UNZEIT by Frank Glencairn

Cool film. Now that is what I think of when I think of TimeFest! I think the concept was great, it was late in the film that I got the reveal. I thought the locations were outstanding. The effects were very well done. The music fit nicely.

I think I noticed one spot were the audio was dirty, otherwise it was good. The acting was very twilight zone-ish.

A really nice, nice film. Thanks for sharing it!!!
 
Even though there are some minor glitches with the rain FX and CC at the beginning but overall this is a nicely made movie. I like the story. The lighting and DOF are perfect. You did a great job!
 
Wow, great little short you've got there Frank!

I am pretty impressed. I didn't see this coming. I somehow expected an old fashioned war movie. But instead you made excellent fantastic cinema! Something I so often miss in german movies. I don't want to see history and dramas everyday! I want something special, something that doesn't happen in everyday life and you delivered!

Your actors were really good! Good sound (except the cheesy punches). Great costumes and location and great lighting! And the story was also really good! I enjoyed watching it :) Great work Frank!
 
Got a mail from Erez Henya where he asked me about the roll of the two Jews and why I made them so evil (especialy the woman) and if I have a special message in that.

So I try to explain my underlaying idea.

The Möbius concept as a methapher representing the time is not easy to understand.
So I made a film with many "layers" (yeah like onions)

A easy "Twilight Zone" surface for entertainment and some deeper meaning "under the hood"

Sadly I haven´t got the time and cash to do it exactly the way it was in my head - cutting it down to 6 minutes got additional things lost, that will come back in the directors cut.

For exempel the Shop scene:

Layer 1: Entertainment
A Jewish antiques shop.

Layer 2: A hint
Something that looks regular on the first sight or looks like a inaccuracy/looseness or a typo.
If you found that you know that that there is more if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.
If you look close, the sign at the windows says Jewlery not Jewelery.

Layer 3: It was a homage to the novel "The Green Face" ( 1916) by Gustav Meyrink
(the book is on the counter but got cutted out) who´s real name is Gustav Meyr most famous for his novel "The Golem".
In "The Green Face" he describes a a Shop exactly like that.

Layer 4: Gustav Meyr became a member of the "Order of the Golden Dawn" in London in the same year he published that book.
What you hear in the background and sounds like a radio or TV is a play about a Lodge Initiation.

The grade system of the Golden Dawn is a copy of the Ez Chajim, the tree of Live - the Kaballah with his bowls.

Layer 5. (I had to cut that out) When it starts raining, you see 2 Bowls on the floor that catch water from the leaky roof.

One bowl bears the word Gevurah, the other one says Daat. They represent 2 Sefirot (Bowls) of the jewish Kabbalah tree.
I don´t know how good your Hebrew is, but Gevurah is the Sefirot (bowl) of strength, Daat the bowl for wisdom.
Mandelbrot is the wise keeper of time and Leah is the strong guard of the door/passage. (Thats why she sits there)

Leah seem pretty mean but her job is to make sure he pays with real money not virtual money. (That´s why I did not use the term cash)
Why real money? When the dead souls pass over the lake into the otherworld you have to give the ferryman a coin.
It is an old custom to put coins on the eyes of a dead body for that prupose.
Ther is a (cutted) close up of Jack in the shop where you see the reflection of 2 coins on his sun glasses.
The "real money" line represents that coins, cause in the moment he buys the watch his journey begins.

"Seifer (Mandelbrot)" sounds somehow jewish but it is not.
(a little crossover here is that the fundamental basis of the original Order of the Golden Dawn
was a collection of documents known as the Cipher (pronounced Seifer) Manuscripts

But basically it is a homage to the movie "Angel Heart" where the Satan bears the name Luis Seipher (Lucifer).
Is Seifer the Satan? Yes and no.

Who is Satan

Satan means "Accuser"
Job1:7 characterize a Satan as that member of the divine council who watches over human activity, but with the evil purpose of searching out men's sins and appearing as their accuser. He is, therefore, the celestial prosecutor, lawyer who sees only iniquity; for he persists in his evil opinion of Job even after the man of Uz has passed successfully through his first trial by surrendering to the will of God, whereupon Satan demands another test through physical suffering.

So in that sense Seifer is not only the keeper of time he is also a Satan.
He watches (pun intended) the swanky attitude of Jack and makes him to eat his own beans over and over till he learns his lesson
by throwing him into a hell where he dies (physical suffering.)

