EIGHTEEN SECONDS by Jack, Zac and Mac

Beautiful, simply beautiful! I loved this film all the way through. I especially like how you were able to tell a story visually- not a whole lot of dialogue, but we were able to effectively capture the feeling and convey the story. Much props to you and your crew! (Although I must admit that I saw the car hit coming from a mile away- I think after seeing Meet Joe Black I continue to wait for someone to get hit in the middle of the street. So that may not be from the story itself, but from other influences.) I’m still watching the rest of the entries, but this is probably my favorite one. Unless someone else completely wows me, this is my vote for number one! Great work!

A couple of questions for you (I haven’t read through this thread entirely, so you may have already answered them. If so, don’t worry about responding- I’ll find them.)
1. The locations – were these done run and gun style? If so did you run into any problems with bystanders or police? (A lot of times in down town Portland if you have any kind of setup that looks above a consumer camera, the Police will shut you down unless you have a permit.) If it was not run & gun, how did the permitting process go for you for each loctaion?
2. Could you share a little bit regarding your camera setup & lighting? Did you decide to get your look in camera or in post?

Great Job! This one is a keeper.
 
StMad said:
Nice work...visuals as were excellent and the sound design top notch. Audio really is a big part of the experience.
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i agree about the sound design. i thought the ambiences and sfx were great. can one of you guys tell us more about that? who did the sound, what mics and sound equipment you used, what software you did it with, etc. i'd also be interested to hear how you recorded the backgrounds and sound effects. the backgrounds were louder than i would have expected or done myself, but i like them, especially with the absence of dialogue and the mood. i also noticed that you sometimes slowly transitioned into backgrounds (ie. in the airport at 00:37). i liked that, and probably wouldn't have thought to do it myself. i thought it contributed to the mood.

overall i thought this was very good. i liked the handheld cinematography. the look was amazing. loved the shots of the cab.

mac and zac, is soderberg one of your influences? just curious. i happen to watch solaris the night before the fest and saw some similarities between your style and that movie. that's a good thing to me by the way. i loved that film.
 
I have a gigantic sound library and almost all of the sounds were from that.
mac did the mix.
There were almost no location sound and no new foley was recorded. All stock.
 
Well, we shot this in NYC and Las Vegas (yeah, sounds crazy) since the shortfilm filming took place while i was shooting a music video and a car commercial.
Handheld is a visual approach. We had a tripod but i wanted to avoid it as much as possible so we did not get into any troubles. However there are around 20% of shots with tripod in the film.

Lenses were:
nikon 50 mm f1.4 (the old one)
sigma 24 mm f1.8
nikon 105 mm f2.5

The whole thing was edited in Vegas 7.0d and raylight, thanks to James (which crashed the whole time when exporting to a big file, btw.)

Sound editing was done in Vegas too.

Soderberg´s Solaris is a clear contribution to me. No doubts about it. I just love it.

Most of the looks are achieved in camera. There is no heavy CC applied.
HVX settings were everything in default mode except for cine gamma.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I have a gigantic sound library and almost all of the sounds were from that.
mac did the mix.
There were almost no location sound and no new foley was recorded. All stock.
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Hey, wait a second, i used a lot of location sound. Even when it camed from the built in mic. ;)
 
jack, what does your sound library consist of? i need to start building one. any recommendations as far as where to start?
 
yeah "almost no location sound" was an overstatement, but he was talking about ambient noise mostly and that was almost entirely if not entirely library, unless I am mistaken.

Tim, I own
Hollywood SFX - expensive.
Earshot SFX - a great starter set fo $99 but I cannot find it online anymore. Look for it and buy it if you can.
Plus things I have pieced togethetr from various sources.
Here's a free link that I found just yesterday at the end of John Hudson's credits for Dissonance
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/index.php
Haven't researched how this works yet but it seems like some kind of peer sharing for SFX only
 
Thanks for giving me all of this feedback guys.

We are glad there is a lot of interest in our film and you are giving me lots of great things to think about.
 

My expectations were high.




Perplexing, that I was such a vociferous defender of SIMILO but am on the other side of the fence on this one, for almost all the same reasons. As much as I adore your artistic choices Mac, this flick was a cliché story, IMHO. Babel-light (subject matter). With this story and theme, I felt the thematic intent using juxtapositions and extrapositions of the images have to be cohesive and fresh. Maybe I’ve judged too many short fest flicks and indie reels, but I’ve seen this all before – some even exact compositions and montage stylie. I know you reached it independently but it felt like a retread. An impersonal pov. Maybe it’s because you didn’t write it? I don’t know. However, with this kind of stylization the images have to carry the weight of the narrative, and the sub-textual references have to be incredibly strong to meet the poetic cadences required. F- yeah that may sound pseudo-intellectual, but poetic abstraction is something I love, so I’ll call it over the line when I see it.

Storytelling here is inconsistent. So much so, that I saw the resolution coming up 7th street. I was ruminating to myself “if a car comes along and hits either one of them then…” oh snap! it did. Not surprising at all. To be honest it had a Conan O’Brian vibe to it.

