Easy Water Films presents "Urashima, Inc."

Great score. Enjoyed this story very much. Little things like the golf shot in the back yard and the late night watching TV/Solitaire were superb. Really set up the plot point and the mood.

I think I picked up a continuity problem with the calendar. 3:51 its marked right up to the last day and then at 4:51 its got two days open.

I loved the twilight zone aspect of this one!!!
 
I saw someone posted earlier they didn't like the late night tv idea. I had no problem with it in itself, but it did strike me a little as too charlie kaufman. I mean, you probably would have seen something like it in the twilight zone, but in modern times...it's a little of a hit on the story to me though.

there were some extraneous lines: "Damn I'm never going to finish this thing" and "I'll try anything once." Those lines should've been cut. We get it.

I thought there was a time faux pas in ordering and getting the package before his deadline. The calendar says he is already on saturday. he calls them no earlier than LATE saturday night. The next day is sunday. And monday is his deadline...how did he get it so fast? I only bring this up because it was a super simple piece of sloppiness easily cured with a new shot of the calendar. I mean, I guess he could have overnighted it, but his excitement about it didn't seem to warrant that. He was just like: "Eh, okay."

I like the overall idea though, of a guy who's own procrastination is his downfall.

Directing-wise, I felt like the publisher's acting was horrid. But also, I don't think you helped her any with that unmotivated blocking. When I have an actor who's not really an actor, or not really great, I make them do NOTHING. Which most actors have a hard time doing anyway. On camera, fake is fake. But nothing can read as good acting. Know what I mean? A little more difficult to handle here because she had to be motivated to get on his case. But overall as a director, I think it's important to learn how to spot that stuff and fix it on set before it hurts your film.

I wondered along with someone else, how he could not notice some differences in 25 years on his way to the office. I mean, from 25 years ago to now...I guess a self-involved person might not. meaning you might get away with it...I dunno, it's a question I think you need to address in something like this even if how to justify your choice to have him NOT notice.

As to the guy's character...I dunno what to think. Like I said, I like the idea of a man undone by his own procrastination, but on the other hand, I just thought this guy was a loser. I guess, if I had a watch like that I would have been exploring every possibility or something, not just watching TV. Maybe that is the right feeling to have; that he is a loser. Dunno.

Which brings up another thing. Was what he was seeing on TV NOT changing in 25 years? I am a little unclear about the rules of the world and it's time-travel, I guess.

Thanks! I am pretty harsh on this, because in scriptfest, I felt like you had such a solid entry, that you set your own bar pretty high :)
 
Thanks for the current batch of comments everyone! Some specifics:

Duff, the idea is that his house is contained in a bubble so, yes, he spent 25 years procrastinating and turning back time. Once he started he just kind of lost track of ... ... time. *Insert Dr. Evil Smiley here*

Mark J. Thanks for the comments. I'm glad that you liked the film. That's an especially nice comment coming from the Dude responsible for one of the powerhouse films this time around. Regarding continuity, any date shuffling was intentional due to the idea that the audience really isn't privy to how many times Rick turns the watch back. I was actually going for a bit of confusion with the idea that once the reveal happens the audience will go "Oh, now I see." It's interesting to me that it was perceived as a continuity thing.

Mark H. I have no problems with harsh criticism. It's the only way I'm going to grow as a filmmaker and it's better to come from you than from Variety or Roger Ebert. :) I'm also glad to hear that I'm setting my own bar pretty high.

I mean, you probably would have seen something like it in the twilight zone, but in modern times...it's a little of a hit on the story to me though.
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Interesting. That's exactly why it's a late night TV commercial. I'm interested in older stuff. I like the fact that this is more of a throwback to the Twlight Zone and not an updated modern reinterpretation or what have you. Now I'm wondering if it's just a preference difference or if I am personally too stuck in the past.

Directing-wise, I felt like the publisher's acting was horrid.
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Some other people have commented on this as well. I'm happy with her performance because as a character she's on edge. Rick's failure to deliver his book on time not only means his career, but very likely it means Stacy's as well. I tried to convey that through the dialog, and perhaps I didn't quite get the job done. But anyway, I personally thought that the anxiety of that moment came across in the actress's performance. If I am wrong, blame me, not her.

I will take full responsibility for the blocking. We had that location for an hour and it was sloppy because of it. The walking up to the window shot I'm happy with, but the getting up from the desk shot is terrible. Thanks for calling me on it.

I thought about going into a lengthy explanation of the rules of the universe and the inner workings of Rick's character, but decided against it. If I couldn't convey enough of that in six minutes to put your mind at ease, then I needed to work harder in those six minutes and going point by point in a post isn't really helping my skills as a filmmaker.

