TRIVIAL, a Marlon Ladd film

Just thought of something, regarding the distance from the car thing. Cut out all the running he does, and depending on what you shot this in (i.e. 1080, 720, etc.) you MAY have room to zoom in as much as 50%, without sacrificing too much resolution quality ... that would get rid of a LOT of the extra field, bring the vehicle in much closer, etc.
 
Blaine said:
Did I type Marion? zheesh. I feel like such and idiot because I knew it was Marlon. Sorry about that.

Glad to see you're working on the fx. Yeah, I know what you mean about working on no budget, though. Good luck to you. :beer:
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Yeah, Blaine, I figured you knew, because you've reviewed my films b4. LOL. Don't worry about it. It's all good. Thnx again!
 
Norm Sanders said:
Hey Marlon,

Just checked out Trivial. There were some great moments of framing, but at the same time some erratic choices of camera angles/editing, so I'd find myself trying to keep up just a tad vs. letting myself go with the flow.

I felt things dragged a bit as we were in the field with him, and he kept looking around as we had flashbacks. The flashbacks were nice, but I still felt like the pace could have been picked up some here, to more quickly get to the phone call, I suppose. Audio was tougher to hear in some spots, more so than others.

Other than that, the film was doing fine for me until the ending ... the FX on the truck really took me out of it, as they just didn't blend/comp well. I also had a very difficult time believing that as bewildered as he was, and how much he was or WOULD have been looking around, that he wouldn't have noticed the burning SUV (that was nearly a football field away???) .... then, to top that off, in that HUGE, WIDE open field, his girlfriend is no where to be seen either, never calls out to him, nothing .... but then suddenly appears as he's about to throw himself into the flames for what he thinks is saving her.

So again, a good concept, but the ending left me with too many "Hmmmm" moments.
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Hey, Norm. I know what you mean about the SUV and there are a couple of things I can do with that to make him seem closer and to also speed up the beginning to where he gets to the phone call faster, basically as soon as he stands. I believe I have plenty of coverage to do that. A good question about the girl being nowhere to be found and if you notice before the vehicle explodes the first time, she's still in the car, which should leave the question of whether or not either of them survived. There's also the subtlety of him with the phone in his hand before they crash and then all of a sudden it's in his pocket in the field. That just goes to show, people do miss some things. It's funny because there are those, including yourself that believes they survived and then those that don't. I haven't fully decided if I'm going to make the answer totally black & white or rather obvious yet. Thanks a million for the critique! Much noted and appreciated! I did watch your film and I think I did comment on it already as well.
 
Had me intrigued as to where it was going, laying out all these clues and misleads. Great.

A Strong lead and a Beautiful actress.
Wish I could have understood the guy on the phone a little better and the car crash sequence is good but the car on fire afterwards is kind of cheesy. Especially the run to explosion, it was just kind of too much.

Ending was nicely wrapped up, good organization. The fade away, perhaps they didn't survive ... or at least he did till the explosion happened?
 
did enjoy it, but the pacing was a bit slow for me at times (middle-ish).
and i know it's hard to pull off explosions, but i kept thinking of South Park when i saw them. just took away from the film for me.
otherwise i liked the storyline for sure!
keep on keeping on.....
 
It was a little slow for me, especially in the beginning. I like the way it picked up and I was pretty into it by the time he figured out what happened, but the VFX on the car just completely took me out of it. Nice photography though, and strong acting.
 
Hey Marlon. Nice film. I liked a lot of what you had going on here. I liked the wide open shots and the sky made everything pop. The bright day look worked for this film. Good performances. There were a couple of times where the audio seemed a tiny bit out of sync but not enough to be a huge issue. It seemed to slow down a little in parts but had a good payoff in the end.

Compositing special FX can be tricky and you definately get props for taking it there. Sometimes you have to really tweak and shape the effects so they match the shot they're being integrated into. I enjoyed it. Good job man.
 
The film cut out at around the 2 minute mark. It paused on her booty shorts haha!

I like the feel of this, the music, and the pacing.

I'll give it another view/download!

Robbie
 
I'm just gonna be honest and say what I was really thinking through most of this film....

DAMN JACQUELINE'S HOTTTTTT!!!!
Good lookin' out man :)
 
Reviews.

Reviews.

MrKilloran said:
Had me intrigued as to where it was going, laying out all these clues and misleads. Great.

A Strong lead and a Beautiful actress.
Wish I could have understood the guy on the phone a little better and the car crash sequence is good but the car on fire afterwards is kind of cheesy. Especially the run to explosion, it was just kind of too much.

