The Silent City, short film now online... in HD too!
- Thread starter Ruairi Robinson
- Start date
Cynic821
Carbonite Member
I wont further this off topic, 1 because of history, 2 becuase i dont like the :beer: guy.
On topic, sort of, i wish this kind of thought went into the reviews that happen during the fests. I just am somewhat disturbed by the criticism , and i find it misplaced none the less, given to an indivduals short that succeeded at being commercial viable, entertaining, and just all around proves he "gets" whatever "its" about. It works.
For a place thats always been known to be too "pat me on the back, ill pat you on the back" i was suprised to see the comments made , but then again...
:dankk2: <-- whatever that means.
On topic, sort of, i wish this kind of thought went into the reviews that happen during the fests. I just am somewhat disturbed by the criticism , and i find it misplaced none the less, given to an indivduals short that succeeded at being commercial viable, entertaining, and just all around proves he "gets" whatever "its" about. It works.
For a place thats always been known to be too "pat me on the back, ill pat you on the back" i was suprised to see the comments made , but then again...
:dankk2: <-- whatever that means.
Wild Imagination Films
Well-known member
Arrgh! It stopped just as the spiral down the front of the burning building stops. Love what I've seen. A couple of points I would have done different. But hey.
I wear one of the armour jackets you use every time I ride downhill. I've seen them in a couple of Hollywood films. They are great!
Can you tell Cillian I would like to talk to him? I have a script and he is the lead. j/k but really, if you talk to him....
I wear one of the armour jackets you use every time I ride downhill. I've seen them in a couple of Hollywood films. They are great!
Can you tell Cillian I would like to talk to him? I have a script and he is the lead. j/k but really, if you talk to him....
Cynic821
Carbonite Member
Wild Imagination Films said:
I had to use these links:
http://www.ruairirobinson.com/silentcity/silentcity_small_h264.mov
(720x306 quicktime - 106MB)
http://www.ruairirobinson.com/silentcity/silentcity_720p_h264.mov
(1280x545 quicktime - 378MB)
The file is 378 mb, not 250 like the other link says.
Wild Imagination Films
Well-known member
Thanks, I'll give it a try.
MojoTrancer
Well-known member
dougspice said:Well, having watched it, I'm pleased to report that it has almost nothing in common with my script.
Great looking piece here. I also really liked the sound design, the mood, the pacing. Unfortunately, I have to agree with all of those here who are asking, "What is the story?" Like Cynic, I don't mind just observing a moment, but a moment is meaningless if it's not observed in context. Who are these soldiers? What happened to their world? Are there any civilians left? Why are they still fighting? What is the thing that we see POV from at the end? It's not human, I gather, but what is it? Why are humans fighting on its side? The short makes no attempt to answer any of these questions, as far as I can tell. Worse, actually, it doesn't seem to acknowledge that these questions even exist! Even a tiny effort in that direction would have done wonders for my enjoyment of the piece.
However, I don't think it's BAD. It's certainly intriguing, and extremely well executed. I have no doubt that you will get work off of this. In particular the whole thing had a very commercial feeling to me - like watching a big budget car ad. So congrats on that!
Actually that was me that was talking about the moment thing.
I was satisfied watching it and when it was done, I smiled and went about my day. Sure I had questions, but it didn't make the film meaningless to me. I'll just fill in my own answers and make it what I want. I wonder if it wasn't sci-fi would we demand so much filling in of the blanks. We always expect an entire world to be explained to us with that genre. But then again who knows?
MojoTrancer said:Actually that was me that was talking about the moment thing.
I was satisfied watching it and when it was done, I smiled and went about my day. Sure I had questions, but it didn't make the film meaningless to me. I'll just fill in my own answers and make it what I want. I wonder if it wasn't sci-fi would we demand so much filling in of the blanks. We always expect an entire world to be explained to us with that genre. But then again who knows?
Let's continue this discussion in the Cafe and leave his thread to the newcomers. I'd be happy to debate that last statement of yours, if you'd like and I'm sure others would love to journey the conversation.
MojoTrancer
Well-known member
Cynic821 said:
Anyone who gives a damn about what they're putting on screen should be concerned with how much story is not enough. If you don't want to discuss, or have nothing valuable and valid to add, then you don't have to.
Point is, we're taking it out of this thread.
Roar-ree, I'm really not convinced by all this talk of "greater than Tokyo sized ego". Your weblinks all take me away from your page...you're all roar, no bite.
Downloading now...looking forward.
Yeah, dug it. Very cinematic. Those button pushing moments were very nicely staged.
Downloading now...looking forward.
Yeah, dug it. Very cinematic. Those button pushing moments were very nicely staged.
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MalcolmOng
Veteran
Great job on the film, and i can't begin to appreciate the amount of effort that must have gone into this. I have no gripes at all about execution, and i saw the rest of your films too - they're all great. I especially liked 50 percent grey. I sent ya a pm via myspace!
