedback.

I fully agree about the value of this forum, it is a great place to get constructive feedback and not just the little comment cards you see used in festivals (which don't tell you much more than if someone liked or disliked the entire film). Without specifics, you can't extract much that would be valuable or ways to improve one's filmmaking skills.

Thanks again,

Kevin
 
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