"Cristo" by: justin r. durban

[Blake Balu]

Great Job Justin! Sounds great, looks great, great effects! Beautiful.

 

[Karl151k]

I liked the premise for this movie. It was original and that goes a long way! The VFX were very good considering the time constraints you had for this fest. Nice bullet hit in there too. The lead was believable as well.

A few things I didn't like as much: The shot of the Lemon in the FG?! I was watching and I was like "Oh, here's what the Lemon thinks of the situation. Finally we get a good Lemon POV in a movie." It's just a shot that really took me out of the movie. I'm probably the only person who it bothered. I really think it's a shame that the girl only had one line in the whole movie. From that single line, I got the impression that she was a pretty good actor.

I enjoyed this one's premise a lot, thanks for making it and sharing!

 

[Norm Sanders]

Justin, I really really REALLY enjoyed watching this one! It was fun to see Tommy in this as an assassin, and Matt did an excellent job in his role, as well as the girl with her final line (my favorte part of the film!). Outstanding. I felt there could have been a little more from the performance of the person playing the father, but it wasn't bad by any means ... I think if there had been more movement vs. just standing in place, it would have helped to give more of a dynamic range.

Solid camera work, although the lighting suffered on the CU's near the end (I'm suspecting because of the sunlight quickly racing away for one reason or another). EXCELLENT score, as always expected from the incredibly multi-talented Justin Durban, but the writing was quite good as well. Nice story, and fairly solid VFX ... the best being the blood/squib work, and the FX of electricity coming from the lead's fingertips to the water's surface ... the rest of the VFX could still use some further work, but not bad by any means. Great film ... one to watch again, and it's a contender to be among the top performers.

I'm envious that you're so young, and already have such a great start. I'm so old, in comparison, and have just barely started to figure some of this stuff out!

 

[Norm Sanders]

Oh, and to expand on what Karl said ... I'd cast that female in any of my films, just on her delivery of that one line alone! Something about that moment was just perfect in every sense of the word.

 

[Ralph Oshiro]

Loved the girl, but on a related note, I'd cast your dad in anyone of my films! I thought he was GREAT!

 

[Edgen]

hehe

Seriously though, I think the final short came off really well. Yeah, there was some acting issues and a few cinematography things that needed some work, but I think it was a great story to tell in 6 minutes. I don't think you were trying to squeeze too much in there at all...

The next one is gonna be great too!

Thanks Tommy! You wanna be in my next one too? I'll make you play a viking.

WaterFest!

RObert, Waterfest? You got it. Sign me up!

Hey Justin,
This was definately probably my fav of the fest. Well done on many angles. The older actor, I believe his name is Dan Payne is awesome. The other actors did a fine job as well, but I think he really held it together. The cinematography and fx were done quite well too.

Great job man, I hope to get to work with you in the future.

Tim.

Tim, Thank you so much for the kind words. I really enjoyed working with Dan too so I'll be happy to pass along the info. Definitely looking forward to working with him again. I mean... who else is willing to lay down on the ground for a good ten minutes while we pour blood down his hands. (which, that shot was never even used)

Great Job Justin! Sounds great, looks great, great effects! Beautiful.

Thank you Blake! I really enjoyed your performance in your shi*ttaaaakkkkkeeer movie too. Keep up the wonderful work and if you are ever in LA, I'd cast you in my next film.

I liked the premise for this movie. It was original and that goes a long way! The VFX were very good considering the time constraints you had for this fest. Nice bullet hit in there too. The lead was believable as well.

A few things I didn't like as much: The shot of the Lemon in the FG?! I was watching and I was like "Oh, here's what the Lemon thinks of the situation. Finally we get a good Lemon POV in a movie." It's just a shot that really took me out of the movie. I'm probably the only person who it bothered. I really think it's a shame that the girl only had one line in the whole movie. From that single line, I got the impression that she was a pretty good actor.

I enjoyed this one's premise a lot, thanks for making it and sharing!

Karl... The lemon's got to get some love too right? That was my one artsy fart shot of the film. Every film from here on out will most likely have something like a 'fly on the wall'. Sorry it distracted you from the story so much. Thank you for taking the time to respond. I hope you enjoyed it otherwise.

