COLD CALLS by John Whalen featuring Blanchard Ryan (OpenWater) & Ben Bailey (CashCab)

Awesome looking stuff JDS. Love all of the BTS shots and info. Looks like you've got a great cast lined up too. You get an immediate bump to the top of my list for mentioning the unchecked awesomeness that is Sam the Eagle. People don't understand how Sam puts it down but you and I....we know. Looking forward to your film man. :beer:
 
NATE!

Hey Nate did some cool VFX for us. Hadn't mentioned him before as it was down to the wire and we didn't know what his schedule would allow / when I could actually get him stuff.

I'll be putting up full cast and crew credits tomorrow. But Nate did a great job under the gun.

:beer:

lemme see if I can get you a custom user title ...

hmmm
VFX Wunderkind
or
Narcoleptic VFX Whiz :)
....

I'll let Jason decide.
 
Jack thanks for the quick schooling on what you did and could've done there with the tub shot. This is giving me all sorts of stuff to start thinking about.

And thanks for the link Timur, I had forgotten about that one - there's one floating around with some grabs from Gilmore Girls (maybe?) or something too I'm going to have to go examine again too.

Here's a question - after seeing the phone shot and what you did with the different layers of depth - how could you achieve that effect with a deep dof (no adapter)? Would this go back to using colors to keep the phone as the center of attention and maybe have the light on the utensils a bit darker? Thanks for putting up with my newbish questions, its greatly appreciated. Starting to think we need an art direction subforum...
 
jack

thank you so much for always providing info on your shots!way too cool! i go by gut feeling on what works and what doesn't ( something isnt right, eh... ) it's great to see there is always a rhyme to the reason, its even better to know that there are those out there who know what that exactly is.... i have MUCH to learn. many many thanks for always taking the time to share! please share some more! this, to me, is what makes this fest the best thing around...
 
Jack, all the pics and BTS stuff looks great. Looks as if you're gonna' do it again! Can't wait to check it out, so tell the guys to hurry up and open the viewing! Ha-ha!!
 
Timur and Jack-
This kind of stuff is really helpfull to me. Love the grabs, especially the CU phone, and now I know more about the "why". I didn't even notice the kitchen utensils before, but they definitely registered subliminally somehow in my brain's depth-of-field-o-meter.

The trick for me (and perhaps many of us noob's here) is to take a breath while looking at the frame to really think about placement of props in terms of composition and dimensionality. Sometimes I stumble upon stuff, but it would be good to arrange things into the "Perfect Hollywood Reality" that supports the story in so many subtle ways.

I really look forward to seeing Cold Calls, but before I do, I plan to read the script as if I were going to direct it, then see what you came up with. That way, I can tell you what you did wrong. :Drogar-Evil(DBG): No seriously, I think it will be a fun exercise for me to learn by.
 
Jack, The final cut is wonderful. I love it. Herman's score is perfect. Timur did a fantastic job with the look. The performances are great. My favorite moment is the little growl you gave to Lalo when she crosses the floor. Congratulations.

I need to watch it a few more times, but I just wanted to say how impressed I was.
 
Haha, turned out better than I thought it would (Story wise).

Lets starts from the beginning.

DIRTY rack focus, wowsers.

The audio was fantastic, and so was the score (Good job Herman, it fit perfectly).

I thought everything was well done, especially the cinematography aspect, but the story didn't work for me at all.

I read the script when it was announced as the winner for the script fest 2, and I didn't find any interest in it what so ever.

But I know you produced this for someone else, so you can't really say much here.

But on a side note, the film DID look better than it was on the paper, so kudos to that.

Acting was brilliant, as usual.

I noticed you stuck to the script pretty hard to, in terms of dialog. I noticed you took out the "FBI Agent sucks in his gut" for Dana, and you played around with the heart beat sequence, but I guess that'll happen for times like that.

Sweet job,

Robbie
 
Jeff Anderson said:
Jack thanks for the quick schooling on what you did and could've done there with the tub shot. This is giving me all sorts of stuff to start thinking about.

