A DVX short for your entertainment/critique

Steve Strickland

Steve Strickland

Well-known member
Hi Everyone. I've been a long-time poster/lurker, but have never posted any work. Here is a short I made last summer under my directing alias of Xavier Watkins. It's a day-in-the life piece about two blue collar dead body transport workers from Ed's Ice & Transport. The slightly shortened web version is about 15 min. long and 91mb. It's in the .mp4 format, so I hope everyone can play it.

*WARNING* Adult language and content. If you're easily offended, please don't watch.

Here's the link:

http://www.thedeadbeatmovie.com/webdeadbeat.mp4

(please right click and save)

Here are a couple of stills.

1187674460.jpg

1187674440.jpg


Thanks for watching.
 
I liked it. I think that the main two actors are good, but inconsistent. It seems like they had trouble keeping their energy up and really staying in character the whole time. For the most part, I thought the shot choices were really great. There were a few times where you noticeably broke the line, and it was a little disorienting. Also, the times when you used ADR, it was very noticeable--maybe you have a sound guy who can sweeten up that audio to make it sound more like the source?

The only note I would make on the script is that it was unclear (to me) why they went to the drug dealer's place at first. I don't know if that was intentional, or if I missed something, but I couldn't tell where they were going or who this guy was until he showed them the drugs. Other than that, I think the script's very sharp.

Nice work.
 
Thanks for commenting, I appreciate it. I thought no one was going to reply.

Your criticism is spot on. The film crew consisted of me, the guy who played the drug dealer holding the boom, and a girl script supervising. My "sound guy" had never held a boom, and I was constantly telling him the mic was pointing the wrong way. haha. So, I had to do a lot of ADR. By this I mean flying to see my friends/actors in Colorado and recording without any kind of visual reference. Totally ghetto. It was really hard to match up. The sound eq is all just my lack of skill in audio matching/mixing.

It was hard to keep my actors motivated in the midst of a humid Virginia heat wave. The ambulance didn't have a.c., and they weren't happy campers. Sometimes I was happy to just be able to say their lines without bitching.:laugh:

Yeah, I crossed the line a few times. Just another learning experience for me. I'm gearing up for my next film. Hopefully, I can learn by my mistakes, and at least not make the same ones this time. If anything, I'll hire a real sound man to get the audio on point.

Thanks again for watching and replying.

-RW
 
Richie White said:
Hi Everyone. I've been a long-time poster/lurker, but have never posted any work. Here is a short I made last summer under my directing alias of Xavier Watkins. It's a day-in-the life piece about two blue collar dead body transport workers from Ed's Ice & Transport. The slightly shortened web version is about 15 min. long and 91mb. It's in the .mp4 format, so I hope everyone can play it.

*WARNING* Adult language and content. If you're easily offended, please don't watch.

Here's the link:

http://www.thedeadbeatmovie.com/webdeadbeat.mp4

(please right click and save)

Here are a couple of stills.

1187674460.jpg

1187674440.jpg


Thanks for watching.
Click to expand...
The camera angles and coverage were solid and the montage sequences were well done overall.
However, there seemed to be quite a few problems with exposure. Too many shots seemed to be underexposed. (ie: 2 shot in car at beginning) I even noticed in once scene, auto exposure kicking into play when one of the actors passes in front of the camera. Use auto to set you approximate exposure, and then tweak it from there. Make sure to use zebra so you don't get deceived too much by the LCD.

One other thing I didn't particularly care for was the music selection in the first scene. I wasn't really paying much attention to the dialog, it was a bit distracting to me. Maybe play with some Eq or different music selection.
 
Thanks for the input salils.

I totally agree with you on the exposure issue, and it was a nightmare to work with in post. The driving scene seemed to get darker through compression, but it was still a little on the dark side to begin with. The auto did kick in during that one scene, and it killed me to see it in the dailies. I knew that someone here would catch that. Haha. That was the first scene shot of the film, and I was a little overwhelmed. I'm really aware of my shortcomings in the exposure area, and I'm making it a priority to improve upon. Note to self, zebras are my friends.:D

Thanks a again for watching. I appreciate the feedback.
 
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