Ruairi Robinson
Member
It's come up a few times about the story being a little *thin*
And yeah, I can understand the criticism. It's a little bothersome to be told you don't "care" about story, or structure, or character, or any of that stuff. I live and breathe narrative storytelling. But I can understand the criticism when judging this as a standalone piece - I knew it would be coming...
Exactly - those are precisely the questions I wanted people to be asking after they watched the film. At least you are paying attention and asking the right questions. It's not an accident, and it's not something I haven't considered, or don't care about.
The word "ambiguity" has come up, and this is something that is absolutely, completely BY DESIGN. It's a series of questions set up for viewers of the film, that the short itself doesn't even attempt to answer. Some people like this kind of storytelling, some people clearly don't. But it's not an accident, and it's not comething I haven't considered. It's *controlled* ambiguity. If you see my short, you know what's going to happen within 30 seconds of the final image, so how is that ambiguous? it doesn't explain a lot of things, but that much is clear enough, if you want to talk about resolution. It's offscreen, but it's absolutely clear and inevitable what's going to happen. There's NO ambiguity there.
There is no ambiguity whatsoever in my film about what is actually happening. It just doesn't explain how it got there, or why. This is because the short is one of 3 connected short stories I wanted to do. Each one fills in the gaps of the other 2. I was turned down for funding on the second one I wanted to do, by our regional funding schemes here, and this was the only one I could afford to actually shoot and make myself (after it too was turned down for funding, I had to go out and pay for it myself...) The 2nd part shows what happened to the other characters in the city itself, and would have cost more to shoot...
As a standalone piece, it might feel a little incomplete, or open ended, or whatever. But it wasn't really designed as such.
So there you go.
R.
And yeah, I can understand the criticism. It's a little bothersome to be told you don't "care" about story, or structure, or character, or any of that stuff. I live and breathe narrative storytelling. But I can understand the criticism when judging this as a standalone piece - I knew it would be coming...
Exactly - those are precisely the questions I wanted people to be asking after they watched the film. At least you are paying attention and asking the right questions. It's not an accident, and it's not something I haven't considered, or don't care about.
The word "ambiguity" has come up, and this is something that is absolutely, completely BY DESIGN. It's a series of questions set up for viewers of the film, that the short itself doesn't even attempt to answer. Some people like this kind of storytelling, some people clearly don't. But it's not an accident, and it's not comething I haven't considered. It's *controlled* ambiguity. If you see my short, you know what's going to happen within 30 seconds of the final image, so how is that ambiguous? it doesn't explain a lot of things, but that much is clear enough, if you want to talk about resolution. It's offscreen, but it's absolutely clear and inevitable what's going to happen. There's NO ambiguity there.
There is no ambiguity whatsoever in my film about what is actually happening. It just doesn't explain how it got there, or why. This is because the short is one of 3 connected short stories I wanted to do. Each one fills in the gaps of the other 2. I was turned down for funding on the second one I wanted to do, by our regional funding schemes here, and this was the only one I could afford to actually shoot and make myself (after it too was turned down for funding, I had to go out and pay for it myself...) The 2nd part shows what happened to the other characters in the city itself, and would have cost more to shoot...
As a standalone piece, it might feel a little incomplete, or open ended, or whatever. But it wasn't really designed as such.
So there you go.
R.
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Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
I thought this was a lot of fun. And clearly super pro work.
But I can't get to your website. I wanted to read up on some of your processes...
Also, how did you get your actors? Did you know them? Or just put out a notice? Sorry if this is on your site, or in the thread - I didn't go through the whole thing.
But I can't get to your website. I wanted to read up on some of your processes...
Also, how did you get your actors? Did you know them? Or just put out a notice? Sorry if this is on your site, or in the thread - I didn't go through the whole thing.
Ruairi Robinson
Member
Mark Harris said:
Bandwidth seems to be completely choked at the moment!
Regarding the actors,
Cillian Murphy's agent was sent the script, and he liked it enough to want to do it for free (which was cool - never met him before)
Don Wycherley - again sent to agent - anyone see the tv show "Batchelors Walk"? I'd seen him on that, as well as loads of other things, and thought he was really good (and really underused)
Garvan - Friend of producer, and super nice guy - helped us out in our hour of need
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
Scripts get actors, I've found that myself.
I just wanted to hop on here, and offer my positive reactions to the piece. It looked and felt super pro! The world you created is awesome here, and I really enjoy that!
I apologize if I may have been somewhat completely negative in my comments earlier.
Here's to success... :beer:
I just wanted to hop on here, and offer my positive reactions to the piece. It looked and felt super pro! The world you created is awesome here, and I really enjoy that!
I apologize if I may have been somewhat completely negative in my comments earlier.
Here's to success... :beer:
Ruairi Robinson
Member
Brandon Rice said:
No need to apologise dude... I can take the criticism. I'm taking special hormones and growing a layer of extra thick skin.
I just wonder sometimes what I'm being compared with. On another website my film (which is my first ever attempt at shooting ANYTHING in live action) was compared unfavourably with... Saving Private Ryan.
So from now on, I'm going to compare everyone else's student films to Citizen Kane hehe