The Last Son of Celeste *Online Debut*

marlontorres

marlontorres

Well-known member
Okay... here we go, moment of truth. After 4 months of blood, sweet, and tears... my movie is ready for the public. I know I've been teasing you guys the past several months with screenshots and clips so I'm sure many of you want to see the final product. Overall, I'm fairly happy with the movie and as a filmstudent, it was a great learning experience. I did the best I could with student actors and a budget under $1,000. I will be first to admit that the movie is far from perfect but like I said, overall... I'm happy with it. Again, thanks to those of you who purchased the DVD and everyone here for their support! Anyway, enough chit-chat and enjoy!

http://www.citizencine.com/films/celeste.mov

UPDATE: A much bigger 480p and HD 720p version of the film is now available through my new website:

http://www.torresstudios.com/films/
 
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Hey Marlon,

Great job. You really know how to put together a good package. Your cuts are clean and timely, the score suited the film nicely, sound was good and the acting was believable. Frankly, I'm not much a fan of fantasy-type movies, but I guess what kept me interested in yours was that it wasn't really fantasy at all, apart from the initial introduction and his costume in the future.

When you first released the opening 6 minutes some people commented that they didn't get what was happening. Maybe they didn't understand that the film was meant to run longer. Nevertheless, from a writing perspective, it's OK to keep the audience wondering, as long as A) you keep it fresh and interesting so they are intrigued about where it's going and B) pay it off (unless you're David Lynch). You did both of these things and in my opinion, did them well.

From an acting perspective I really liked the male lead. He's very natural in front of the camera and he has a good look. I felt like he was being himself (I mean that in a good way). There were only a couple occasions that I felt like his actions didn't match the dialogue - possibly a consequence of him being himself.

All in all, I'd say it was a success. I know many directors don't like to talk about what they perceive as shortcomings, especially if it involves the work of a cast or crew member. However, I'm always interested in hearing an honest assessment from the director. It's one thing for an audience member to say "this worked for me but that didn't" but it's another for the director to come right out and talk about some of the things that he/she was going for that just didn't work out. If you care to elaborate, I'd love to hear it. If not, I understand.

Eric
 
One more thing...

I'd love to see a higher res version. It showed up pretty small on my LCD. I don't care if it's 500MB, I'll download it. ;)

E
 
You made me wait 43 seconds until the first image?? :huh:

Loved the film. Actors were magic, film was magic. Minor complaints: Dialog sounded like it was recorded indoors. (Also, I couldn't clearly hear every word.) Music was good and used well (integrated) but sometimes competed with the dialog.

This is inspiring work. And definitely better than anything I've seen at the multiplex this year.:beer:
 
Paul Coleman said:
You made me wait 43 seconds until the first image?? :huh:

Loved the film. Actors were magic, film was magic. Minor complaints: Dialog sounded like it was recorded indoors. (Also, I couldn't clearly hear every word.) Music was good and used well (integrated) but sometimes competed with the dialog.

This is inspiring work. And definitely better than anything I've seen at the multiplex this year.:beer:
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Thanks Paul, thats a flattering compliment!
 
Wow! My wife and I just watched it together. You are amazing my man. The cinematography blew us away. The shots looked stunning. You could produce a world class 30 sec trailer from this. The story was interesting, but the pacing was off, it started nicely, then just dragged along. The male actor is incredibly good, keep that dude around. The female acting looked good, but sounded terrible. Was all the dialogue ADRd? It sure sounded like that for hers, it kept distracting me. The dialogue was a bit on the nose and cliche at times "You look like you've just seen a ghost" plus a little odd "It's so cold, I can't feel my hands any more" when they are clearly not that cold (you'd have to be in sub zero temps for a long time to get your hands that cold). The music was good, liked the sound mixing with ambient sounds. It needed some wind sounds, her hair was blowing all over the place and yet I heard no wind sounds, odd.

Again, I can't say enough nice stuff about how it looked, freakin blew me away. I'd say cut the run time by 40%, fix the actress's ADR and then you'd have tons of festivals begging for this.
 
Hopefully, I've made it clear already how much I enjoyed the movie, so I don't mind going into detail about some of the things that didn't work for me. I don't have to detail them, however, because shawneous just did a great job of summarizing my thoughts, even down to the specific dialogue he quoted.

On one of your other threads ( I believe there is another on DVXUser, right?) I think you mentioned that due to your unfamiliarity of festivals you were uncertain if this was worthy of acceptance. I hope I didn't misquote you, but even if I did, my point still remains. The short answer: yes. Apart from some of the big, Academy Award affiliated festivals, they almost all have some complete crap showing in their shorts sections. Getting a film of this quality accepted should be no issue.
 
Nice work, man. Everything I would say about the production, Shawneous already said, so I'll just leave it at that.

I'm curious about your story, now, though. What's happening in 2876? The main love story is pretty clearly taking place in modern day, so I'm guessing that 2876 is some sort of mental meta-world where people go when they die? Sort of like a more literal interpretation of 2046? Or are there two parallel storylines happening in far-distant times... basically, a tale involving the repetition of events or reincarnation? I think any of these are pretty intriguing, but I guess my problem is I don't know which (or something else entirely!) is your actual intent! And I didn't exactly follow the necessity of making titlecards about it, therefore.

Now that I think about it, the whole thing reminds me of Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which is not at all a bad thing to be compared to. However, at the end of that one, I understood how the worlds related. Here, I don't entirely.
 
Great job man. Although I was lost on what was going on in story, the suttle connections between the two characters shown in different scenes kept me interested. I was also intrigued by your beautiful shots and the wonderful music. I'm happy for you and this accomplishment, keep up the good work.
 
dougspice said:
Nice work, man. Everything I would say about the production, Shawneous already said, so I'll just leave it at that.

I'm curious about your story, now, though. What's happening in 2876? The main love story is pretty clearly taking place in modern day, so I'm guessing that 2876 is some sort of mental meta-world where people go when they die? Sort of like a more literal interpretation of 2046? Or are there two parallel storylines happening in far-distant times... basically, a tale involving the repetition of events or reincarnation? I think any of these are pretty intriguing, but I guess my problem is I don't know which (or something else entirely!) is your actual intent! And I didn't exactly follow the necessity of making titlecards about it, therefore.

Now that I think about it, the whole thing reminds me of Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which is not at all a bad thing to be compared to. However, at the end of that one, I understood how the worlds related. Here, I don't entirely.
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Thanks. I guess I should tell everyone that Celeste is a spin-off from my movie "Junipero". If you check out that movie (see my sig) you'll get a better idea of what is happening in the future. About the storyline... no its not parallel, its about reincarnation.
 
Oh, I watched Junipero a few weeks ago. I still didn't entirely understand how the plotlines related. But at least I was interested enough and able to come up with some theories.
 
I really enjoyed the short. My wife said "That was incredible!" and I agreed.
The visuals were awesome, I loved your choice of color correction and your camera work was very solid. The womans audio sounded like it was recorded with a lower quality microphone than the mans audio, there wasn't as much detail in her voice, it sounded somewhat muted.

One of the best films I've watched on this forum.
Great Work.:thumbsup:
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