72 hour film contest entry DVX100A

C

citycyclone

Member
Hey guys, want to share a short I directed for a 72 hour film contest last week. We got an email on friday that stated our genre, piece of dialogue, prop, and a character. Then we had till monday to complete the short and send off.

genre= sci-fi and/or super hero
prop= magnifying glass
character= Kelly Blair (sales person)
dialogue= "it's so crazy, it just might work"

Anyways, just wanted to get people's opinion on what we came up with in less than 72 hours. Had a hard time cutting it down to fit into the 10 minute requirement too. The directors cut should be better. Reason is I can add back in scenes and/or parts of scenes to better flow the story. Ah well, I think we might have a good chance, who knows. Take it for what it is and keep in mind, it was a weekend deal.

http://www.htr2.net/videos/contest.wmv

Be gentle, I bruise easily. :)

Will Molina
CityCyclone
 
Hey Will - Great story man. I really liked it. Amazing bit considering it was written,shot and edited in 72 hours. I thought the fight scene in the warehouse was great. Loved the use of the column and locked down edits.

I must critique though so here goes.
********** SPOILERS BELOW ***********
1. Delivery guy wearing the weasel t-shirt. :thumbdown Should have put him in "brown" even without the UPS patches would have made me believe he was a "delivery guy". I mean after all you even had the electronic tablet for her to sign. Dress that dude up!

2. Building exterior where the uncle worked. It looked like an old warehouse or something instead of the type of classy techno facility that would use a stick of memory as a key access. :beer:

3. Hologram lipsync issue. Very cool visual but the audio being out of sync just made me not like it.

4. The dream sequence where she sees her friend get pulled into the house by "death". Should have been on a dolly rolling back to reveal her or on a tripod and let her walk into it. The handheld work was shaky where it shouldn't have been. (very subjective, I know)

5. Audio in the car where she learns of her friend death. It sounded like it was clipped off at the beginning, sort of like we missed some info just before the scene.












BTW - I love seeing a woman get out of a full bathtub still fully clothed. NICE!:evil:
 
Will,

I was hoping to see some Filmerica works on this forum. Nice.

Great intro man. My download stopped just as Kelly Blair came to the door, though. I'll try it out later. Great so far.

We, Bear Hole Films got the same genre, and oh, had a ball. It was the last genre on all of our lists; we were hoping for western/ classic. We ended up with a sci-fi/ comedy piece.

Please check it out here:
http://www.carholestudios.com/bearholefilms/

Film facts: 31megs, all grain and color was done in camera, XL2.

Thanks, andrew
 
sirius, thanks for the positive words and the critisism. I totally agree with you on all the things you said and pointed out. I'm surprised we pulled off half of what we did in the time.

The delivery wasn't suppose to be a delivery guy, it was suppose to be a lawyer bringing like a last will and testament... lawyer flaked on us, so I asked the guy who owned the house if he would just deliver something, yea sloppy and quick. Heh.

The building exterior was a wherehouse though, you're right. Didn't have a nice looking outside, plus maybe he had a "secret lab" hidden from normal people.

The hologram audio sync, yup saw that one a mile away but it would have been a lot more trouble than it was worth, mostly because that speech was like 5 times longer, so we cut the audio and then did a few cut aways to her in order to cut down the video running time as well. Another tragedy of the time shortage.

Man I can't agree with you more on the dolly shot with the girl getting taken into the place. By this time, sunday morning at 3am, my brain was fried and I just didn't think of using the tripod. I couldn't see straight anymore. It kills me to watch that part, how shaky.

Once again, you're right. The car audio was clipped, I couldn't fix it, didn't plug in the sound fx until monday at noon, just didn't have time to go back to my sound dude to fix the clip. damn time restraint.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to point things out, much appreciated.
 
No problem. Just wish I could get motivated to do in a month what you accomplished in 72 hours.