Thanks again, Mark, for not pulling any punches in your critique. I'll try to set that bar even higher for Scriptfest II and whatever DVXFest is after this one. :laugh:
 
I really dug the short here and it wasn’t too bad. I think the execution of how much time has passed could have been improved. I could see perhaps a few days, but the passing of all those years just didn’t hit me.

How did you get your image compressed down so much? Please do tell your compression trick.

Congrats on entering the fest.
 
Very cool story. Acting and directing are also very nice. Everything else fits very well with the theme. You did a great job! Congrats!
 
I enjoyed this! Great twist at the end. One small issue, wouldnt tv have kept changing as well? Or was his entire house in the loop? Apparently the vodka was eternal as well :-).

Good technical aspects and good acting by the lead.
 
Thanks Shawn! The idea is that the entire house is in the loop so the TV would not change. Given how often cable channels rerun things I was personally comfortable taking the leap. The vodka ... Yeah, you might have me there. :)

Don, thanks for the comments. I'm glad you enjoyed the short.

Justin, I'll post my compression settings and techniques later tonight when I can get to my editing machine.
 
I thought this was a very solid entry. Some very nice shots, and a good story. I liked the concept, and although I figured his laziness would catch up with him, I didn't see the exact circumstances of the ending coming.

I thought the editing in the main chunk of the film where he has the watch is really good. The ideas and story beats are communicated well.

I agree that it seemed odd he would get the package so quickly.

I think it's a little easy for the receptionist to find out that Stacy had worked there 35 years ago (watched it a few days ago, just guessing at the amount of time).

Maybe it would have been cooler if she had been like, "Yes, she's here, just a minute." And then brought out a 60 year old woman.

Very cool entry and you integrated the theme on many different levels. Good work!
 
I liked the story concept. I thought he did a good job on the dialogue.

Some of the shots were nice. Some didnt do it for me so much. Couple of examples.

Dolly pan from TV to him at the Typewriter. Didnt think it was necessary, he is insular in this piece and I dont think showing us his surrounding was needed. In fact I would have tightened it up a lot with all the shots in house house.

Book on shelf - fine it has a message about his plight. But a whole shot for it? Maybe on the work desk in shot?

The zoom in the publishers office made me feel like I was watching a telecast. And the light wasnt bad, as in felt motivated, but just no contrast and when she is sitting a couple of not so attractive half shadows from her on the wall. Nothing wrong with a shadow, it was about the shot contrast. Then she walks entirely out of frame and we hang on the shot for a moment. Then when we cut back to her she approaches a window, and the shot is across the line.

That fridge cutaway, with the cigarette sticker was nice, but we only saw him with an unlit cigarette once.

I thought you lit the lounge scenes well, but I would have still used some kind of kicker, motivated by a very dim lamp etc (you could have used a dimmer on that one in the back corner and then used a light to kick) - not so the light effects the front of him.

I saw some people said the package arrived fast - didnt have any issue with this at all. But you may want to transition to, to demonstrate passing of time. Watch cut aways - very clean, and fit well.

And to final shot in reception - a little flat. And the end voiceover not needed IMO.

Your sound was pretty good, not sure I liked the mic acoustics a great deal, but the dialogue was good. Maybe this could have been spiced up with some background overlay, like birds outside, occasional passing car etc.

This was a great story concept, keeping him insular etc I thought it all worked. I just felt the pacing was a tad slow, and there could have been a bit more happen.

I think its pretty hard to do a piece where most of the action is just one person, but it never bothered me in the least in this piece. Nicely done.
 
jasonthewho said:
Maybe it would have been cooler if she had been like, "Yes, she's here, just a minute." And then brought out a 60 year old woman.
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That would have been cool. I wish I'd thought of it. :)

Thanks for the other comments, Jason.

And thanks Noel, for the very detailed and thoughtful comments about the film. I'm sincere when I say that I've taken them all to heart. Two things off your comments though:

That fridge cutaway, with the cigarette sticker was nice, but we only saw him with an unlit cigarette once.
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Not true. He's also actively smoking a cigarette while hitting golf balls in his backyard. Not that it matters, but the annal retentive side of me had to clarify. :)

And the end voiceover not needed IMO.
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Needed? Not for informational purposes, but I wouldn't remove that VO for anything. It's the final brush stroke on the film and was something I knew I wanted to do with the piece from the jump.

Thanks again.

