Escape From The Past, Directed by Joe Begos (Formerly Paradox)

My review:

The internal car shots was very cool. The Bourne camera feel worked really well because it seems you had a truncated shutter speed that just added great moving to the characters...I really dug that.

Story was interesting, had me guessing to the end. How did you get permission to
shoot inside a liquor store carrying shotguns? LOL
 
Existentialist said:
My review:

The internal car shots was very cool. The Bourne camera feel worked really well because it seems you had a truncated shutter speed that just added great moving to the characters...I really dug that.

Story was interesting, had me guessing to the end. How did you get permission to
shoot inside a liquor store carrying shotguns? LOL
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the kid who played the clerk was a friend of ours, and the director worked there before, we actually got the location for free. the owner came down to the store to check up on us and opened the door to find out timecop with that ridiculous motorcycle helmet holding up two shotguns, haha.
 
morbidodyssey said:
hey guys- i directed this film.

The reason for the head explosion is that the portal is only open for 5 minutes- thats why he's on a limit. Once the portal closes it creates a paradox.

-joe
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Well that makes more sense. I didn't get that from your movies so maybe I missed something. I thought with the whole timecop thing, time travel was safe enough. I just thought the technology was limited to 5 minute windows. I guess maybe a better setup of the paradox in the beginning, just like the movie timecop "same matter can't occupy the same space".
 
Mobie540 said:
Well that makes more sense. I didn't get that from your movies so maybe I missed something. I thought with the whole timecop thing, time travel was safe enough. I just thought the technology was limited to 5 minute windows. I guess maybe a better setup of the paradox in the beginning, just like the movie timecop "same matter can't occupy the same space".
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well in the film it's somewhat addressed, although not as much as it should be, with the line "well what happens in five minutes?", "don't know, trapped, maybe worse." But agreeably, we originally had a scene with a black market time dealer, who was sending the main character back, we cut it for pacing issues.

thanks for watching! much appreciated.
 
Loved it. Good job. At least I'm sure this was actually shot for Timefest and not a short with a shot of a clock added.
 
I don’t know what to make of your film!! I really felt the tension and insaneness at the end and opening. Lights, cutting, black, crazy audio all worked well. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no enemy of shaky-cam, but I think it was just way overdone in the car. Way too much for that scene. That’s really my only issue. Good work!
 
bosindy said:
Really??? okay give us some evidence that films have been entered outside the rules. Or are you just conspiracy theorist?
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well it just seems that some have taken the "time" theme liberally, and actually it's turned out what i think are some of the best entries, connorfilm's "Sewwer", and so far i'd say the most beautifully shot entry, "The Moment After".

It wasn't meant as an insult to any of the other entries at all. It really shouldn't have come out that way, and i'm sorry it did.
 
I've been enjoying watching everyone's entries so much that I've been completely negligent with making comments. I just got done watching Escape From The Past, so while it's fresh in my mind I thought I'd say a few words here.

First of all, nice job! My favorite thing about this piece is pace. It's exciting throughout. There wasn't a moment where my mind wandered. The story was nice and focused.

I'll echo what previous posts have said -- the hand-held effect in the liquour store is appropriately frenetic. In fact, I didn't even realize it was being used. In the opening car scene, it was too much for my tastes.

Another thing I particularly liked about this short is how much you managed to do with so little at times. With some simple lighting and special effects, you managed to turn a bathroom stall into a time-travel device and I never thought twice about it. It worked -- you completely sold it. I love that kinda stuff.

As far as the storyline goes, I think your biggest enemy was the short time frame. When your actor said "They've got time cops for this kinda thing" that threw me for a loop and I certainly wanted to know more at that point. That being said, you certainly had a complete story here in terms of beginning/middle/end and I wasn't left unsatisfied!

Also, I read what you wrote above about the fact that if Josh doesn't travel back into the future, it creates a paradox. It makes good sense, but I'll admit that I didn't get that from viewing the short. If explained a little more explicitly, I think the very last shot would leave people slightly less bewildered and a little more tense as he's desperately trying to make it back to the stall. It would really allow you to milk the tension if the viewers knew JUST how serious a game he was playing.

Anyway. I don't mean to sound overly critical. I definitely think this film shows that you guys have very solid filmmaking intuition and talent. Definitely one of the better entries I've seen so far! Congratulations!
 
