The Meridian Hard Drive - AKA My plan B

The second I realized it was a Blair Witch approach; I shut it down.

No story, no originality. It seemed to be torture-porn for the sake of torture-porn. The 2" by 2" screen size was not helping.
 
I’m not sure what your were going for but you could have found a better way to present it than the istsy bitsy horror movie channel. Oh, we suddenly broke into Gorefest. I can live without it.
 
GaryOldman said:
Raptor 365, I'm with you. The flick is ridiculously small. I couldn't get Premiere to render a file under 50mb that was any bigger. When I rendered it at just 125mb, it was crystal clear, and much bigger. ....
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Yeah you have to compress it(mp4 or mov). Ask/look around and you'll go doh. :) There's loads of info around.
Don't worry, everyone has issues with compression at submission time.
-:)
 
J.R. Hudson said:
The second I realized it was a Blair Witch approach; I shut it down.

No story, no originality. It seemed to be torture-porn for the sake of torture-porn. The 2" by 2" screen size was not helping.
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LOL. Don't mind J.R. That's J.R. :)
//Tough crowd here. :)
 
But yeah Gary's right though. Wouldn't hurt to offer advice if you claim to have it.

for example: Stephan Hayens. Great advice.
 
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Brandon Rice said:
Was really trying to figure out what this exactly was...

some of the images were good, and creepy... but what was it? lol.
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Clarify:: [The above comment] is exactly that kind of attitude that makes me hate this place.
 
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Not my cup of tea, but I liked it more than the other "torture porn" entries. The other ones I'm referring to all have someone tied to a chair and beaten for an extended, interminable amount of time. I don't get it. Is that suppose to be scary, thrilling, funny, erotic..? To me it just seems pointless. Of course, I'm not the target audience. A lot of people LOVE this stuff.

I think yours is better than the others because you went all the way. Way over the top! Having the baby cut out ala Sharon Tate, pretty amazing. The girl's screaming I found very authentic and chilling. Made it more real. As did the black and white grittiness. The music and sound were also very good.

Needs more story, but you've got the beginnings of something for those Fangorians out there!
 
i kinda dug this movie, it was easily one of the most unsettling of all the entries, it evoked an honest emotional response from me and that's a good thing. obviously
the file submitted was too small to really critique the production, but for what it was supposed to be, found footage of vile and disgusting murders, i thought it was effective.
especially for a last minute plan B.
 
i hadn't got to watch this one yet, but from the comments so far, i made it next on my list.

Because of the content of this movie, it was fairly hard for me to watch, unsettling is the correct term Defcon. That being said, the sort of "found footage" look can be effective and popular, but i think you should work on some sort of story arc for the footage, instead of just a torture montage. I got the setup with the text in the beginning, but try to tell more of a story with the images.

This movie was shocking, but I think it could have fared better if there had been more development than what felt like episodic torture scenes. Ask these questions to yourself, who are these people, what is there motivation? I think it would have been neat to see the tortured try to fight back, perhaps even win, that would explain how the defense got this footage. The medium that you shot in has potential, i would focus on developing the characters a little more, the shock value is there, trust me.

Technically speaking, it is rough to comment because of the size, if you have trouble in the future with this, please feel free to PM me and i can help you out, or hell, compress it for you. The gun shot at the end took me out of the vibe that you were going for, because all the sound that you had until that point seemed like it was diagetic (coming from) to the camera, and that was an added sound effect.

EDIT: just thought of this, here's a better recipe of intestines/embilical (sp?) cord, take panty hose and fill them with cotton balls, paint the whole thing with liquid latex and cover in blood ... looks really gross. Watching your film, I was like, what's that black tube, and why is it in her stomach?
 
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hmm, i'm sure I haven't been drinking, but..... the writing at the beginning is rather blurred, maybe I'll put it on th back burner for later, when I have nothing else to do.
 
Hey GaryOldman,

This was a gruesome little film and a good overall idea. It could probably have been shorter. I know it's hard to tell the story in a normal narrative format because it's supposed to be little clips recovered from a harddrive.

I don't know what you chose black and white for this...color would have been more realistic to a 'home video' feel. I thought the lead bad guy looked too young and clean. It was hard to make out things because of the low quality at times, but I think you were meaning to do that for the feel and also to help make special effects look better which is fine...probably why you chose black and white too.

You have some pretty messed up and gruesome ideas in this short and kudos for that.

Laters,
Ando
 
This short did have that gruesome sort of realism feel to it, like it really happened. I think you achieved what is was you were trying to do. A bland, grainy coloring probably would have looked good too in contrast to the B&W. Anyway, good job with the darkness, because this film really brought it out.
 
GaryOldman said:
...FUN FACT: A lot of the screaming in this flick is looped from an alternate take of the scene at the beginning where a girl has her hand nailed to the wall. Why are said screams so damn great? Because the actor holding the mallet is a spaz and actually drove the nail through the webbing of her fingers! Whoops.
...
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Ummmm, Gary. Ummm, the general rule is safety first? Always? Ooookay?
Some of us have had...episodes...nameless acts...(ahem)...but please always... if it's possible to harm someone doing a shot, don't do it. There's always a more creative way. Users imagination, for one.
Besides, you'll get your butt sued off someday.

Easy man. :)
 
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