Second Hand Smoke

[Matt Sconce]

I agree with a lot of the comments here already. I liked th concept, and I saw the acting wa supposed to be forced in several moments so they worked for me. The other acting was stiff. Besides the car not moving, I thought the cinematography was nice. I liked the lighting and the resolution of that andromeda setup was ultra spiffy! Congrats!

 

[JoshuaNitschke]

Thanks for the extra feedback.

I personally think the best shots are the stabbing and the very last shot....to be honest, not awesomely happy with the in car stuff. I really wanted a moving background, but we ran into some megaproblems with the portable power system to power the computer....I guess it wasn't giving enough juice to start up the iMac. I'm gonna look into it. Probably the best result of making this....

Wish I had had time to test the shots out and stuff. It was a good learning experience though.

Did you think everyone's acting was stiff, or just dad's (the bum)? I thought Jon (driver) did a really good job, I was impressed.

And guys, please, be brutal. I want to improve. This is only my second short so lay it on thick, I need it.

 

[Charli]

Though the scene within the car was limiting, you pulled it off, I would however
like to see more movement. The acting was a tad forced, but that's more
because of the dialogue and not the actors themselves, I believe. You can only
work with what you have to work with.

Remove 'supers' to tell me where you are going, instead, SHOW ME an establishing
shot of the mental ward, something on the outside, a sign or something, instead
of text.

You did a short and pulled it off. That is an accomplishment.

 

[JoshuaNitschke]

Thanks Charli.

I'm really interested with how much crits the dialogue has been receiving. Like I said, I didn't write it so it's not like it's my baby or anything, but people we showed the script to before we shot it LOVED the dialogue.

Maybe it's just dialogue that only really good actors can pull off? I don't know. I agree that Dad's (bum) lines seemed forced at most times, but Jon really impressed me, he's come a long way in acting since we started shooting a feature in the summer.

You're right about the supers. Probably could have been way cooler to do it the signs.

Next fest we'll have a killer entry.

Come on guys, more crits. More brutality.

 

[musicman]

Well the score was written before the girl even saw the movie, so she deserves mad props for that imho. Fits well I think.

Because I'm a sound guy I'll restrict my comments to the audio. The dialog is good but sound just like you recorded in a VO booth. One reason some noticed the car was not moving is because the dialog says so. If you have a plug-in that creates a little more hollow sound that will help, not much though. Try EQing some of the low end off their voices, below 100 Hz, again not too much. Nice music, just too loud throughout. Need something under the silent scenes, ambience if nothing else. Nice effort. Keep at it.

 

[JoshuaNitschke]

The dialog is good but sound just like you recorded in a VO booth.

You're saying it's good quality sound, just too "clean?"

Try EQing some of the low end off their voices, below 100 Hz, again not too much.

I have no idea what you just said. Could you link me to something explaining this?

Nice music, just too loud throughout. Need something under the silent scenes, ambience if nothing else.

So I should have just recorded 30 seconds or so of "outdoor" noise for that segment?

Nice effort. Keep at it.

Thanks for the CC! So much to learn.

 

[Kholi]

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

Hey Virum. Got a chance to check out your short, still going down the list but I'm making it! Great go at it, man. Details to follow.

Script - A dialogue rich, if not based, piece. Most of the dialogue was ACTUALLY decent. THere were a few lines that were "meh" but to be honest, if massaged a few times I can see it beeing an interesting conversation. Must've been something working on this. I don't think it was too long, as well. It seemed they were touching on things that began to separate them as humans. I can say that I really didn't get the Psychiatric ward part. So he gets taken there? He's already there and has escaped? If he escaped... why'd he go back? They're holes that needed to be filled and packed down to sit solid with the rest of the ground.

Direction - With obvious limitations I have to say that your dialogue coverage was pretty damned good, dude. I've never seen any work from you before, it'd be interesting to know if this is a step up for you or not. Camera work was a bit jittery, you might have to get a more fluid tripod if you don't have one already. But honestly, I like the tracking and coverage going on here. This is probably your strongest point. I especially thought your stab scene worked for what it was.

Acting - Family members are often the worst actors. No joke- your dad was pretty bad. He smoked a cigarette well, though. I could tell he was reading off of a page, which was pretty darned bad but I kept watching because, despite the terrible line delivery between both, the actual conversation had some filling in it. If at all possible, reshoot with better actors. You'll gain a lot of ground when coupled with your directing.

Cine/Lighting - I liked the look. Gritty. You got enough light in that car that's for sure. I saw something weird when the stab scene began: the picture seemed to darken all of a sudden, then brighten. A little messy, but hey what can ya do?

