4 Minute Short

Justin said:
One thing I had a little trouble believing was the character's decision to take the drug. It would have been nice to at least have a few of those quick shots showing more monotony and him contemplating on taking them. Maybe him opening the drawer and shutting it.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. If I could pick up another shot it would be him haven taken the drug just staring into empty space. Not checking himself or anything like that but just a very blank period where your guessing whats gonna happen and looking for an indication in his blank face.

I spent a few weeks learning shake and replaced the sky in the last shot. It was originally a typical crap overcast UK day so I raised the saturation, tracked and luma keyed the sky out.

We used the standard lens and did the typical things to get shallow depth. We shot alot of the scenes on a high shutter.

It's very strange how things end up. Lately I've been studying Harmony Korine's style and I was hoping that more of his influence would shine through. When I watch the film I struggle to see any! Maybe I should just use Polaroids and super 8 next time... I love his vision and hopefully after writing my dissertation more of his influence will filter through to my next film I'm shooting early 2006. The next one's a ten minute film and the finale of my university degree. It's gotta be good - there's no other option!

We dont have much choice over the kit we can use. The technicians disabled the anamorphic function on the camera which really pissed me off. If anyone knows how to re-enable this function your advice would be greatly appreciated! The cam doesnt do 24p which is another annoyance and the de-interlaced footage looks noticeably less sharp.

~Thanks for your comments everyone.
 
Nice one! Liked the claustrophobic close ups and the high shutter speed to bring
out his stressfull working day.As someone earlier commented, reminded me a little of shaun of the dead(water sink, knob). Acting was good, and I liked the shallow depth and the cinematography overall. The most important thing is that it kept me entertained and interested through the whole story. Nice work man, and I wish that I could download it to my computer so I could closely watch over many of the shots again. :thumbsup:
 
I really liked this one. The editing was great, the acting was good, I loved the close up's, and whatever camera you filmed that last scene with was amazing. The colors were vivid.
Good Job.
 
Danm, this was so on the money I can't even articulate it. This is my fav of anything I've seen on this forum. (no offence to anyone else, there's always great work here.).

The pace, story...f u c k man, really outstanding work. You should be very proud of yourself.

If you are willing, I'd love to know some of the other details of the shoot. How many days, budget, specific gear etc.

Again, great job. Please post more often.

-rook
 
Thanks rook; Some details off the top of my head..

Budget was about £350 which could have been alot less if I hadnt spent money on crap I didnt use e.g 2 projector bulbs (£20), answering machine that didnt work (£10), Office location @ £20 per/hr etc. etc.

We didnt have to rent the equipment which was;

- Panasonic DVC-PRO 615, (DVX100a (my own)), Vinten Tripod, Monitor, 1x redhead, 2 x meiser, 1 x blonde (Cables, gels etc.)
- SQN 3 plus seinheiser shotgun mic.
- Track which was a simple (and wank) plastic pipes + H frame.

We had 2 days to shoot and shot for about 8 Hrs a day.

Post ;

FCP 4.5, Magic Bullet and Shake.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks for the info Danm.

I just showed your short to a few friends and they all agree. Killer job.

-rook
 
Hey, I´m a big fan of Harmony Korine too! What is exactly the "Harmony Korine style" you´re studying? The acting, the subjects, the slow motions?

You´re film is GREAT. You just forgot to tell us which shots were DVX100.

Cheers!
 
Wow! Wow! Wow! The style reminds me of those TV shows like Alias and stuff. Awesoome man. you should work on a feature film. The lighting inside the office and the dolly shots in the office were awesome! 5 out of 5. Def. sweet end shot. The sky looked incredible. Wouldn' be surprised if you said that was fake cause it looked amazing! Awesome! Keep working on it dude! Peace!

hey, what did you use for lighting and for CC? thanks!
 
ok..
DVX was used for the fridge cam, bin cam and bottle cam :)

Gumonstro I'm just gonna reel off a rather incoherrent list of words which summarise why/what it is that appeals to me so much about Korines work. Here goes; Absurdity, montage, abstract, dirty, mistakism, visionary, dirty, poem, music, digression, provocative, dissarming, anti-analytical. If your reading this and havent seen any of Korine's films, do a search on imdb for 'Julien Donkey-Boy' + 'Gummo". Apart from the techniques of his audio/visual style I'm looking at the way he (and many others) disregard typical cinema narrative/plots.