And thanks for the link Timur, I had forgotten about that one - there's one floating around with some grabs from Gilmore Girls (maybe?) or something too I'm going to have to go examine again too.

Here's a question - after seeing the phone shot and what you did with the different layers of depth - how could you achieve that effect with a deep dof (no adapter)? Would this go back to using colors to keep the phone as the center of attention and maybe have the light on the utensils a bit darker? Thanks for putting up with my newbish questions, its greatly appreciated. Starting to think we need an art direction subforum...
Click to expand...

You'd want to use light and composition. Regarding Light: (and Timur could go into more detail about ratios etc.) You'd just pop the phone a bit. You could go from an extreme depending on the mood / story of the shot to where the background is just shadow, or have it pretty well lit and just pop the phone a bit. Regarding Composition: Remember the candlestick that intersected her head in the tub shot that I said I should have moved? It's OK to have some vertical lines intersect, but by making them separate or giving them their own space you can create depth or a feeling of things occupying different planes in the shot. Finally: Diagonal perspective lines and triangles. Do some googling on directing the eye and composition and you will see it's all about triangles and diagonal perspective lines. Also look into our natural eye progresssion. The Phone shot for example is weighted so that our eye lends on the phone. Up Left to Down Right is a very natural strong direction for Westerners eyes to move.

hoz said:
jack

thank you so much for always providing info on your shots!way too cool! i go by gut feeling on what works and what doesn't ( something isnt right, eh... ) it's great to see there is always a rhyme to the reason, its even better to know that there are those out there who know what that exactly is.... i have MUCH to learn. many many thanks for always taking the time to share! please share some more! this, to me, is what makes this fest the best thing around...
Click to expand...
For everything except camera movement and general framing I go pretty much by the gut too. As you can see from this picture of me behind Producer cum Boom Op Barry Green. I have plenty of gut to make decisions from. :)
barryboom.jpg

With the utensils thing I wasn't thinking conciously about the three layers etc. I just didn't like exactly what I was seeing in the frame, and thought it wierd that the phone would be stuck on the end of the kitchen island alone like that. But once you start to think about these issues of craft, they're there for your gut to access I think. And when it works you know why and also when it could have been better you have a better idea as to why as well. And when your gut doesn't tell you anything except that you've had too much spicy Thai, that's when these craft issues come in handy. Your craft can save you when inspiration runs dry.

yeehaanow said:
Timur and Jack-
This kind of stuff is really helpfull to me. Love the grabs, especially the CU phone, and now I know more about the "why". I didn't even notice the kitchen utensils before, but they definitely registered subliminally somehow in my brain's depth-of-field-o-meter.

The trick for me (and perhaps many of us noob's here) is to take a breath while looking at the frame to really think about placement of props in terms of composition and dimensionality. Sometimes I stumble upon stuff, but it would be good to arrange things into the "Perfect Hollywood Reality" that supports the story in so many subtle ways.
Click to expand...
It's the trick for all of us at all levels. Which is one of the reasons I posted the "what could have been better" version of the tub screen grab. The more under the gun you are and the longer you've been shooting and the lower your budget and the more hats you are wearing, the harder it can be to take that step back. But it's always worth it.

yeehaanow said:
I really look forward to seeing Cold Calls, but before I do, I plan to read the script as if I were going to direct it, then see what you came up with. That way, I can tell you what you did wrong. :Drogar-Evil(DBG): No seriously, I think it will be a fun exercise for me to learn by.
Click to expand...
Yeah that should be fun. It might not be as useful in the specific way you may have in mind because it's an absurdist piece. It's kind of across between Marx Bros. movie and a David Lynch movie in some ways. So there are lots of ways you could go with it. It's not a character driven psygological thing where you can compare how you might have tracked the main character's arc compared to how I did. Also it's a good bit different than the ScripFest version. But that's something to think about to. How would you have developed the material with the writer beyond the scriptfest version (if at all). What changes would you have asked for? What would you have wanted clarified, etc.
 