When Jack leaves the shop he sees a Hebrew "writing on the wall" . (Actually a board - I had to cut that out too)

It says Mene Mene Tekel u Parishim.

It´s a reference to Daniel 5:1–31 and is solved like that:
MENE (literally a "monetary toll" coin for the passage),
TEKEL (literally a "tokenary weight"), you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting;
PARSIN (literally a "division"), you will be divided from your present live.

Tess (the first nurse) is symbolically the angle of hope.
She is there when he wakes up from his death and guides him to his new life, where he has to learn his lesson to be humble and decent..

Dolores the second nurse stands for the angel of peradventure (disbelive) - with her line "he can´t see ya anyway" she expresses the dark side of hope.

Dolores can be seen in 2 scenes with a little girl called Anny Orfan.
Anny represents the innocent lost souls of kids that got killed in insane wars started by insane governments led by guys like Jack.

phew... I can tell you, it´s not easy to express that kind of thoughts in english.

Frank
 
Last edited:
Very, very clever. Compliments Frank. This was a very intelligent repetition in time. Good story and the costumes and the styling of your actors are very authentic. I loved the detail where you used the green screen to show the street and the buildings outside. Compliments!

Susanne
 
I rarely comment on the films, but this one was startlingly awesome. I was amazed that someone would have the appetite to undertake a six-decade period piece, but you did it and did it surprisingly well. The accents don't really work, but other than that, this was a fantastic accomplishment. Well done.
 
Really well done! Great locations and effects. This one is high on my list. (I love twilight zone... my Mother went to High School with Rod Serling!)
Can't wait to see what you come up with next.
Excellent job!
 
Postmaster said:
Thanks for chiming in and reviewing Barry.
What do you mean with accents?

Frank
Click to expand...
I think what he means is that the Americans all sounded like they had German accents when they spoke.

Probably how Germans feel when they hear Americans trying to pretend that they have German accents. It usually doesn't sound right.

Mike
 
I got a kick out of the American accents. My favorite part was the passage at time at the end. You definitely have access to some great costumes.
 
The story is great, but I feel it was too ambitious of a concept. 90% of the awkwardness could have been alleviated by just not making the characters American. They don't sound American at all, so that was just immensely confusing for me. You could just modify the story slightly so that they wouldn't have to be American, and it would still play out the same way. Again, I love the story.

Costume design is great, as is set design. There were a few awkward cuts in there. The bullet effects looked a bit cheesy. The time-lapse at the end was a really cool concept, but it looked as though you used still-frames of the guy on the bench -- I thought my video player had glitched out for a second.

Overall, really cool idea, though perhaps a bit out of reach given the resources you have available. That said, you did do an amazing job with what you have. Congratulations.
 
Initial plan was to do the "time-lapse" scene much longer and with a dolly shot, wich would be much nicer.

But we had some problems with that and run out a time (pun intended)

Then I messed the whole shooting of that scene up.

First: by trying to shoot a big greenscreen in a public park without the chance to controll (quick changing) light and pretty much wind. So it was almost impossible to pull a good key.

Second: in the "heat of the battle" I messed around with the Firestore and at home I found out that I miss all the transition inbetween shots so I had to fake them in Photoshop and use still frames.

Not having the time to do it again is what pisses me off the most in that production.

It´s live and learn

Frank
 
I like your movie. The acting, lighting and DOF are nice. There are some glitches with the rain FX but the overall flow of the story is good. Great job!
 
Frank,

This was a great film and a totally incredible effort for a one-band band. The story (at least level 1!!) worked really well, I loved the cinematography and the special effects got away with it. As far as the other levels are concerned, well ... I'll have to read your explanation again and then I hope I will one day get to see a longer director's cut to see how many I catch. You obviously have a hell of a lot of things churning around in that brain of yours. Your description does, however, give a whole new meaning to the shop scene (the glance that Mandelbrot gives Leah when she says Jack must pay with real money for example).

I don't think that I had such a hard time with the accents as other people, probably because they sounded more English than American. Actually, in my opinion, Jack and the first nurse had perfectly acceptable English accents and the scene with Jack in bed was perfectly convincing. The 3(?) soldiers had more of a problem with their accents, but there too I sense that they would have had an easier time doing an English accent than trying to do an American one. This was, however, a fairly minor problem for me.

Frank, I have no idea how you managed to put all this together, it really is quite amazing. Give you a budget and a crew and I don't know what you would do.

Jason
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top