National film challenge shot on DVX-100b

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pghchef72

Member
I wanted to get comments on the film a friend and I did for the NFC this year.. we didnt make the top 15 but we are hoping to get some other awards..

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1673270294

The one thing that made me mad was I had just gotten my dvx100b 2 days before we ahd to shoot and didnt know you had to save the 24p setting after shutting down the camera.. so most of the film is shot in 30fps..

Please let me know what you think..
 
i had a few problems with this movie. number one was the sound design. now i know myspace audio compression is bad and something was lost in the encoding, but you have to account for that and boost your levels because this movie seemed to be a movie about sound (or at least it had the potential to be). First of all, you have this ultra creepy dude (great casting btw) but all his lines are mumbled/muffled so that nothing he says comes out with any resonance or creepiness. Psycho-philosophy-spurting serial killers aren't any fun if you can barely hear their philosophy. And after a while, you just tune out because the sound is so sub-par.

This isn't a volume-specific problem with my computer either. The soundtrack is plenty loud.

BAck to the sound design: this was about hearing the labored breath of somebody about to die. This was about hearing the creaking, the every little sound that you hear when you're tied up in someone's basement. And the escape scene feels amateur because you literally hear like one sound of the 17 that should've happened (when he bumps into the wall - no sound. When the killer falls - no sound. When he's running up the stairs - no sound. When the guy gets outiside - it should be a totally different sound than in a basement; yet it's the same).

Not a fan of the jump cuts. I never even really got to see the kidnapped guy's face. I have no idea why he let that guy in and had a drink with him - did you not do dialogue here because you didn't have a good mic? - And I think it needs to be darker in the basement. Way too bright. The soundtrack works sometimes and is then wildly off at others (feeling hokey at some of the most intense moments).

I think you need to go back and completely redo the sound on this. New soundtrack. Go back and record foley for every single sound that occurs. That alone will make this much better.
 
These are awesome comments and I totally agree on all aspects. The mic on the camera sucks, in my opinion of cousrse. There were two of us directiing and my friend didnt want to record with a seperate device(next year we will! Lol).

After watching it on myspace I realize that none of the dialogue comes through at all so I will get a better cut on utube maybe...

We basically had 29 hours to shoot, edit and score the film from saturday 11pm and in the mail by monday 3pm. A very tight schedule to say the least.

I had also just received the camera a few days before the weekend shoot and when I shot my scenes I screwed up the setting on gamma and white balance which made things look muddy and over exposed at times.(this is a second cut of the film by the way.. all of you would hate the first cut! haha)

The soudtrack was picked from an archive of my friend who composes and I made the choices of which songs to use. I agree the sound at times doesnt match the scene and tension that we were trying to convey with the short but with 29 hours I really cant complain too much.

We have enough footage to make a 20 min film from this but the competion guidlines were to make a film 4-8 mins long. Jump cuts were needed to speep up the scenes and get more info into the film. I'm actually toying with the idea of re-cutting it to its full potential length and re-scoring it as suggested.

BUt I really thank everyone who comments on this film. I've been making film for under a year and it was my first attempt at working with live actors. A lot of fun! I'm a chef/archeaologist turned psuedo filmmaker! lol

So hopefully these comments will help build me into a better filmmaker that hasnt been formally taught how to shoot or edit. But I do have the proper equiptment and the friends that have the talent around me. It will just take time and I will keep posting material as I make it.

So please! keep the comments coming.... it can only help me out in the long run!
 
Well, 29 hours is not a lot of time. So for that I give you kudos. Always always always shoot with an external microphone if you want to be taken seriously. Audiences just aren't forgiving when it comes to sound. Doesn't matter how beautiful your images are, they'll tune you out. Imagine being at a party and the music is playing loudly and there are lot of people in a big group talking. And someone's talking all the way at the other end and you're *barely* hearing them. They sure look like what they're talking about is interesting. Everybody else near them seems captivated. But are you going to keep listening when you can barely hear what they say? Of course not. Kind of how I felt here.

But your big coup was getting that actor. Perfect casting and genuinely creepy. I imagined that the post shoot went something like, CREEPY GUY:"You guys wanna go get some beers?" and you were like, "Uhh, actually... um... I have to clean my house. Maybe next time." Did you check his place to make sure he really wasn't a killer?
 
yeah, we actually shot at the creep guys house! lol... He's a pretty promient actor here in Pittsburgh. We worked together before in retail and he had always promised me a free shoot if I started film. So I took him up on it!!! The other actor I had cast cancelled the night of do I got my best friend to play the man sitting in the chair. I called him up at 10pm the night of and he was like, " I'll do it!"...

I truely agree about the sound being #1... A friend of mine just premiered a film the 3 rivers film festival here in Pittsburgh and there was one scene that the audio was totally screwed up in and couldnt be fixed because he used the wrong type of mic!... And the scene always sticks out in my head..

But thanks so much for the tips and the comments!
 
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