HELEN a short drama shot on hvx/M2

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pdsage10

Well-known member
The title is "Helen" and it is a supernatural thriller. I shot it all at night, so the lighting through out is very dark. Some of the scenes contain composited elements that were shot green screen while using the M2 and I would have to say that it went smoothly. The only problem that I had was with the main characters hair, some of it got cut into by the matte choker.
The synopsis is: A girl is murdered and has the chance to come back to life, but through this she is faced with the choice of saving her self or the life of another.

http://www.sage-productions.com/Helen.html


Let me know what you think. Thanks.
 
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It has a nice look, and some nifty camerawork. Your lighting in the office is great, very moody. Obviously some of your shots suffer from the low light, particularly inside the vehicles, but even then, it isn't all that detrimental to the overall piece. I'd like to hear some more specifics about your shoot.
 
Nice, very nice, just one question: it's shot 24p, it depends from the frame rate that "flashing" effect that I can see in the shadow areas?

rap
 
pdsage10, I saw your film and here are my thoughts (possible spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the film):

What I liked:

It looks like you had pretty good production values and decent special effects. I'm not technically savvy, but it looked pretty good to me.

What I didn't like:

The acting was a little weak in a couple of places. When Helen's car was getting rammed from behind, her reaction should have been a little stronger-more fear/anger. The other scene where the acting bothered me was when the molester picked up the child. I think this may have more to do with the execution, more than the acting. There should have been some hesitation on the part of the child, and the molester should have had to persuade her more.

The other thing I that bothered me had to do with the story. If time/space were not an issue for Helen, and she wanted to save her own life as well as the child's, then why couldn't she just have gone back to when the molester was trying to pick up the child and taken care of him then-that way, she could have saved the child and herself?

Anyways, those are my thoughts. Overall, I thought it was a decent short. I think it's cool whenever anyone can put together a decent film.
 
raptor44 said:
Nice, very nice, just one question: it's shot 24p, it depends from the frame rate that "flashing" effect that I can see in the shadow areas?

rap
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I just finished watching "the illusionist" and loved how the whole film had vignettting and kind of a flickering effect to it, almost like it was being projected on your TV screen by an old projector from the 30's and 40's. So I used magic bullet's misfire and added these two elments into the picture. With out the effect, I didnt notice any flashing from the 24p.
Thanks for the comments.

Lenses used: Most of the shots where done with a canon 50mm wide open and then the closeups were mainly a 80mm canon. Both are old FD lenses that were given to me by my father in law who is a photographer, he switched over to the EOS cameras and no longer has a use for the FD. The shots where the adapter was not used were the road rage scene and the accident scene. There was no possible way to light it enough with only a 1000w power inverter that I had running off of my car battery.


CGI: the angel effect was done by shooting agians a green screen and then compositing later. The black death figure was done through 3d studio max with a particle generator and then composited. I used after effects for all composition.

Audio: this is the last time that I do all of my own audio. I recorded everything with an Audio Technica 835b and then mixed it all in Protools. All of the audio, except for the dialogue had to be replaced and remixed, becuase the live audio sucked. Some of the dialogue is ADR as well. The hardest part of the film to do was the road rage scene. I had to figure out a way to record the exterior sound of a car driving without getting any wind noise. So what I did was mount my shotgun mic inside of the car that I wanted the sound of and then drove alongside of a long brick wall with the one window rolled down which the mic was point towards. The mic was pointed at the wall and picking up the reflection of the sound from the car and since the mic was inside the cabin, there was no wind noise.
 
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maybe im missin something ... the lady is in mustang sports car ... and the bad guy is in an f150 truck ... and he catches her ? haha... i know its just a movie, looked nice tho
 
G-man, thanks for the comments. Yeah I will be the first to admit that the logic is a little off, and I to was questioning this point of the plot. I personally could not think of anyother way to do it and still have a story. So I decided to go with the flawed logic.
 
I thought this was actually really good. I mean, I was totally engaged through the whole thing. It was a complete story, and in places where production values might have slipped I was still inclined to keep watching just to find out what happens. That's gotta be the most important thing to me. Of course there's always room for improvement:

- I'd treat the voice of the ghost/spirit guide. Something about it isn't right. It's pedestrian. Like a she's a "valley ghost" hanging out at the mall. If the voice were given an effect or re-recorded with a little more gravity, it would help the whole thing.

- I'd cut down the exposition offered by the ghost/spirit guide. In fact, I'd try to do a cut without ANY of the ghost spirit guide. I think we might figure out what she trying to do without being told. It's worth a shot. I just felt the spirit guide was the weak link.

- a lot of the music was overkill--too big for the film you're doing--I find that smaller, indie movies need smaller music. Felt like a soundtrack lifted from a Hollywood movie from 1985 and plunked down in your little indie short. I did love the music over the final scene though.

Great work. I can see the effort that went into it, and a lot of folks will like a film such as this: almost like a feel-good after-school special kind of thing. Hey, I don't think that's a bad thing, either. There's an audience for that. You're not trying to be David Fincher's Se7en with your short. Look forward to your next effort!
 
sean90291 said:
I thought this was actually really good. I mean, I was totally engaged through the whole thing. It was a complete story, and in places where production values might have slipped I was still inclined to keep watching just to find out what happens. That's gotta be the most important thing to me. Of course there's always room for improvement:

- I'd treat the voice of the ghost/spirit guide. Something about it isn't right. It's pedestrian. Like a she's a "valley ghost" hanging out at the mall. If the voice were given an effect or re-recorded with a little more gravity, it would help the whole thing.

- I'd cut down the exposition offered by the ghost/spirit guide. In fact, I'd try to do a cut without ANY of the ghost spirit guide. I think we might figure out what she trying to do without being told. It's worth a shot. I just felt the spirit guide was the weak link.


Great work. I can see the effort that went into it, and a lot of folks will like a film such as this: almost like a feel-good after-school special kind of thing. Hey, I don't think that's a bad thing, either. There's an audience for that. You're not trying to be David Fincher's Se7en with your short. Look forward to your next effort!
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Thanks for the comments. When I saw your remark about the "valley girl" part I started laughing. The way she was saying the lines was as monotone as I could get her. When she first read the lines, her voice went up and down and totally sounded like a "valley girl". She also originally had fewer lines and explain less of the story for the viewer, but some people that I showed a rough cut to were getting confused. So I added a few more lines inorder to help the viewer along, but I could see how I may have over did it.
 
well done,I enjoyed it.Definitely some things could be done better especially her reactions and camera work when she is being rammed by the bad guy,just too sedate.I REALLY liked the scene where she is walking towards her own car with the rescue guy half in,the music worked well for that scene as well as 60P of course!But overall I really enjoyed it.
 
Well, I just mailed out a copy for submition to the Hollywood Film Festival. I am curious to see what it does.
 
What should I include in a press package. I didnt have a still camera on set, so no pictures were taken. Should I just use screen grabs?
 
Cool, thanks for the comments guys.

Steviestefan, I will be in need of a good poster if it makes it into some film festivals. Do you have some other work that I could take a look at?
 
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