Editing - Straight forward. A little lag on the conversations, but nothing too terrible. Stab scene worked well with the cutting. Really psychoting.

Sound -I heard the voices pretty well. What I also heard was the sound really edging in for supremacy over the main ingredient: the dialogue. I also haerd the shifting of your dad's fingers over the script when he changed pages. No good. I think that even if you take out the background music you might have a better product. I always notice that dialogue rich scenes, those that are written well, can do well on their own and need no background music unless it's specific to the scene. Try it and tell me what you think.

Special Effects/Art Direction/Wardrobe - Blood splattering was on key, dude. Dunno what he was stabbing but the setup worked. The blood was a little too red and paint-like, but here again-- what can you do? Your dad looked good as a bum. Dirty and grimey, I wouldn't want to get too close to him.

Scariest Moments - The continuation of the stabbing on the ground. Dude was straight gutter.

Overall consensus - I think this short has potential. Even if you had to get one actor to replace your father you could really benefit from a reshoot. I noticed there was no moving background, but I'm assuming this is another shortcoming of a no-budget production. So whatever on that. Your coverage is pretty decent, man. You get points there from me. In fact, I'd almost say that your coverage doesn't match the quality of the short. The actors and some shoddy lines really bring it down.

Good show, otherwise. Nice to see someone get out and do it at it's base level. Thanks for showing it off!

 

[JoshuaNitschke]

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

Hey Virum. Got a chance to check out your short, still going down the list but I'm making it! Great go at it, man. Details to follow.

Wow Kholi! I really admire how in depth your reviews are, you are such a great contributor to this contest. I really appreciate it.

I can say that I really didn't get the Psychiatric ward part. So he gets taken there? He's already there and has escaped? If he escaped... why'd he go back? They're holes that needed to be filled and packed down to sit solid with the rest of the ground.

Sounds like you missed the "6 hours earlier" fade? The idea is he was an escaped patient and he stole his psychatrists car.

Direction - With obvious limitations I have to say that your dialogue coverage was pretty damned good, dude. I've never seen any work from you before, it'd be interesting to know if this is a step up for you or not. Camera work was a bit jittery, you might have to get a more fluid tripod if you don't have one already. But honestly, I like the tracking and coverage going on here. This is probably your strongest point. I especially thought your stab scene worked for what it was.

At the bold: This is my second short, I've shot parts of a feature I was working on (I jumped the gun on that I think....but all the money I've spent has mainly been equipment and I'll use the set I built in a short so it won't go to waste), but otherwise I haven't done much. You can see my first short in my sig and decide if it's a step up. One guy told me he thought my cinematography had improved. If you have time, I'd like to hear if you thought I improved (no need to give a detail analysis on the other short).

As for the jittery....you're probably gonna laugh at this, but I had my fluid head a bit too tight. I had a reason for it though. I had barely enough cord to reach to the side of the car. (Andromeda setup needs to be hooked to an imac). The weight of the cord kept pulling the tripod head to the side, so I tightened it up so I could just leave it and not have to worry about wiggling with me fighting the pull. Didn't consider "what if I want to make a fluid pan" I should have just held it against the pull methinks. Or got a longer extension cord.

Acting - Family members are often the worst actors. No joke- your dad was pretty bad. He smoked a cigarette well, though. I could tell he was reading off of a page, which was pretty darned bad but I kept watching because, despite the terrible line delivery between both, the actual conversation had some filling in it. If at all possible, reshoot with better actors. You'll gain a lot of ground when coupled with your directing.

That's one thing dad can do, is smoke. rogar-Smoke(DBG): I wish he'd quit.

Cine/Lighting - I liked the look. Gritty. You got enough light in that car that's for sure. I saw something weird when the stab scene began: the picture seemed to darken all of a sudden, then brighten. A little messy, but hey what can ya do?

I like the look too. It reminds me of something but damned if I can remember what movie. lol.

Hmmm, you didn't like that fade right before the very first stab? I was trying to go for a sort of ominous feeling. Kinda be like "oh he's not gonna show much" and then fade into the bright red blood and stuff. Didn't work too well?

There's a bit of light on his arm on that wider stabbing shot too, that's from the car, we were running out light so we tried to use the car lights to help out. I didn't notice that his arm caught the light in that shot. Is that the "brighten" you're talking about?

Editing - Straight forward. A little lag on the conversations, but nothing too terrible. Stab scene worked well with the cutting. Really psychoting.

If you have time I'd like to hear what parts you think could be tightened up.

