Short film "On to Heaven" - dvx100b plain+3 worklights

GND

GND

Well-known member
Hey, I got my friend to get this on a site.... it's kinda small, but the quality is pretty top notch.

It was lit with only 3 home depot 75 watt worklights and using the DVX100b plain, out of the box no adapters or anything.

It was more a "fun idea to shoot" because my friends and I were bored one day(s).

More info about it on the site.

http://www.4shortfilms.com/ontoheaven.htm

This is the film from this old thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=129179

And yes, 4shortfilms.com has my 4 short films, but please don't comment on those here. I'll make new
threads later for each of those. and two of them are not online yet / still uploading.
 
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Impressive stuff! Whatever the improv, it was seamless. Liked the cat noise at the start as well, I wondered if that was a mistake! I'd love to see this at a higher res
 
I know you used three work lights, but what did you use as a fill light?... It looks like you have everything very well lit everywhere. Nice stuff man. I'd really like to know more details about your setup.
 
Thanks guys.

The improv was pretty seemless, that's what I'm proud of. most of the improve are the jokes / any line that's not about "play the game" pretty much.

The cat at the ending was a mistake....but I won't explain more so for those who haven't seen it arn't spoiled -- as I loved what it did / it's sounds so much I kept it in. Figure it added to the weirdness and made the character seem more rounded and real, like he had a pet that was crying for him/ to snap out of his insanity.
I tossed/copy+pasted it's meow at the start to forshadow the end.

and yes, I'd love it to be higher res too....but my computer kept crashing when I uploaded larger sizes...

as for the setup, it was 3 lights.... one was behind me(white guy) on the side of the light on my face - this was also acting as "fill" to the asian guy -- as we sat close together. (close enough that the boom was just taped from the ceiling in front of us)

then one behind him to his right side - acting as "fill" to me.
then one more kinda where the camera is in the center "filling" both of us.

it helped that the walls were plastic and reflected some light too.
 
Thanks for the info... Did you try to soften the light up? Maybe some sort of diffusion. In fact the only time I saw any harsh light is towards the end of film when reality hits. All the green tinted stuff looked amazing.
 
green was white balance on a red card (of cardboard....colored childrens cardboard. ha)

no, no softening....we used "trouble lights" (google "trouble light" and you'll see....it's like a light on a stick)
and the ones we had were only 75 watt and were pretty close to us (thats why when the white guy leans up he gets almost blown out sometimes...)
so they didn't need much softening as are fairly weak (in comparison to 500 - 1000 watt worklights).
 
your acting was top-notch. loved the whole tyler durden thing you had going and what's weirder is that you actually look like edward norton too. really enjoyed the rich green saturated tint. the whole film held up pretty well especially if you used improv too. good to see that a basic set of 3 worklights can help produce a nice well shot film such as this. i bought myself a set of those for the exact same purpose.
 
indeed, worklights are all right. It's all about where you place them and how you compose shots, not necessarily having the best $$$ equipment. ....of course that does help though. hah

Thanks for the compliments, yes I am fight club...the whole movie wrapped into one guy. ...only I can't fight.

hardest thing with the worklights though, was that since they had to be so close to the actors in order to get good contrast, they cause manny flares in the picture -- thats' why I added the 2:35 matte in post becuase there was flare all over the top of the screen.
 
i love all ur shorts on ur website. this one had great acting and lighting. ncie job... and what kind of mic was that used in this short?
 
That was insane mate, an awesome effort. The white guy reminded me of Edward Norton, alot of similarities.
 
Thanks for the comments!

The mic we used was my dad's (he records/plays guitar) it was an " AKGC1000S" ...not sure where the capitals or spaces go...it may also be an AKGC-1000s .

and thanks for the acting comments, that white guy was me. :)
The original actor we had wasn't cutting it in the rehersal and so rather then delay shooting another day, (after the actor went home) I stepped in and did it "for fun"...we didn't know if it would work out or not.
And it was the asian guy's basement we were using.




>>>> This just in! -- Got an e-mail from babelgum....apparently this short was top 3 and has been sent to Spike Lee for judgement!?
insanity! so low budget....
 
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Well your acting skills I must say are pretty darn good mate, you do have that Ed Norton kind of persona in this, and well done on the top 3 and a look by Spike Lee, flippin awesome stuff.
 
Thanks a bunch!
I'm still shocked that this was chosen by the jury to go to spike lee (along with 2 other short films)

and update: Babelgum made a new "audience choice" category, where one of these top 10 in each category will go to spike lee aswell...

http://www.babelgum.com/blog/?p=152


short film: 3 of mine are there! 3/10 chance not bad. (pre life post life, this, + true love spaghetti and wine"
 
congrats on the babelgum nods...

Is it me or is that site the most UNintuitive and confusing high profile site around?
That site makes me wanna go punch old ladies in the teeth.
 
I hate the babelgum site....it took me like 5 tries until it would finally work on my computer so I could vote...then another day just to find my film - now they have it more oginized, but yeah it's very choppy/slow and unintuitive for sure. Don't stop at old ladies...punch everyone if you must.

My mic setup was that I had the mic (type/brand is in my post above this one) taped(duct taped) from the ceiling above and between the two actors - it was hanging in the middle of us, at about forehead level - just out of the frame's view.
 
it was pretty good!
But sadly, the character with down syndrome has the role completely wrong. Especially with the hand movements. The script also runs a little long. But over all, I liked it. The Ed Nortan character was pretty good as well.
Also, great lighting with the work lights!!
 
that was awesome to me. I could tell you were highly influenced by fight club. I agree that you look alot like edward norton, and for some reason you also reminded me of Adrian Brody.. maybe just his performace in the JACKET. but you have got talent. I loved it. great job.
 
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