Ending was nicely wrapped up, good organization. The fade away, perhaps they didn't survive ... or at least he did till the explosion happened?
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Thanks, for the review, MrKilloran. I'll look at the conversation with the guy on the phone again and make sure it's clear. Your comments are appreciated. :thumbup:

singleframe said:
did enjoy it, but the pacing was a bit slow for me at times (middle-ish).
and i know it's hard to pull off explosions, but i kept thinking of South Park when i saw them. just took away from the film for me.
otherwise i liked the storyline for sure!
keep on keeping on.....
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Southpark?! OMG! LOL. C'mon now. Yeah, I'm gonna' go back and tweak it and see what I can come up with. I thought it was decent and okay, but people on here are bashing it like crazy. :dankk2:

Will Clegg said:
It was a little slow for me, especially in the beginning. I like the way it picked up and I was pretty into it by the time he figured out what happened, but the VFX on the car just completely took me out of it. Nice photography though, and strong acting.
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Thanks, Will. I appreciate you stopping by to give a review. Yeah, I'm going to revamp the beginning a little just so he gets to the phone conversation after and yes, VFX will improve. Trust me. Thanks for the acting complement as well, means alot.


Champloo said:
Hey Marlon. Nice film. I liked a lot of what you had going on here. I liked the wide open shots and the sky made everything pop. The bright day look worked for this film. Good performances. There were a couple of times where the audio seemed a tiny bit out of sync but not enough to be a huge issue. It seemed to slow down a little in parts but had a good payoff in the end.

Compositing special FX can be tricky and you definately get props for taking it there. Sometimes you have to really tweak and shape the effects so they match the shot they're being integrated into. I enjoyed it. Good job man.
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Thanks, it's about time you showed up! LOL. Yeah, I'm looking at getting another software program in the near future to get the VFX where I want 'em and when that happens - all I can say is that it won't be fair. As far as the audio out of sync I know exactly what 2 parts you're thinking of. That'll be adjusted when I re-tweak. It's funny you talk about the sky and sunny day, because we filmed 2 different days and the first day was overcast and the second day was beautiful, so I had to try and match the shots, but I guess it worked out.

Robbie Comeau said:
The film cut out at around the 2 minute mark. It paused on her booty shorts haha!

I like the feel of this, the music, and the pacing.

I'll give it another view/download!

Robbie
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Hey, Robbie! LOL. Yeah, it stopped around the same point for me when I was editing. Go figure! I'm glad people can appreciate her beauty though, because I certainly do. And yeah, I thought the music went perfect! Give it another view, man!

Johnny Cola said:
I'm just gonna be honest and say what I was really thinking through most of this film....

DAMN JACQUELINE'S HOTTTTTT!!!!
Good lookin' out man :)
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LOL! Yes, Johnny. She is - no doubt!! Those minor details are important to the audience. Glad you noticed that - minor detail. LOL.
 
Marlon you had some great shots in here... extremely well thought out and they cut together nicely. Huge growth visually and stylistically from Twilightfest.

Your use of silence was handled nicely and I wondered for a while if you were going to use any audio. You've obviously been thinking of this story for a while and more so of HOW you wanted to tell the story. That was important especially since so much was told through the visual parts, especially the flashbacks through the video.

Here's one part that threw me though.. the shots of her in the car are nice and fit in with the POV.. and the POV is always ON her... but then you threw in one from from her POV and it didn't fit, mainly because its the only time we see from her POV. It was always consistently from his POV but the big switch doesn't work. It kind of signals a change of view. If we had now switched over to her in the main story footage a shot like that would have worked, but instead it we go right back to him.

Phone conversation was a little muddy and hard to make out what was going on.

great accident shot and then his realization.. played in nicely... well done. And then we get to the car...

I won;t belabor this part since you know about the VFX work on that. I think you should have done without the explosion. It only weakened the believability of a powerful scene. It would have been stronger if he had seen her dead in the car... stopped and looked back and she was gone.. then she appears behind him. The bad VFX work (sorry dude) takes away from that. You've had some clever ways to get around budget limitations so I know you could have come up with something really cool... but you just had to have the explosion to make up for a lack of feet to the face.

You told a well crafted story with very little dialog and for the most part it worked.

So now that you're done telling your heartfelt story of loss... can we get back to the feet in face movies now?
 
Puck, you killin' me with the fee to the face! LOL. Yeah, you're pretty accurate on all accounts. That's the first I've heard about her POV though and I think you may be right on about that. I didn't intentionally write it like that, you just see her and then a 2-shot of us in the car before the accident, so I'll rethink that. Explosion? You know how i do, but I think you're right on that too. Good call and thnx!
 
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