Sound -I heard the voices pretty well. What I also heard was the sound really edging in for supremacy over the main ingredient: the dialogue. I also haerd the shifting of your dad's fingers over the script when he changed pages. No good. I think that even if you take out the background music you might have a better product. I always notice that dialogue rich scenes, those that are written well, can do well on their own and need no background music unless it's specific to the scene. Try it and tell me what you think.

Haha yeah dad.....we actually had to reshoot something cause he lifted the script into right into view.

Just muted the sound track and I think you're right, it does help out. Even turning it down seems to be a better.

Special Effects/Art Direction/Wardrobe - Blood splattering was on key, dude. Dunno what he was stabbing but the setup worked. The blood was a little too red and paint-like, but here again-- what can you do?

He wasn't stabbing anything actually. I have two 60cc syringes that I had filled with the blood and I just tried to squirt them in synch with the stabbing. Looks great even if the blood recipe I used sucked. I nabbed a better one from some of the users here though.

Your dad looked good as a bum. Dirty and grimey, I wouldn't want to get too close to him.

Yeah he really did. Poor guy got some acne after the shot....

Scariest Moments - The continuation of the stabbing on the ground. Dude was straight gutter.

Did you find the utter silence after he was done creepy? That's what I was going for.

Overall consensus - I think this short has potential. Even if you had to get one actor to replace your father you could really benefit from a reshoot. I noticed there was no moving background, but I'm assuming this is another shortcoming of a no-budget production. So whatever on that. Your coverage is pretty decent, man. You get points there from me. In fact, I'd almost say that your coverage doesn't match the quality of the short. The actors and some shoddy lines really bring it down.

Good show, otherwise. Nice to see someone get out and do it at it's base level. Thanks for showing it off!

Thanks man! Thanks for watching it and the good crits.

 

[Kholi]

Hey dude, thanks for getting back so quick. xD

I'm on to another short, but I'll come back to your questions with more detail in a bit. As for now, one question stood out more than the rest:

I think that the silence would've been better if I heard him smoking that cigarette and breathing laboriously. Not just the dead silence, but the sound effects. It would've really sold the "savor" of the kill in the form of a cigarette.

Andromeda, huh? NICE. That's why it looked like that.

 

[Mark Harris]

As has been stated, the acting hurt you on this one. Especially since the script was sooooo nice. I mean, the killing is killing, but I agree with Kholi, the dialogue was quite good and did a fine job of keeping you on your toes, wondering exactly which of these guys to be afraid of. If there's a drama or comedy fest next, I would really look forward to something from you, because it looks like that's where you might really excel, where the writing really has to count.

But GET REAL ACTORS . Your writing deserves it. Clearly your dad was stiff, but who can blame him because he's not an actor. It's a skill like lighting or sound, etc. But the other guy, I thought did not quite bring enough subtlty to the performance. If he is an actor, then that might be something for you to work on as a director, rehearsing and shaping those performaces. Again, I think your writing deserves it.

Question: In Hollywood movies, the young guy would be played SUPER nice, so that when he turns out to be the killer, we all go "Oh my god!" As I said, I didn't know who to be afraid of all through it. Was that your intent?

I think the last scene could be struck, honestly, and replaced with something simpler to engage our minds and make us wonder what's up, like something overheard on the radio about an escaped patient. Maybe that's cliche, but by the time we get to the psycho ward, we already KNOW the guy's crazy. I think I would prefer the scene in the car to go on longer, explore more territory, get deeper and deeper, and use your time for that, instead of that last scene.

Have you shot other stuff you've written?

 

[JoshuaNitschke]

Yay more CC. Thanks for commenting.

The young guy, Jon (also the writer) isn't really an actor "by trade" but I think he has the potential to be a good actor... he seems to keep improving with the limited stuff we shoot.

The script credit goes completely to him, I didn't touch a single word of that dialogue. I wrote largely the first short that we shot (A Magic Wand, see the sig). As you can see, he's the better writer of us two. I like to throw out ideas, but I suck at making dialogue.

Next time I'll see what I can do with attaining real actors, maybe hit up the school's drama department.

In Hollywood movies, the young guy would be played SUPER nice, so that when he turns out to be the killer, we all go "Oh my god!" As I said, I didn't know who to be afraid of all through it. Was that your intent?

We were shooting for ambiguous. I actually wasn't sure if my creepy framing of the bum would give away the twist or not, I was afraid I overplayed the fact that he might be the bad guy a bit. But yeah, we were shooting for ambiguity. I'm glad you weren't sure.

