Noa/Rice Digital Presents: "Into the Darkness"

Thanks for all your help Brandon hope you don't mind me using your quote, I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read it!
 
jpbankesmercer said:
Thanks for all your help Brandon hope you don't mind me using your quote, I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read it!
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HAHA! I am glad you liked it!

msconce said:
Brandon, I wanted to give this a more in depth review.

When the scene opened to the boy swinging I thought to myself...Brandon has done it again, another amazingly shot movie. I wondered if it would play out and it didn't disappoint. The kick was great and his expression fit what a little kid would do perfectly. little kids are usually more curious than scared in situations like that. he wouldn't have known to be scared as he does not have the world experience we do, but he would be curious and wonder what was going on! Good direction!

The color grading was great the dichotomies between light and dark saturation and none worked well. The end effect was creepy and amazing. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality you produced in such a short time. Congrats and good luck on smuggler's ransom!
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Thanks for the comment Matt... I am glad you enjoyed the flick, and glad you understood why I gave Spurgeon the direction I did! :) Nice!

And make sure you check the SR thread... been updating a bit there as well... another screenshot yesterday! Thanks again Matt! and thanks for taking the time on each film, that rocks!
 
Into The Darkness

From what I understand this was not the film that Brandon wanted to submit, rather it is a sort of last minute, 'what can I pull off in the time available' one. In that context, its not bad, not bad at all.

OK, while not a bad film, I can't exactly describe this as a good one either; rather it feels to me like just what I understood it to be, a 'what can I do quickly' one.

So, for specifics on the film.

The story isn't really all that weak (more fully developed, it could be something very good), what seems weak to me is the choices made for the time of day and location. In general, I really dislike available light daytime exteriors for 'horror' genera pieces. It just screams low effort and it kills (or more exactly, never creates in the first place) a mood or tone for me. Now if the backyard scene had been instead shot at a lonely park, perhaps on the edge of a wooded area, and shot nearer sunset, it could have been much, much better. Consider if the young kids ball had rolled down into an area that he had never seen before, one that was hidden (and not what appears to be part of the family back yard) from normal view. Here he could have discovered something hidden, something not encountered for a long time, this could have been a stronger approach to the "magical stone" and the consequence of picking it up.

The vfx, though well executed, didn't do anything other than put a point in the story to finish it up (not a bad thing to have a real ending!). I would have liked to see his reaction to the event and perhaps a bit of 'horror' in his reaction. I have no idea if the kid could have pulled it off, this isn't easy for a young, untrained person to accomplish without coming off as corny, so this might be a choice made based upon the reality of the resources (in terms of talent).

On the kid, he seems comfortable on camera and you can't see that he is "acting" too much, so there is potential there. I work with kid actors a lot and the better young ones are more naturals, then with proper training and experience they can really become something.

There are no real problems with the technical nature of the camera work (though its not a difficult look to accomplish, no real challenge for a competent shooter), the editing is fine and works based upon what I can see presented. The color grading shift in the story line is OK, but rather obvious, could have been more subtle which would have avoided taking me out of the developing story line. These post choices, when done overtly, convey to the viewer OK, now you need to feel this or that and when they proceed the event they can feel like a setup.

The real plus on this one was the score, without it (and I watched both ways) this one would have had nothing to offer. The sound elements tie it together and make the film more than the sum of its parts.

I would be interested to see what Brandon can pull off in a more structured effort project. I see potential here in the individual, but this one kinda reminds me of a kid waking up in the morning and realizing that "sh*t, I have a paper due today!" and then cranking out something between classes to turn in at the last moment.
 
I just got done watching the film, and no offense it just didn't do anything for me. the story was eh, so so, but i did like the kid, and some of the shots, but overall it just wasn't my cup of tea, no offense again Briceman.
 
