New Short Film - "Trails of Dust"

robinbuday

robinbuday

Active member
EDIT: New cut with minor improvemens added 03/27/07 at 4:17AM.

This wasn't shot on HVX but the people on this forum are so knowledgeable about filmmaking and its dynamics that I have to get your opinion on this one and it has proven that films get more viewings in this section then any others. "Trails of Dust" is a short film we did for the San Diego State School of Television, Film, and New Media. It was shot on Super35 and had a budget roughly around $6300. I did all of the editing and sound design.

Follow this link:
http://www.robinbuday.com/Trails of Dust.html

High-Def 1080p Stills:

http://www.robinbuday.com/trailspics/trailspic1.png
http://www.robinbuday.com/trailspics/trailspic2.png
http://www.robinbuday.com/trailspics/trailspic3.png
http://www.robinbuday.com/trailspics/trailspic4.png
http://www.robinbuday.com/trailspics/trailspic5.png
http://www.robinbuday.com/trailspics/trailspic6.png
 
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hey man this was very well done. i watched it from beginning to the end. it felt like a movie and not a low budget flick. nice music. i liked the actors and their skills. they were believable.

the only bad thing that i noticed the entire way through was the audio out of sync. (checked it on another cpu and it's fine)

the other thing, and this may jus be me, but i didn't get the ending - the package.

other than that i thought it was well done man. good job.
 
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Thanks for your comments, I appreciate it. As far as the audio is concerned it must be on your end because i just checked the file and it is fine. Is anybody else having this issue?

Thanks,

Robin
 
Goddamn son...what a well put together film.

35 is a beautiful thing.

So you Exec. Produced it? What did you do for it? That is a great film...

The only audio problem was the background noise in the first scene with the girl dropping and the audio was out of sync. It only lasted a few seconds though.
 
If you gave money towards the production then you received an executive producer credit. I did all the sound design/mixing and editing.
 
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this film looks amazing

whoever taught these guys how to make films should get a nice pat on the back

but seriously this is a good look at 35mm and comparing it to hvx....I don't feel hvx is there yet but video is getting closer.....but super 35mm looks so good

but I still love hvx
 
3 perf? Nice gold colours and some tension created by the images.

Maybe it's just me, but I had trouble following the story and couldn't quite figure out the ending? Whose hotel room was that? Also, at what point in the story was he wandering through the desert in his tux and deck of cards?
 
I think he had shipped the money to a location so he could get his girl and they would flee to whatever nice area that hotel is in, and when they got to their hotel room the money would be there waiting for them.

Unfortunately, she gets kidnapped (ruining their plan) and they both get killed before they can get to the hotel.
 
Very well done technically with the cinematography and the lighting. The sound was pretty good, although the phone call didn't really sound like a phone in my opinion and some of the actors lines seemed a bit soft.

Otherwise I wasn't really satisfied with the story. The ending didn't really make much sense to me and it never really made sense why they were chasing this guy, or why he was wandering around the desert at the beginning.

Also the acting bothered me a bit. I didn't find it all that convincing, especially your lead. The girl was better then the others, but I think overall better acting could have led to a better film.

You seem to have the technical elements down, but next time make sure they also focus on the creative ones like story and acting. Just my 2 cents.
 
I actually like the fact that you're sort of thrown into the middle of something...it doesn't bog down any extra time setting things up. It's just BAM! Right in the middle...that's a good thing to me.
 
BrandonC said:
I think he had shipped the money to a location so he could get his girl and they would flee to whatever nice area that hotel is in, and when they got to their hotel room the money would be there waiting for them.

Unfortunately, she gets kidnapped (ruining their plan) and they both get killed before they can get to the hotel.
Click to expand...

Brandons got it right on. I was the cinematographer for this project. Thanks to everyone for their well wishes. Any constructive critisism on my aspect of the film? Question/comments are appreciated!
-Corey
 
Thank you everybody for your responses. Unfortunately the only recording I have of her dialogue for the phone conversation was taken on set with a huge generator running in the background and the strange audio you hear is the result of my best efforts to remove it. As far as the lines at the end, yeah I'm aware of them. I can't do much about them till I have the ADR lines recorded and scheduling actors can be tough, especially when they are working for free. I was thinking about adding a "reverb" on the lines for the bad guy after he busts into the shack with the gun in order to make it seem like we're in tunnel vision inside the lead's head. What do you guys think? BrandonC nailed the story BTW. As for the "why is he walking in the desert?" question, that's a surreal scene. Take it as is.

-Robin
 
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BrandonC said:
I think he had shipped the money to a location so he could get his girl and they would flee to whatever nice area that hotel is in, and when they got to their hotel room the money would be there waiting for them.

Unfortunately, she gets kidnapped (ruining their plan) and they both get killed before they can get to the hotel.
Click to expand...
Makes sense.

Regarding the overall look. Can't fault the image. It was filmed and composed quite nicely. The two issues I have are more to do with the story and the acting. Technically the movie is very strong and well put together, but I found the acting to be weak.

Take for example when he found his dead father. The was no reaction or anything. He just sees his father than picks up the gun. Also, when he shots the cop. That just didn't make sense. Yeah, we are in the middle of a situation so we really don't know how this guy would act but from the scenes previous it didn't seem like this was a guy who would shot a cop cold blooded.

Also, the acting in the apartment and at the end were flat. He just finds his brother dead and knows his girlfriend is still missing yet he has this very weak reaction.

Sorry, but I agree with the post above. This movie has some good shots and technique but suffered from weak acting which made the story seem less believable.
 
Thank you again for everybody's responses. I don't mind the criticism at all in fact, I welcome it. Never stop learning. I actually agree with a lot of it but I understand how hard this crew worked (they shot the whole thing in 3 days) and I'm most impressed with the results.

-Robin
 
wat was the film shot with? What camera? What film stock? What lenses?

Did you use a lot of lighting to light it up or you used more light sensitive film stock (800T or so)?

$6300 is pretty tight on budget for 35mm film.. When I used to shoot 16mm The price there itself is pretty high already.. let me know about the tech specs and what did you do.. im very curious..
 
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