You aren't the only one to say that the last scene could be struck, I showed this to some friends I know and someone asked me why we shot that. I'll make sure Jon sees it.

Have you shot other stuff you've written?

Not much.

There's that A Magic Wand short that's in my sig. That's the only finished thing we shot.

Jon and I wrote a movie over the past 2 years (3? not sure now). We built this beautiful period set in my garage (it's a 1930s gangster movie).

I think we've shot 10 minutes of final screen time, I put up a few excerpts in a thread here somewhere.

I begin to think it was too ambitious. School started, nobody has time to work on it, and the storage shed that holds everything that was in my garage is steadily draining my savings.

I'm really sad about it, the script is soooo good and even though I know some of the actual shooting and acting in this isn't awesome, it was such a learning experience, you know? I think maybe I took Quentin Tarantino a bit too seriously when he said "you want to make a movie, go out and make a movie."

But yeah, besides A Magice Wand, some parts of that feature, and this, We haven't shot anything else.

Basically my main goal now is to use the set I built in the garage in a short. I spent about 1000 dollars on it, I don't want it to go to waste.

I'm trying to get meet a new goal of making a short or a project of some kind a month.

Also, do you think this is good enough to go on a filmschool portfolio submission?

 

[Mark Harris]

I know NOTHING of film school portfolios, so I am the wrong person to ask.

As for finding actors, YES, COLLEGES and RECENT COLLEGE GRADS!!! They are hungry to work on things and gain experience.

 

[gwmesler]

Thanks for taking the time to review our movie, Sneak. I thought I would return the favor.

Great idea, really kept me interested the whole time... despite some pronounced flaws.

I understand the need to keep expenses to a minimum, but try hiring experienced actors. You can get pretty good ones for free as long as you feed them and give them on screen credit.

I know it's hard to shoot, light, act, and drive a car all at the same time, but you could have at least had some buddies shake the car around so it seemed like it was really moving.

I like twisted endings. How about reversing the last shot so it pans from the knife up to the guy's face. That way you don't reveal the guy until the last moment.

Thanks.

 

[Lingothree]

Hello -

I agree with much of what was said, and you've explained a lot of it by the fact that you had little time and no professional actors. But in general, your editing ended up a little off (there were frequently moments when the action/head tilt/movement etc. in one shot wouldn't match to the next). I also agree that the seemingly unmoving car threw me quite a bit. I was thinking - why were they just sitting there??? If you couldn't make the car look like it was moving, maybe you should have changed something in the story that would work with an immobile car. Overall, the story just didn't captivate my attention. I don't know if it was the story itself, or the acting, or what. But even with the unconventional edits and angles thrown in, it just ended up being kind of uninteresting.

It seems like you have a good eye for this, so you should really put some time into working out your actors, your locations, etc. in advance (as much of a pain in the butt it can be) so that you can really pull together a product that looks great. Good effort in getting out there, though, and getting something done to submit by the deadline.

 

[JoshuaNitschke]

Thank you both.

but you could have at least had some buddies shake the car around so it seemed like it was really moving.

Never even popped into my head. A good idea.

Lingothree - Thanks for the feedback. Next time for sure we're gonna start from the beginning and make something we can really compete with. I was actually a bit shocked by the quality this time around; when I watched the sci-fi fest stuff I stopped watching after about 10 because they were so bad.

I guess I watched all the worst ones or maybe the quality just jumped a lot. Who knows.

But I'll be back next time with a much better entry. Looking forward to competing!

 

[Lingothree]

I think the quality is improving. I struggled to watch all of the sci fest movies, and that doesn't seem to be a problem this go-round.

 

[TheatreGuy]

Virum, I owe you a review and an apology!!!!

I thought that I had given you a review but I believe that I am incorrect!

I will come and give you my critique. Right now, I am too busy. But I will pass it on if you want it.

I enjoyed many aspects of your film and congratulate you on making it!!!

Way to go!!!

I had a great time in this fest!

Best to you!

Ted

 

[jpbankesmercer]

Best of luck.

 

[JoshuaNitschke]

Thanks!

Looking forward to hearing your review, Ted.

 

[Steve_Arm]

I know it's hard to shoot, light, act, and drive a car all at the same time, but you could have at least had some buddies shake the car around so it seemed like it was really moving.
Thanks.

Wow! It never crossed my mind that the car was ment to be in motion! I had the impression that they had parked and they were talking. I didn't notice any flow with that.

Anyway I like the style of this film, a bit Tarantino maybe, in imagery not scripting.
And the end sign symbol was brilliant.It seems almost as one of the few entries that had dialogue.