My first short film, Bound and Gagged

C

chasew70

Member
This is my first short film that I made for my beginning film making class last May in 05. I shot it in one night, then edited it over the next couple of weeks, then the showed to my class as my final project of the semester (I got an A). I lit it with one single handheld fluorescent light, and did all the blood work my self. I didn't like it that much, I wish I had more time and a little more money to work with. But here you go, judge it for yourself. And any criticism would be helpful (except on the acting, we're not actors, and we know we suck). We also had a couple of rules we had to adhere to; It had to be under 4 min, no dialogue, and no 24P (DAMN!!)

SMALL 13MB

MEDIUM 22MB

BIG 40MB

All Quicktime H.264, No Windows Media Video sorry :(
 
Dude - your car's leaking oil! ;-)

I really enjoyed your framing and your cinematography. The colours looked a little washed out though and a few of the edits seemed a bit "rough", but aside from that I liked it. It would have been a cool effect if you had kept the light on behind the guy (you?) when he walks through the plastic.

Tony
 
That's an old oil stain, but thanks for noticing. I used Magic Bullet bleach bypass, so that's why the colors are washed out. The light on my back(yes that's me) was from the street lamp at the end of my drive way. The effect that it made was a complete accident but turned out pretty cool.
 
Nice camera work and nice overall production for what it was.
Your subject matter was beyond poor taste. Reminded me of the scene in Resevoir Dogs.
You have a future in shock horror B films.

Don't let you folks see it... they'll throw you in therapy!
 
Aww, thats sweet. But do you think our kids will be really screwed up in the head? My short does have a Hostel feel to it, but I made this almost 7 months prior to that coming out. Maybe Eli Roth snuck into my class, saw my project and said, "hey! I could do that!!".
 
Hey Chasew,

I watched your short film and liked it... Disturbing, but good. :-)

And I'm sure Eli Roth was in your class the day you brought your movie and he copied it...

Calvin
 
The initial "tape over the mouth" screaming lost continuity. It made me immediately say, "whups - he cut the scene too quickly.
Listen closely & you'll hear it.
Also, you "may" be able to create a more ominous feel with a slo-mo effect on the light swinging.
Maybe a little choppy cutting on "bad guy" walking in. Just cut a a few frames out every second & see what it looks like. You could even play with transitions between cuts for that section. It might have a creepy "oh crap" feel.

The psychology behind it...
Tachypsychia is when the brain slows down during a crisis to help the person cope with violent confrontations & such.
Look it up... I'm not making this stuff up.

Just my .02
 
I know there are some continuity errors and such. I watch it now and I'm like "I should have done this or that" or "why the hell did I do that?". I just feel I could have done better if I had given myself more time. But now that you mention it, I think I should have shot the light swinging back and forth with a slower shutter speed, maybe like a 1/12th. I had just purchased the camera a couple of days prior to shooting this, and I didn't know about some of the more advanced features. And I do hear that rough edit in there too, every time I do hear it, it makes me want to gouge me eyes out with my thumbs. I wanted a panicky feel to those cuts in the beginning, which is why I used a lot of jump cuts. But I don't have the original raw footage so I cant recut anything (lesson learned, I now keep all original tapes). I've made quite a few mistakes as a first time film maker, but I got to say that I've been learning rather quickly from them.
 
Good point. I guess we all live and learn.
All in all, your video gave me the creeps. I guess that was the idea.

It got me wondering about the back story of the victim and the freak with the tools.
Was it the victim's car? Was it also his house?
How did they meet?
How did the victim get in this predicament?
He just wakes up and he's surprised that he's 'bound and gagged'.

I know you aren't focusing on this stuff, but I wonder about stuff like that.


Why did he drill through the guy's hand? That's just plain mean... At least he could have chopped him up while he was still unconcious.
Why did it take so long with the reciprocating saw? Bone cuts pretty quickly when using a recipro saw.

Er... scratch that last.

Maybe I need therapy.
 
I thought your filmmaking was good, esp if this is your first short.

Though I have to admit, I simply do not understand the whole genre I call: "Violence porn." I go to the NYC Horror Fest, and every year there is more and more of this stuff. It's not scary. It's not suspenseful. It's like a porn movie, concerned with little else than: "how much more can we show?"

Anyway, not my taste, but I was impressed with your filmmaking, esp for a first short. You have other stuff you've made since?
 
Other than the already stated continuity errors in the audio that I caught immediately (better recut that audio. smooth it out) there wasn't all that much I'd change about it. Neat prod. design and good lighting. The tools he used were great and the guy bound was really good. My only real problems with it (besides audio) were the blood on the plastic sheet, which just didn't have much of a dramatic punch to it, and the guy doing the damage. He just didn't menacing enough. Or better yet, his actions didn't imply that he had a real purpose for hurting this guy. It wasn't stated until the end. This is carried on the actor's shoulders of course, but you might want to watch out for stuff like this in the future. If he's pissed or even just bothered about something, and he wants to get back at this guy, he's typically going to show a little more emotion instead of just cutting, grabbing a new tool, cutting some more, and driving away.
One last thing: Personally, I think there is too much close up time in the beginning with the guy tied up. Maybe you should've cut to a sort of medium shot before the second man appeared. I don't know, just a thought.

Great work though. I really liked it. Stuff like this is always fun to watch. Keep it up man. :)
 
Thanks for the comments. As far as back story, I had a lot of other stuff written but I never got a chance to shoot it. The story I had was about 30 min, but I had only 4 min to work with. I tried to tie in a bit of story at the very end, with the pictures. If you notice(its kinda dark, sorry), the creep if you will, gets into the car and looks at the picture hanging in the rear view mirror of him and a girl. Then rips it off and tosses it onto the seat next to him, which has a bunch or poorly printed pictures of the victim and the girl together. In the long story the car was not the victims, but the house was. I like the "Violence Porn" comment, and I agree this is not scary or suspenseful, and I hate it. I can't begin to explain how much I hate it, I edited it for 2 weeks, and did sound for another week and a half. So all I heard for 3 and a half weeks was his feeble screaming and sounds of power tools. I had fun making fake blood and tossing it around though. I don't think I'll make anything like a torture film ever again, but maybe a straight forward horror, I don't know yet. I haven't shot anything worth showing since, but I'm going to shoot a 20min short this summer which I'm very excited about. Again, thanks for all the comments guys!
 
That's very cool that you're aware of the whole "Violence porn" thing and that you're striving for more in your work. That alone puts you way above Eli Roth! :)

Keep shooting!
 
Here's some stuff I cut out of the final. I had made so much blood and I only used about 5% of it, so here's some more blood work for all to enjoy :) If you look closely you can see my friend swinging the light back and forth at the beginning and end of the clip.

H.264 BIG
 
I think its really well done considering its your first short. I think you have just the right amount of close ups in the beginning. It made me feel uncomfortable which is what you want. If you cut that too short i would be afraid you would lose some of the emotion. Maybe cut down like 5 seconds of the close ups but thats it. I understood the whole plot but not till the end. Which could be good or bad. I think it depends what type of movie goer you are. I guess you could have had the torture guy slap a picture of the girl and the guy hugging on the torturees lap then hold up the drill and start torturing. I think that could have shown the viewer right off the bat that he is a pissed (and slightly distubred) boyfriend. But it was well done. The plastic all over the place gave it a nice clostraphobic feel. Good job.

PS Eli Roth owes you at least one mil. :)
 
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