I've recorded a whole bunch of quotes from interviews with him. I think he talks a lot of crap and half the time I dont know whether I'm reading fiction or fact but every interview I read inspires me.

"Again, I don't really have any kind of social insight or commentary to my movies. I could begin to dissect them in a kind of analytical way but that's really boring for me. I'd rather jump out a ****in' window and shoot myself. I just do what I do because, like Bresson has said, that if there's no image there that existed that you'd want to see then you create your own images. That's a kind of self-fulfilled prophecy of sorts. To me there wasn't those images so I made them, that's the only reason. If they had've existed I would've quit or not made the movie." - Korine

99% of the movies I watch bore me. You can just see the same crap being recycled over and over. I have no particular talent. I just do what I do and keep making stuff. If people ask me any question beginning with 'Why..?' I'll generally come unstuck and turn into an incoherrent mess. To me it isnt about meaning and conscious intellectualism its about luck, passion and feeling.

When I submit this film to be marked on Friday the synopsis I have given is;

This film is about the mundane life of an office worker which is transformed through his experimentation with drugs. The transformation is shown through the breakdown of a repeated pattern and style. The film doesnt patronize the audience by showing the consequences of his actions in a need to communicate moral and meaning. Instead it is left open at the point of exctasy for an audience to formulate their own opinions.

(what do you think of this? already it annoys me because I like the film without having to give it a synopsis or a 'meaning'.)

The CC was done in Magic Bullet. I used the Neo preset and changed the tint colours and toned it down a bit. It made my skin tones purple which I didnt like so I had to reduce its intensity. I also used some misfire Vignette. If you notice, when the foot rises and the hand clenches the colours are crossdisolved from cold/unsaturated to warm/saturated.

Well this is the end of my post! I hate talking about films because I think its so bloody subjective. I'm conscious of hogging this board so if you havent seen it already go see Judo's post - Sapporo 72 (http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=39766) His films are much better.
 
Hey danm, when I watched Gummo for the first time I was horrified by how true that all looked to me. I couldn´t believe I was watching such film. Then I thought that maybe doing a film like that is so easy that I asked myself: why there are so few like Gummo? you just have to show things AS THEY ARE. why people can´t do this?

It´s like if Harmony Korine has deleted from his memories all the cinematographic concepts he had and made a movie without knowing anything about movie language. He was creating his own language as the movie went on.

I can say it´s a genious idea, though I think that if all directors begin to think like that, we´ll have a serious problem on those days when all we want is to watch a good thriller, like Bourne Identity.

IMO, the best lesson Harmony Korine teaches is: there´s no film dictionary. You can make your own book of rules. Just have one thing in mind: show things AS THEY ARE.

Don´t like talking about films this way too. I always think I´m being silly. :)
 
Wow.

The cinematography and acting really carried this well. I found myself smiling at the end, almost a sort of euphoric high. Something I rarely experience with short films.

During the first 3.5 minutes of the film, I felt like I was going to vomit - very anxiety-inducing. When the end came, and you finally pulled back from the tight, claustrophobic shots, I really appreciated those beautiful wide angles. I've definately learned a few things from this.

Great job, and good luck, man.
 
Hello, I cant see the film, when i click on the lick a page saying founder not found pops out, any help?
 
Very nice.

Drea...after clicking on the link...back track to the directory page and then select the 'minor' file...

then select the first large movie file.
 
Wow, very well done! The look on his face while he was sitting at his desk was priceless! What an inspirational short.
 
lol didn't see this was posted a while back, don't know how could've missed it. loved it. for some reason i really loved the short cuts when he was on his way to work on the bus. also the telephone scene where you just see the wires.

great work :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top