Thanks for the comments, both of you, and for taking time to watch the film! Thank you.

khmuse- I understand what you're saying about it seeming thrown together... but I've been interested to see that going simpler didn't work this time. For sci-fest I went all out, and made what I thought was a large scale film, and I placed quite low. Any of the films I would have done for horrorfest would have felt just as simple, and smal-scaled as this. It's a choice I made, and I'll stick with it. I do have to think differently when making films for these fests... I have to think within the time constraints and not try to do too much.

ravinsedge- thanks for checking it out, so far I've got those who really like it and those who don't :) Love it or hate it :) Thanks man!
 
Thanks Movie Master! Glad they did!


khmuse said:
I would be interested to see what Brandon can pull off in a more structured effort project.
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Have you had an opportunity to see my sci-fest entry (A Price Too High) or my current film, Smuggler's Ransom?
 
Michael, Why can't you just make a nice film like Brandons -Mike_petro's Mom

how did she get in here....????
 
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Somewhere inside Brandon is a lesbian trying to get out, no wait ... I mean filmmaker. Filmmaker trying to get out. I applaud you for doing this film; you were in, you were out, back in then out and then finally said screw it ! Im making a film for Hfest.

Your film is above average for the usual mess we see but I still found it rudiment in execution; It comes across as 'Hey little brother ! Grab yo' ball and lets go outside and make a movie real quick !'

Bravo. For actually making a movie, but the end result is 'Eh...... '

.029999
 
haha! Thanks John... yep... not the best, that's for sure, I am just happy I did something, I wouldn't have been happy had I not... though it sort of goes against my whole thing: "If you can't put your best foot forward, don't put a foot forward at all" Ah well, whatever... I still think for these fests it was better than A Price Too High in many ways.
 
Hey Brandon, just watching your flick again and I am reminded of something that troubled me the first time I saw your film. (I believe that understand why you did it, but I curious as a filmmaker if something else was explored and the possiblilities of pulling this off.)

When the boy moves from the swing set to the shadows of the tree area to fetch his ball, the CC is so noticably different. I believe that is completely a choice for the "darkness."

I am curious if you played with or if it is possible to gradually change the color from the bright daylight driven colors to the darken mysterious colors.

Again, great job on this short. You make it look so easy!

Ted
 
Thanks Ted. I WANTED the jolt. I did play around with a gradual change, but felt it didn't have the same impact... and just came off as forced and cheesy to me... I don't know, maybe I should have done that... But I am pleased with the way it works in the flick. :) Thanks for the comment!
 
zenbarai said:
Brandon, the visual effect of the kid getting disintegrated is TOTALLY RAD.

Ben
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Awesome, glad you liked it! That was the work of our visual effects man Steve (Steve_Arm on dvxuser) he did a GREAT job!
 
Brandon Rice said:
Michael, this has gotta be the best review quote ever! LOL!

Not as good as Rekindled -Gen Concensus
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dude I totally thought this was halarious. You appear to be the first person to pick up on it :)
 
Brandon Rice said:
Thanks Ted. I WANTED the jolt. I did play around with a gradual change, but felt it didn't have the same impact... and just came off as forced and cheesy to me... I don't know, maybe I should have done that... But I am pleased with the way it works in the flick. :) Thanks for the comment!
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No, no man! I was just asking. If you played with it and it didn't work then you did the right choice.

I guess I did say it "bothered" me before... and as I think about it, I guess I would like to have seen the ball roll over there in natural CC and then the boy hits the mark, bam! Darkness! But, that's just me. Asking questions and learning.

I was just exploring with you. Hope you don't mind.

Ted

And yes, I caught that on Michael's sig. Funny poo-poo!
 
Brandon Rice said:
Have you had an opportunity to see my sci-fest entry (A Price Too High) or my current film, Smuggler's Ransom?
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No, I haven't seen either, but would be interested to see how you approached them.

In pre pro on another short right now, but would be interested if you can point me to something that I could view. I will be happy to let you know what I think.
 
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