You should fix those shots and re-release the "directors cut" for us to all see. Great work.
 
Will,

Excellent entry for a 72 hour contest.

I was very impressed with the first half.

It seemd like in the second half though like you were struggling to get in all the story that you wanted.

I wonder if you story goals weren't a little aggressive given your time constraints (both 72 hours and ten minutes).

I recently competed in a 24 hour contest (http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=30786) and it was the same with many of the entries there.

Still, there were many wonderful moments. I love the Mary Kay lady and many of your shots of the leading actress were beautiful and dramatic.

I think if you had the time this could have been very special.

Chris
 
I thought it was pretty cool a little corny at a few times but for a timed project...nice job. Why did you go for 4x3 though? Thats just not my favorite look
 
CM, thanks for your comments. I agree with you on the my goals being too agressive for the retraints we had. If we would have had more time we could have carefully paced out the story more and fixed many of the issues that I just didn't have the time to fix. Taken shots more carefully ect... Ah well, I'm proud of everyone that worked on it because for 72 hours we set expectations quite high, and we actually managed to complete it. I'm going to cut a longer director's cut to better tell the story and fix the problems I see. Hopefully we can use that version to enter it into other short film contests or something.
 
Nobody356 said:
I thought it was pretty cool a little corny at a few times but for a timed project...nice job. Why did you go for 4x3 though? Thats just not my favorite look
Click to expand...


I can agree with the cornyness of it. Hehe, some parts we hoped would fit and wouldn't stand out too much. overall, like you said, for a 72 hour contest it's alright. I prefer a wide look too, but the requirement for the contest was 4x3... why? I have no idea why... that's just how they wanted it. If it was in the 16x9 at least it would have given a more movie feel than 4x3. Ah well. I hate 4x3 too. Thanks for commenting though, much appreciated.
 
Nobody356 said:
np. that is wierd that they'r require 4x3 who do they think they are? Anyways good work
Click to expand...

You can put in in 16 by 9, just not anamorphic - it had to be letterboxed so they don't have to keep switching their TV/Projection settings for the actual screening.

That, and face it - widescreen is so passe and amateurish IMO - If you can't frame 4 by 3 full screen properly, you should rethink your career.
 
flyerland said:
You can put in in 16 by 9, just not anamorphic - it had to be letterboxed so they don't have to keep switching their TV/Projection settings for the actual screening.

That, and face it - widescreen is so passe and amateurish IMO - If you can't frame 4 by 3 full screen properly, you should rethink your career.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you flyerland. Those dumbasses DaVinci and Pythagoras had no idea what they were talking about with the Golden Ratio.
http://fotogenetic.dearingfilm.com/golden_rectangle.html

What an ass I've been. That's it. I'm smashing my anamorphic lens with a hammer.

Or maybe I should just quit like nobody356 should. What morons we all are, along with every director of major motion pictures.

Oh and this guy is such an amateur. He's a dvxuser member who actually shoots cinescope --- THE FOOL!
http://www.pinelakefilms.com/magicalfall.html
God his stuff looks like cack, and he gets very little respected around here. His handle is desjecta, maybe you should PM him, flyerland, and tell him its time hang it up.

No really -- since anyone who prefers to shoot a wider aspect ratio clearly can't shoot within the challenging confines of a SYMETRICAL SQUARE – ooohhh … REALLY!

NO REALLY?!?
:thumbsup:
 
good job

good job

oh BTW,

Nice work citycylcone. Sorry to rant on your thread.
My comments on the work have already been echoed by others.
I thought there was some great lighting moments, I think I remeber some multicolored backlight in the lab scene.


I particiapated as well but due to a rendering issue we got our film off a day late, so we can be judged and know how we did comparitively, we just can't get the title or the goodies. Which we couldn't have won any way, though, since I letterboxed to 2.35 to 1 which only a fool would do, apparantly.

