"A Day Trip" Short Film | Stock Lens

MDCFILMS

MDCFILMS

Active member
"A Day Trip" is a short film Michael and Daniel Carberry wrote, produced, filmed, directed and edited. It was shot mostly in Ashtabula, Ohio in the fall of 2007.

Length - 9:56

Camera - HVX - 200 (Stock Lens)

Settings - Everything at 0

HD (720p)

FILM IS HERE - "A DAY TRIP" (QUICKTIME)
TRAILER HERE - TRAILER/TEASER
MAKING OF HERE - BEHIND THE SCENES

Crew Member:

John Guentner - Wonderful BOOM OPERATOR (Cleveland Area)
johnguentner@yahoo.com

Original Soundtrack:

Jeremy Carberry and Yohei Shikano (Los Angeles) > myspace

Cast:
Sierra Nagay
Shannon Solo
Al Brewer
Nick Schoren

We would love comments, suggestions, advice, questions and critiques.

Some Screen Grabs
nick.jpg

sierracar.jpg

mirror.jpg

pump.jpg

shan.jpg

stick.jpg

car.jpg

arial.jpg

cop.jpg


WE WOULD LOVE COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS, ADVICE, QUESTIONS and CRITIQUES!
 
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Nice work! I especially liked the shot from the cherry picker. Good story, too.

The female lead didn't have quite enough emotion in some shots, imho, but other than that the acting was pretty strong. One little nitpick about the ending: It seems that the officer gets shot, so why didn't she warn him?

Overall an enjoyable short, with strong production values. Kudos! Thanks for sharing.
 
I love the bags of charcoal for sand bags and I want a boom truck so bad. I like it a lot. Good sound and pretty good acting. Great job for stock lens. I really like the opening with the Jr Jibb coming up and the cut to close up, it was very clean.
I would have added a quick medium shot between the cars on the corner and the close up of the neighbor in the car but thats just nitpicking.

I liked it, thanks for sharing.
 
Very nice.

My biggest complaint would be the opening shot. A boring kinda rocky moving boom shot with a blown out white car in the foreground.

Another spot...minor but stands out to me compared to the rest of the film was the exterior shots on the car moving on the 4 lane highway. Very hazy looking and unsaturated tree colors in the background. Minor...but video-ish looking that stood out to me.

Only complaints...rest looks great!
 
Thanks

Thanks

patssle said:
Very nice.

My biggest complaint would be the opening shot. A boring kinda rocky moving boom shot with a blown out white car in the foreground.

Another spot...minor but stands out to me compared to the rest of the film was the exterior shots on the car moving on the 4 lane highway. Very hazy looking and unsaturated tree colors in the background. Minor...but video-ish looking that stood out to me.

Only complaints...rest looks great!
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Yeah I know. It's a little rocky, It bugs us too. The hazy look is because we were shooting through a window of a car. Thanks for the critiques so far.

Charlie Anderson said:
What gamma setting?
Click to expand...

Cinelike D

Thanks Everyone, Michael and Daniel Carberry
 
It looked awesome. I really enjoyed it...

but contrary to what everyone else said I just had a problem with the acting. It took me out of the story a little.

Overall it looked good. I don't want to impose but I think the film would have ended better with the policeman merely asking how well did you know your neighbor.

I think the average audience member is going to surmise that the guy was the creepy neighbor. I thought it was genius how you guys gave us snippets with the car in the opening sequence and the freeway scene but then to completely obliterate the subtlety takes away from the experience. At least for me it did.

But in the end like I stated before, I really enjoyed it. Keep up the good work. And I respect you guys working together...I could never work like that with my brother.:laugh:

Cheers :beer:
 
hey cool short, liked the opening shot even though it was bumpy, you could probably fix that in AE or Shake.

one of the crane shots or overhead shots after the bum got shot oculda probably been cut, but has jus my opinion.

the acting wasn't that great, but the story kept me interested, even though some parts were predicatable. i wanted to see how you ended it. good job overall.
 
This short totally blew me away! You certainly just raised the bar for us high school students! I'm often disappointed when high school kids set out with tons of new and shiny toys (hvx's, jibs, etc.), because they usually come back with a 5 minute video that you can't even watch more than a minute of! But this kept my attention, even got me involved. I was gripping my desk leaning forward when the cop walked up to the car towards the end! Great work! The few issues I did have were minor, I would probably just say you had a few to many red herrings before you got down to the nuts and bolts of the plot!

p.s., I just saw your drum solo video on youtube...incredible!
 