Chris Messineo said:
Jack, The final cut is wonderful. I love it. Herman's score is perfect. Timur did a fantastic job with the look. The performances are great. My favorite moment is the little growl you gave to Lalo when she crosses the floor. Congratulations.

I need to watch it a few more times, but I just wanted to say how impressed I was.
Click to expand...
Thanks Chris. And thanks for your help with everything. :beer:

Robbie Comeau said:
....

I noticed you stuck to the script pretty hard to, in terms of dialog. I noticed you took out the "FBI Agent sucks in his gut" for Dana, and you played around with the heart beat sequence, but I guess that'll happen for times like that.
Click to expand...

Hey Robbie.

Not that anyone's keeping score, but a couple of quantitative observations about the script's journey to the screen are a bit off:

  • The DETECTIVE scene is 50% rewritten. It starts the same but that's it. There's nothing about flatulence in the original script.
  • Also. The montage sequence and all of the products therein do not exist in the original script.
  • Finally the heartbeat sequence is pretty much as it is in the script. Didn't really re-envision it. It says something like there's a heartbeat and dana runs down the hall and suddenly we're in a slasher movie - or something like that.
Qualitatively, suffice it to say, I do have a higher opinion of the script than you. It's not your typical DVXuser narrative if there is such a thing, and it's not psychological realism which is what most cinema is based in, but there's a fun surprising linear narrative there that's working on a number of levels, IMHO.

Thanks for watching and comments. :beer:
 
Aahhh Viewing up so soon today.
Better get this up as there was no time for credits in the movie.


COLD CALLS
Juliana Lima
1st AC

Philip Warren
Head Gaffer

Chris Messineo
Location Manager

James Demo
Grip

Sridhar Ranganath
Location Scout

Elizabeth Gerbino
Makeup Artist


​
Lalo the Dog
As himself

DJ Hazard
Detective Burton

Ben Bailey
Tim

Blanchard Ryan
Dana


production coordinator
Isaac Brody

co-Produced by
Ian Marlow

produced by
Barry Green & David Jimerson

music written and performed by
by Herman Witkam

cinematography by
Timur Civan

written by
John Whalen (Xrayspecs)

directed by
Jack Daniel Stanley

let me know if I've forgotten, misspelled, or incorrectly titled anyone
 
Film looks good, guys. Timur, great work on the cinematography.

The only thing for me was I felt like it should have ended when he said "that's probably for you." then one cut to her still stunned, and blackout. for some reason, the hitch shot of her feels out of place and kills the joke for me.

But great work all around. DJ had me cracking up.
 
Great film!! The cop was hysterical. No complaints on this. I have watched 10 or so and this is the one that is the closest to the twilight zone thus far.
 
I didn't see Jack's signature on this one. Maybe relying on a great camera took away some of the innovation I've seen from Jack in the past. The story's premise was fun enough, but the script still needed more work than it got. I liked the montage of calls, and the character of the telephone solicitor was sometimes spot on. A bit of a TV movie treatment, when I expected more art I guess.
 
POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Wow. I hadnt read the script before, and was totally surprised at the end there. At first I was getting dissappointed because I thought it was going into some cliche "the killer is in your house" crap because the delivery was just so dry (which I loved) and then there he his in the closet and he's just a freakin riot. Ben fit the role perfectly. Loved it.

Hazard as the detective was just awesome too. At first I was like too bad they gave a comedian such a serious role. Yeah. That was great. And Blanchard just plays along so well.

As expected the lighting was great. There was one jib shot that seemed a littly shaky and kinda took me out of the moment but that was it. Editing was spot on. Score was great - added alot but never stood out and said hey look at me. Audio was perfect. You know you all could team up and make an instructional DVD on audio :)

I really cant find anything to complain about here. Very nice work. I learned a good bit just from watching, thanks.

And Jack, thanks for quick primer on what could've been done with that phone shot. I'm going to do some googling this weekend and find some books as well. You've really got my interest peaked with leading the eye where you want it and art direction and how it all works together. Needless to say the whole short looked well art directed even if you were a bit crunched for time.
 
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