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joshreluctant said:
well it just seems that some have taken the "time" theme liberally, and actually it's turned out what i think are some of the best entries, connorfilm's "Sewwer", and so far i'd say the most beautifully shot entry, "The Moment After".

It wasn't meant as an insult to any of the other entries at all. It really shouldn't have come out that way, and i'm sorry it did.
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Well that's 2 different arguments 1) The film was made for some other reason outside of timefest (possible not within the time frame as well) and the filmmaker added a clock to shoehorn it into this fest 2) the film was made for the fest and doesn't qualify because it doesn't adhere to the "time" theme.

The first argument is the one that is offensive because it accuses the fimmaker of doing something dishonest. If anyone has evidence to that then prove it. most of the threads offer evidence to the contrary. That doesn't seem to be the argument you have made, but others have.

The second argument is one that is made every festival, and the same response is always given: The rules are loosely interpreted so as to not quell creativity. I could make a very strong argument for "the Moment After" fitting within the the "time" theme, but that would be irrelevant because the moderators have already decided that it does.
 
Zoidoid said:
I think the very last should would leave people slightly less bewildered and a little more tense as he's desperately trying to make it back to the stall. It would really allow you to milk the tension if the viewers knew JUST how serious a game he was playing.
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Yes, I was bewildered. But I totally agree. I think it would way more tense and a lot "cooler" knowing that was the reason for the five min time frame. Explaining that (without being overly blunt) would have really kept me on my toes wondering what was gonna happen to this shmoe.
 
Loved all the twitchy effects and the only thing I would have changed was the guns they didn't look real at all to me. But overall I found it very entertaining.
 
bosindy said:
The second argument is one that is made every festival, and the same response is always given: The rules are loosely interpreted so as to not quell creativity. I could make a very strong argument for "the Moment After" fitting within the the "time" theme, but that would be irrelevant because the moderators have already decided that it does.
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agreed, i made the comment hastily and it was never meant as an insult to other entries, me and my director actually said aside time after the entries were posted to make sure we watched all the entries, and a lot of them were very, very good. again, sorry it came out that way.

and to everyone else, thanks for the comments. We've always worked handheld for most scenes just as a personal taste, and after deciding that a dolly\crane rental would be two expensive for the weekend, we chose that as our secondary stylistic choice. Next fest we'll hopefully have more time, and it won't be so much of an issue, thanks for the comments everyone.
 
Hey did you do a entry for another fest where it is two guys in a car talking, and one ends up stabbing the other right outside the car?
 
STYLZ said:
Hey did you do a entry for another fest where it is two guys in a car talking, and one ends up stabbing the other right outside the car?
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No, actually, that wasn't us. I'm not even sure of who it was. From the sound of it, seems like something we would've done back in high school. We used to shoot nonsense just to shoot it, Haha.
 
The lighting in this film was top notch. I was also intrigued with the story, so kudos there. The only thing that took me out of it was the phrase "Time Cop" because I just see visions of the Van Dame movie, and anything that calls to mind a Van Dame movie can't be good. I'd change that phrase to something less overt.

Small criticism, I know. Just thought I'd mention it. :)
 
krestofre said:
The lighting in this film was top notch. I was also intrigued with the story, so kudos there. The only thing that took me out of it was the phrase "Time Cop" because I just see visions of the Van Dame movie, and anything that calls to mind a Van Dame movie can't be good. I'd change that phrase to something less overt.

Small criticism, I know. Just thought I'd mention it. :)
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Thanks for the kind words, and for the true ones, haha. When writing the short, we realized "Time Cop" was a ridiculous phrase to put in a movie, but us being van damne fans (unapologetically, even), we thought hey, it's fun, if anything it'll give anyone who remembers 1995 a laugh. So we had thought about that, and thanks for viewing\commenting.

Haha, timecops.
 
This film seemed to work quite well. I really liked the very graphic flashing sequences in the toilet. I'm not really an expert on this sort of thing, but wouldn't the time cops be in the two main characters present rather than in their past?
Good work.
 
Horncastle said:
This film seemed to work quite well. I really liked the very graphic flashing sequences in the toilet. I'm not really an expert on this sort of thing, but wouldn't the time cops be in the two main characters present rather than in their past?
Good work.
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Indeed they would be in the present, but the timecops can also time travel.
 
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