I'm still dealing with worklfow issues (we outputted to tape, not DVD) and once I figure out how to get the frickin' sequence compressed correctly I'll post as well.
:beer:
 
jdanstan said:
I totally agree with you flyerland. Those dumbasses DaVinci and Pythagoras had no idea what they were talking about with the Golden Ratio.
http://fotogenetic.dearingfilm.com/golden_rectangle.html

What an ass I've been. That's it. I'm smashing my anamorphic lens with a hammer.

Or maybe I should just quit like nobody356 should. What morons we all are, along with every director of major motion pictures.

Oh and this guy is such an amateur. He's a dvxuser member who actually shoots cinescope --- THE FOOL!
http://www.pinelakefilms.com/magicalfall.html
God his stuff looks like cack, and he gets very little respected around here. His handle is desjecta, maybe you should PM him, flyerland, and tell him its time hang it up.

No really -- since anyone who prefers to shoot a wider aspect ratio clearly can't shoot within the challenging confines of a SYMETRICAL SQUARE – ooohhh … REALLY!

NO REALLY?!?
:thumbsup:
Click to expand...

ah I hate film school brats.
 
flyerland said:
ah I hate film school brats.
Click to expand...


(sound of buzzer)

Wrong again.

Zero film school! :grin:

LMAO

Just feel it's pretty "amateurish" to call letterbox amateurish, and passé since there are actual aesthetic and narrative reasons for using it that have to do with framing as opposed to just "wanting to be film like".

And my rant had more to do with the fact, actually, that I find it fairly rude and presumptuous -- dare I say "bratty" even -- to suggest that people who prefer it don't know how to frame for 4:3 and should therefore rethink their careers.

As for film school ... watch the director commentary on Die Hard. McTiernan explains that he has Willis small in the left side of frame at the beginning of the movie, dwarfed by the grand architecture of the corporate office building, when Willis's character is out of his element and coming with his hat in his hand to make amends with his wife on her home ground. When the action starts and he can shift into cop mode however, more familiar territory, he crosses the screen left to right, and is often framed large in the right side of the screen now as the hero. Since we read right to left, and because of the way the shots were composed, we would start before with Willis small in the lower corner and wind up with our eye on the set. Now we start on the left and wind up with Willis taking up the right side of the frame, our destination point.

Now all of this may sound like bull to you, but I would suggest that it does have an impact on the way the movie is perceived and the way the story is told through framing. In 4:3, there's less of a cross to make, less difference between the sides, and the effect would be less dramatic / have less resonance, and because you have to shoot at such a wide angle to get the actor full body in the lower half of the screen, you can get a much more majestic or grand composition featuring the set, should your narrative call for impressive overpowering edifices.

This is just one example of using aspect ratio to help tell the story, before you even get into the fact that it just allows for more interesting compositions for their own sake.

I liked your film by the way and though the general concept pretty appealing and developed given the time constraints.

I'm having all sorts of issues with compression and Final Cut Pro, which is why my film was turned in to Filmerica a day late and on tape only -- we'll still get scored and will know how we did comparatively (who we scored higher or lower than and in what categories) but we just can't win the title or prizes.

When I get my compression issues solved, I'll get my film online and you can make fun of me. I shot with the LCD taped over for 16X9 so I could letter box in post, but decided to go all the way to 2.35 to 1 as our category was "Western or Classic", and we did a Film Noir detective story. Anyway I say you can make fun of me because --as I am not a film school grad and this was my first serious attempt -- I wound up framing things in the center a bit too much, especially for that super wide aspect ratio I wound up using.
 
flyerland said:
LMAO - Zero school for you I can tell.
Click to expand...
Woops. Need more sleep.

surfing DVXuser with eyes glazed over at 3AM waiting for stuff to render.

Got Compressor running. Had to buy a legit version so I could download latest version to work around a known bug in the program. I'm exporting the DVD version and all the web versions at once and after 5 hours it has 17 to go still!!!
 
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