Nice footage

Nice footage

Nice footage, but the acting was purely bush league. When you get yourself some good actors you'll be ready to go. Ditch the blonde she's the worst no commitment to character it's not always about good look.
 
Review:

You did a great job all together man...Wow. You totally blew me away as well.

Cinematography, lighting, shots, locations were all top notch. The acting was a bit weak in some shots, but over all the actors did great!

Good job to you, and I'm looking forward to seeing more for you!
 
Very nice pulled of!

But one critic I must say is, you should just bring the end titles when the cop says "how well did you know your neighbour?". The extra black and white is telling too much.

Well done!
 
I thought the photography was excellent. the jib shots looked nice and worked as establishing shots.

However, a couple of things I have issue with are editing, acting, and the script. I thought the pacing of the piece could've been improved a bit. There was that weird driving shot that was sped up. I figure there would be two reasons to include it: A) to show a passage of time and B) to foreshadow that "something" has changed. if it's A, then I don't think it was necessary. Just get me to the next scene. If it's B, then it still isn't necessary because you have already foreshadowed enough.

Also, the scene with your protagonist in the car with the fake cop could've been trimmed down a bit. You cut to reaction shots a lot, even broke the line by going to the shot from the back seat. Some of those cuts kind of took me out of it.

And I get you're trying to generate tension as the cop approaches, but your choice to draw it out (a la Michael Bay) hurts the surprise factor. Especially when it takes so much less time to show how the protagonist gets saved by the dead cop's partner. For me, it's much more important to see how the protagonist gets out of the situation. I would've liked to see more about that.

Lastly, I thought there was a lot of exposition in your script. And for me, that's the number one cause of my detachment to movies. I'm much more willing to forgive subpar cinematography when the script, story and acting are good. Keep your audience guessing, don't tell them what to expect. But also, don't pull stuff out of your ass.

But overall, it was a well-produced short. Keep at it.
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone

Thanks for the feedback everyone

ericwaldron said:
This short totally blew me away! You certainly just raised the bar for us high school students! I'm often disappointed when high school kids set out with tons of new and shiny toys (hvx's, jibs, etc.),
Click to expand...

Raised the bar for high school kids! haha about high school kids with their shiny toys. don't get me started. Thanks for the feedback, we have learned soooo much from experience and from this movie. everything not to do. haha!

IncMedia said:
Great job. Great choice of equipment.
Wish I was there for the BBQ. LOL
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HVX did us well.
1ace11 said:
Nice footage, but the acting was purely bush league. When you get yourself some good actors you'll be ready to go. Ditch the blonde she's the worst no commitment to character it's not always about good look.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback.

D_Odell said:
Very nice pulled of!

But one critic I must say is, you should just bring the end titles when the cop says "how well did you know your neighbour?". The extra black and white is telling too much.

Well done!
Click to expand...

We decided to make it obvious what happens at the end with the flashback. We were toying with the decision of cuting. Thanks for the feedback.

vertigoanton said:
I thought the photography was excellent. the jib shots looked nice and worked as establishing shots.

However, a couple of things I have issue with are editing, acting, and the script. I thought the pacing of the piece could've been improved a bit. There was that weird driving shot that was sped up. I figure there would be two reasons to include it: A) to show a passage of time and B) to foreshadow that "something" has changed. if it's A, then I don't think it was necessary. Just get me to the next scene. If it's B, then it still isn't necessary because you have already foreshadowed enough.

Also, the scene with your protagonist in the car with the fake cop could've been trimmed down a bit. You cut to reaction shots a lot, even broke the line by going to the shot from the back seat. Some of those cuts kind of took me out of it.

And I get you're trying to generate tension as the cop approaches, but your choice to draw it out (a la Michael Bay) hurts the surprise factor. Especially when it takes so much less time to show how the protagonist gets saved by the dead cop's partner. For me, it's much more important to see how the protagonist gets out of the situation. I would've liked to see more about that.

Lastly, I thought there was a lot of exposition in your script. And for me, that's the number one cause of my detachment to movies. I'm much more willing to forgive subpar cinematography when the script, story and acting are good. Keep your audience guessing, don't tell them what to expect. But also, don't pull stuff out of your ass.

But overall, it was a well-produced short. Keep at it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the feedback. We have learned so much from making this short and you have imprinted it in us. Thanks. Time constraints and actors availability degraded the film the most! ha.

The lead in the Film told me she didn't have time to read the script! (We were just happy she showed up around the time she was supposed to)


Michael and Daniel Carberry
 
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