Justin, I really really REALLY enjoyed watching this one! It was fun to see Tommy in this as an assassin, and Matt did an excellent job in his role, as well as the girl with her final line (my favorte part of the film!). Outstanding. I felt there could have been a little more from the performance of the person playing the father, but it wasn't bad by any means ... I think if there had been more movement vs. just standing in place, it would have helped to give more of a dynamic range.

Solid camera work, although the lighting suffered on the CU's near the end (I'm suspecting because of the sunlight quickly racing away for one reason or another). EXCELLENT score, as always expected from the incredibly multi-talented Justin Durban, but the writing was quite good as well. Nice story, and fairly solid VFX ... the best being the blood/squib work, and the FX of electricity coming from the lead's fingertips to the water's surface ... the rest of the VFX could still use some further work, but not bad by any means. Great film ... one to watch again, and it's a contender to be among the top performers.

I'm envious that you're so young, and already have such a great start. I'm so old, in comparison, and have just barely started to figure some of this stuff out!

Oh, and to expand on what Karl said ... I'd cast that female in any of my films, just on her delivery of that one line alone! Something about that moment was just perfect in every sense of the word.

Thank you Norm! I appreciate the feedback and kind words. I feel like I'm starting to grow too old myself but even If I were 65 years old, I would probably still love doing this stuff. Again, in terms of movement, I had a reason for Cristo staying put. I suppose I can reference that to myself sometimes. I would rather just stand in one place and intensely watch/talk to someone else just to study their reaction. Almost like a Ninja knowing that someone is about to strike.. I could have had Robert's character circle him, but knowing that my time was quickly running down for the day I couldn't afford the trickery of risking additional takes. Next time... I'll have them running and blocked all over the place.

Loved the girl, but on a related note, I'd cast your dad in anyone of my films! I thought he was GREAT!

THanks Ralph... I'm Sure Mr. Payne would be up for the additional roles.


Thanks again everyone who responded so well to the film and for the constructive feedback. It really means a lot and I'll do my best to apply that to my next film.

Cheers and good luck to all the filmmakers.

/j

 

[kurtmo]

Justin, you did a really nice job on the camera work on this one. The camera angles, the DOF and the underwater work were all fantastic. The music was well crafted. The acting was excellent.

I was a little fuzzy on the story. I didn't pick up what was up with the plane explosion and other explosion. I also didn't understand why the son and his girlfriend/wife were shot in the first place. Also, if the son can be shot without injury, why would his re-born life be trying to shoot him? I took it that she couldn't be injured either (cristo watch) so she should know that.

Again, excellent cinematographic look and feel. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Darkline]

Hi Edgen,

Sorry its taken me ages to get to post my thoughts here. I simply havent had the time to watch every entry yet, let alone comment on all of them.

Ok I thought this actually started really solid, with tons of promise.

I was really pulled into this short, i thought the pacing and execution was handled very well. It created a really nice combination of intrigue and style.
The acting was good and you used one location with a successful single 'isolated' event . Sometimes it can come off cheap, but here you managed to unfold a personal story against a bigger backdrop.

I loved the underwater shots and the cinematogrpahy was all very well done.

But for me I felt half way through it went too dialogue heavy and lost some of the vision it had at the start. It didnt really live up to the first half of the short which showed some flair. I appreciate that in a short film you dont always have much choice and its hard to get a full story across without having some dialogue heavy scenes. So although I am talkng out of my hole a little here, I think it would have been nice if you could have found a way to keep the conversation visually more intresting and not have a 2/3 minute stand off of talking heads. At the start of the short you had the guy lying down next to the pool talking - this gave the film more of an edge, which I felt left once they were facing each other it had become more pedestrian.

That may be picky, but I felt if it could somehow hold up to the opening then it could have been one of the top shorts of the fest.

As it was I still enjoyed this, but perhaps started better than it ended.

It also seemed like you were running out of light at the end there, perhaps this has a lot to do with it if you were trying againt time to get the thing into the bag at the end of a long shoot day.

But I thought this was probably your best solo short yet (apart from the joint effort of 'lakeside' which i also loved).