"The Fifth Horseman" - Patrick Daniels (Rubix³)

I wanted to watch this one ever since you started your thread. Seemed quite promising.

I loved the location and the cinematography. I agree with Matt, its the highlight in this one. There were some really nice shots, like the birds flying in the sky. I also liked the visions he had (though I didnt quite get it story-wise)..and the bit where he stepped on some **** (?)...funny!

I liked the scream as well that echoed in the woods....

However this one had 2 major negatives.
One was acting, it was forced as Matt said and not natural..even the scream which was a nice touch to put there..was...so-so....
The second one is the fx/attention to detail....the smoke from the guns is not only 'fake' but not needed...I dont recall seeing a pistol produce such effect in real life (and I shot with a lot of guns when in the army)....
Then you have that guy holding your first victim,dont know if its for the blood effect or to just help his balance while falling behind...but i watched it 4 times and it is very very very poorly delivered...I d rather if you had a matress laying low in the grass for the guy to land onto....and then when he puts the gun in his mouth I think he's wearing some prop around his neck that would produce the blood splatter...am I correct?

ps. nice try, but you should have paid more attention to those details because there were some films in here that lacked in cinematography but where thoroughly planned and didnt put me off the course at no point

ps2. I almost forgot, at the beginning it was very clever to use the phone conversation to shed some light into your lead's intentions but it kept on going too long and I got tired with the sound of the telephone line...
Hope we see more from you!!!
 
Hey Rubix, Congrats on getting your film shot, completed and in the festival!!!

I am not sure of your experience but I am guessing that you are fairly new. With that in mind, I feel that you have a great future ahead of you as you learn more.

I say this because, you show many promising aspects as a filmmaker. I really enjoyed your use of the phone to open the story and establish information. Very effective.

I loved your cinematography. This in itself is a HUGE challenge. I think that you came out look good in this department.

I admire your ambition to take on such a complex story in a 6 minute short. I mean, a guy finding his buddy dead, hunting down the enemy and then contemplating and executing his own death. HUGE STUFF MAN! And you got it all in there.

What you need to focus on, in my opinion is the story-telling aspect. I wish that I could give you advice, but I am learning myself. The one thing I would say is that I got confused in parts. (This happen to me in my film. Test audiences who are not familiar with your story, listen to them and implement changes that can help clear things up.) Just my opinion and what I learned on my film. And I STILL left the audience confused!!! :)

The VFX were not needed in my opinion. You should some good action shots and the "fake" effects brought your film down in my opinion. Also, IF YOU CANNOT HIDE A PERSON behind another person... DON'T DO IT!!!! I actually STOPPED your film, rewound it and watch it twice, then frame by frame! Talk about losing an audience member! It wasn't necessary for the effect and it was so distracting.

But hey, that is what this forum is for. Learning!

You did a great job of editing all that footage together and making a film!

Congrats, man!

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


Hey a quick review from me. I found that this short was quite disjointed and didn't feel like horror to me. I have no idea what was going on, aside from a hitman out in the middle of nowhere going crazy? I also didn't feel the beginning too much. The long phone conversation turned me off from the get go.

I think that you just have to put in a bit more effort. This is a learning experience for sure. I'll keep an eye out for future work. Good job on getting out there and doing something.
 
SPOILER

This one was a mixed effort, but the "shadow people" was a great idea and well done. Also, I like the idea that the hitman is being judged for his arrogance. Overall, I like the film.:beer:

One of the best moments was seeing the shadow behind the man being killed. As if the crazy people are just puppets being controlled by the shadows. Anyway, I thought that was intentional; and worked well.
 
Acting: Not bad not amazing, but no dialogue to speak of so it’s hard to tell.
Script: Action-Horror!
Direction: Some interesting ideas going on here.
Music: Nice guitar work.
Editing: Not bad.
Lighting: Some nice use of natural lighting.
Loved: The phone call to start the story, the dog dirt on the shoes idea (made me laugh), the first focus pull, squibs! Nice dude, some of the fx on the gunshots, loved the smoke!
Hated: The tiny blood spot on the guys shirt with no exit-wound, the blood being poured down the guys face,
Overall: 24 meets Invasion of the body snatchers, all over the place mixing styles but good going trying something different.

J.P.

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS ON BROKEN CIRCLE (WE NEED EM!)
 
Kholi said:
Review | POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT! I watch the movies first time around strictly for enjoyment, second and third for review.


Hey a quick review from me. I found that this short was quite disjointed and didn't feel like horror to me. I have no idea what was going on, aside from a hitman out in the middle of nowhere going crazy? I also didn't feel the beginning too much. The long phone conversation turned me off from the get go.

I think that you just have to put in a bit more effort. This is a learning experience for sure. I'll keep an eye out for future work. Good job on getting out there and doing something.
Click to expand...

I have to say ditto to that - this did feel pretty disjointed.

I did like the style of the voiceover, although I agree it did get a little lengthy.

Sorry for the brief review - running out of voting time...
 
Just finally getting the time to copy the notes I compiled in a Word doc while watching the shorts:

So the fifth horseman gets the bad guys by getting in their heads & getting them to kill themselves? Then who were all those folks that came running to or at him in the woods? Also, the first guy that was running at him, when he was shot there was CLEARLY someone standing behind him. Couldn’t that have been masked out? Otherwise an interesting submission, and I enjoyed it enough to where I wanted to finish it … vs. a few submissions have been painful to watch, and I’m not sure I’ve ever said that before in a fest. Some GREAT cinematography too, which was helped by the spectacular clouds/sky in the BG.
 
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