Directing was prosaic (for the art house incarnation of the word). The formal vs. informal framing, pacing, direction didn’t work in the flick, and the seamlessness isn’t reflected thematically either. To achieve the heights of meaning, this kind of film also needs to give the audience the room to make causal connections . An example of this is L’Aventurra which used non-stereotypical visual motifs to highlight the theme and story. There was too much visual alliteration in your flick for that to happen here.

For the most part, I dug your use of DOF, and some of the compositions fit nicely (her crying for example). Other compositions felt forced, artificial, and stereotypical. Ditto the use of slow motion, which was done in an expected way – again prosaic. The semi-doc style of snap zoom/rezoom/reframe bespoke cool for the sake of cool (i’m not a fan of its use unless it really warrants it) and not a native element of the piece.

Cinematography was typically lush and professional. However, the use of the film emulsion, flashing S16 effect didn’t fit and seemed to be sporadically placed as a visual flair without purpose, or suffice it to say, an ineffective attempt to lend texture to the subject matter. I really didn’t see why it was there, or as a reference to theme, except that someone thought it looked cool. The cinematography is reminiscent of Babel but without the flair or drama. Yes drama can be quiet, but this was more cliché. To be honest, this felt like Inarritu-lite, with zero calories, or the New coke. It didn’t feel as personal film making as SIMILO did. And yeah , that’s purely subjective on my part.

The final shot looked like two people laying in the street playing make believe. I know it was a stolen shot, but it was kinda cheezy. Maybe a LS would have been more desirous, or something else altogether (makeup, different angles, sound design).

The mirroring structure that you used throughout the flick was somewhat overused in my estimation, and when you used it with such a “spotlight” with them laying in the street, I felt like you didn’t trust the audience to make the causal connections between the two. And as an audience member I noticed it early – no need to underline it unless you take a fresh approach to doing so.


The sound design and score was hit and miss. The score wasn’t as associative or ruminative as your last efforts. And it didn’t match the visuals as well as it could have . Something like the “Free Association” or that kind of really melodic ambient electronica would’ve fit the flavour of the montage better. All this is purely subjective, obviously. Noticeably, with sound design, the adr of “miss, miss” was waayyy to clean, and in contrast to the score and visuals it stuck out like a hooker at a pta meeting. Do you even need it ? You got it down visually, mate.

The actress was pretty brave (in an acting sense) and I appreciate that kind of dedication to the craft. It’s always nice to have a beautiful face to wile away the six minutes, and she had a cool kind of expressiveness that added a lot of sympathy. The women actors are really ruling this fest.

In total, I liked the theme you were exploring and your technical competence is unquestionable (your stuff always has a watchability), but IMHO, the way you explored your goals was shallow and was more about “directing” than service to the story. Yes, I know this was a run and gun shoot -> almost like a 48 hours joint, with stolen shots and whole bunch of indie spirit, and I appreciate you taking the time and effort to do the short, Mac. Like I said, you’re always a cat that I look for -> don’t say that to many, and I look forward to whatever you do next. You’re one off the most talented guys on here. Hopefully, you don’t fall into the trap of being to self-referential (stylistically). You hit a high water mark with SIMILO and that’s what I’m reviewing your film in comparison too - that and the pros whose stuff we see on the screens in our local theaters. Is that fair ? Probably not, but you got the chops to have your stuff in the theaters, so I think it’s a fair deal.

Just me 3 pence. Purely subjective.

I’ll check out whatever you do next, bradah. You’re a true artist.

:beer:
 
Well, this was at the top of my list to watch. IMO, it has by far the best cinematography and best story execution of the festival. I love the cinematography, I love the acting, I love the soundscape, and I love the editing. Despite the cliche ending (which I suspect is due to the contest's constraints), Eighteen Seconds is a gorgeous bit of cinema.
 
D_and_G said:
The semi-doc style of snap zoom/rezoom/reframe bespoke cool for the sake of cool (i’m not a fan of its use unless it really warrants it) and not a native element of the piece.
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i didn't see any snap zooms in this short. there was a jump cut while he was fixing his tie in the mirror that cut to a tighter framing, but it's not a snap zoom. they used primes.
 
I didn't have any issue with the stated cliche'isms in the film, I thought it just nice to watch and take in.

This film is a perfect demonstration of the fact that we simply no longer need film to call it a film. The cinematography and colour correction were stunning, without ever being "about" the shot.

There were some awkward edits here and there, but most of the hard cutting back and forth worked for me.

You really needed some blood on Jack at the end though, but nice compositing in the hit.

And yes, of course the performances were very brave emotionally - beautiful.
 
macgregor said:
...We had a tripod but i wanted to avoid it as much as possible so we did not get into any troubles...
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Mac, is that becasue you were shooting without permits/traffic control for the pivotal scene? If so, nicely done—must have been quite a challenge. Would love any more details about the production you care to share.

-Stu
 
A necessity due to the permit situation. But I also think the handheld contributes to the intimate feel of the pic. I think alot of interior things were shot handheld when a tripod could have been used.

As for the bathrrom shot. That was stock HVX lens, we were stealing that location in an Airport bathroom and Mac and Zac totally look like terrorists. So that was about as run and gun as you can get.

Mac?
 
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