Now, on the compression side of things, I'm afraid anyone interested may be a little disappointed. Compression isn't just settings. In most cases I would not have been able to keep a six minute film in 720p resolution under 50 MB and make the image worth anything. Urashima, Inc. is an exception because there's very little motion in the film. As a result it can be compressed with fewer bits and still look good. There's still trade off. There's a lot of pixilation in the blacks, but overall the image holds up pretty well in 720p, and it's just cool to upload your fest entry in HD. :happy:

I shot the film in 1080 24pa on an HVX. Edited in full res in FCP. Exported a DVCProHD 1080 24p file from FCP and loaded into Compressor. Even though I use Compressor, I think all of these settings can be obtained in Quicktime Pro.

H.264
"Current" Framerate
Keyframes every 150 frames
Multipass Encode
Data rate restricted to 1000kbps

Pretty boring, right? This encode looks tremendous when played back on an SD TV. It's looks pretty good on a computer screen, and looks just OK on an HDTV. If doing a real encode for an HD deliverable, you'd crank the bitrate by a lot, and probably increase the number of keyframes to get the best quality. But the trick to a good encode is to test your video before doing a final encode because everything about your film will affect encoding, the types and intensity of colors, the amount of motion, transitions from dark to light. All of these things will change the way you encode a project. It's more like alchemy than science.

I hope that was beneficial, or at least entertaining to read.
 
I thought this was one of the best films I've watched so far. The twist at the end, although I kinda saw it coming, was still brill.
The publisher was a bit disbelievable, but all in all I really liked this short.
Thank you.
 
Hey,

Just caught the flick. I enjoyed this one. I thought the production value was really nice and I thought the acting worked pretty well, especially the lead. The pacing worked for me, as well as the editing.
The thing I like best about this piece in the story and the fact that you made the ending fit thematically with the idea expressed here. This guy is a lazy bum and it's just desserts for him to have missed out because he's essentially cheating with his life. ANd we see that in the film. It's not told to us, it's shown to us. And I really appreciate that.

Nice work. Enjoyed it. Hope to see more from you.
 
Since this is the last day of voting for the first round of competition I wanted to take a moment and publicly thank those who helped make Urashima, Inc. a reality.

Thanks to my long-time colaborative partner, Bryan Fitzgerald for playing the lead role of Rick Shelly with a nearly-broken ankle, and bringing poise and drama to the role. Bryan, you really upped your acting in this short and I thank you for putting that much into this role.

My wife, Quillen, for not only covering several behind the scenes rolls while in production, but for also being patient with me while writing, producing, directing, and editing the film.

My other actors, Amie, Rebecca, Al, and Crystal. Your contributions are appreciated and serve to make the film a whole piece.

Nathan, my DP. You really have a top-notch skill in lighting and camera placement.

Ryan, who held a boom mic for hours on end and always pushed the edge of the frame to make sure that I had good dialog while in post production.

Leandro for writing what is, in my opinion, one of the finest scores in the entire festival. I love the score to Urashima, Inc. so much that it's in constant rotation on my iPod.

A big thank you to the behind the scenes crew and everyone else who contributed to the making of this film!

And thanks to everyone who viewed, voted, and commented on the film. Your comments help us all to impove our craft, and that contribution is invaluable.
 
I enjoyed this film. I thought the story worked well, cinematography, score and acting of the main character were good. Maybe the publisher exec lady needed to be a bit more "high powered"?

I really liked how the film started with the cheap late-night TV ad. For me this gave the film a bit of a feel of being a take-off on advertising and how products can supposedly change your life as well as the more obvious theme of wasting ones life away. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but it worked for me.

Thanks for an enjoyable and light-hearted film.

Jason
 
Excellent work. I don't see the need to drone on, since this is the last day and you have probably had a thousand people tell you how great the twist was and how fantastic the lighting in the TV scenes was. It's all true. :D Good job and good luck!

EDIT: I loved the large resolution! Thanks for that!
 
Hey Chris, it´s great to see you loved the score...there are somethings in the edition that didn´t work the best way in my opinion...I wish I had an watch likes this when I was composing:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)!!!
I´m updating it right now and I´l be sending it to you soon!!!
 
Thanks for the extra comments guys!

Jason, thanks for your compliments. Your film was one of my favorites of the fest and your comments mean a lot.

Nick, your comments made me smile. I'm glad the film worked for you.

Leo, I can't imagine any improvements to the score. But I can't wait to hear what you've come up with! :)
 
Now that our stint in the competition is officially finished, I thought I'd post this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tarō

This was the initial inspiration for Urashima, Inc. and I thought someone would have mentioned it, or asked where the name came from, so you all either a lot more read in Japanese myth than me, or it never occured to anyone, so this post might be on interest.
 
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