A Strange Confession

J Davis

J Davis

Veteran
Here's a little movie I made. I started a thread while I was filming it last year but I couldn't put the complete edit online because I would disqualify myself from festivals. But finally here it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3ehQ3dtzPM

• commentary about locations
• a video of influences
• quotes from actors and musicians
• full credits
... is here at this blog post http://jdmax.com/a-strange-confession/

Thanks for watching

edit:
Canon T2i and Nikon AIs primes, two system audio with H4N, Rode NTG2 and Sound Devices MM1.
 
Last edited:
Okay, so I watched it...

*SPOILERS*






- I thought the score was overpowering in the beginning and in the segment where she's alone nearer the end
- I felt like the pacing could use work...perhaps in the delivery of dialogue more than the cutting (but there could be a tighter edit in my opinion as well)
- The acting felt a little stiff. The girl was good, the guy felt forced and artificial...likely due to inexperience
- A couple things that irked me was when she broke his back, there seemed to be very little pain. I thought she disabled him somehow, but finding out that his back was broken pulled me out of it. Also, when she slit his wrist to pour in the glass, she would have HAD to do it across his wrist to limit the blood flow and still have him coherent. Doing it across, also wouldn't have killed him though..
- I also would have liked to hear some blood dripping in the vase that she put out for that reason. Sound left a bit to be desired.

Overall, it was well shot and well lit. You had great cinematic moments and a very strong ending. I would see about tightening up the edit before sending off to festivals.

Kegan

EDIT: Just realized you said this was filmed last year..
 
Last edited:
To much air in my opinion, the edit needs to be tighter. Also would have liked to have heard some soft music or something in many scenes as it just sounds off. Really need something in the sound department even if it's just ambient ones. The quality, lighting et.c all look fine but the pacing is just off. I honestly think you could cut this down a couple of minutes and make it tighter. I mean when the girl broke the dudes back it was like nothing....Wtf? How about doing something that the viewer can feel the pain and emotion being felt. Also that male actor is to stiff. I have to mention the edit again as you flip from a left side to a full front side and it just looks very un natural almost like a jump cut.

Personal opinion is movies are very difficult to make and one should work on something smaller than larger until they get it perfect, sorry but this is just not very good in my opinion.
 
thanks for watching and for the comments.

about the pacing, its not for everyone, but its intentional - think wim wenders!
 
Last edited:
nicely done

a bit slow, and not grasping in the beginning, but it gets a lot better at the end

I share the concerns above about the back thing and the glass thing (maybe you didn't have the means to do anything more "spectacular", maybe you just chose to tone it down... too much)

also, I learnt something: if you use shallow DoF all around but conservatively switch to deep DoF for the steadycam shot following the lady in order to keep focus, it looks kid of weird; probably 99.99% of people wouldn't even notice, and probably I was over-conscious about the shallow DoF because you had just done a big (and beautiful) focus pull, but still, that cut called my attention too much: first she was sepparated from the world around her, then she was just pleasantly walking in the garden
 
Justin Kuhn said:
I liked the bit where she filed her fangs.
Click to expand...

a pic for Justin, her filing her teeth is one of my favorite scenes and a non-cliche opener

6198392999_a206b121ba_z.jpg



@ Norman - about the rack focus then cut to steadycam at 10:55, during the edit I never noticed, but I see what you're saying. Normally you would cut from shallow dof on a close up, to deep dof on a wide. I really should have had the dof more shallow on that steadycam medium close up shot.
BTW, thats me walking with the camera and using smoothcam to stabilize it, I didn't have budget for a proper steadycam.
For lighting I used one of Richard's coollights LED256 units with battery on the end of a boom pole. Carried by crew walking with us = portable moonlight!

About the back breaking.
My first edit had a nice loud crunching sound. But it didn't feel right and I spent almost a whole day placing different volume levels on that back break! So I'll go through my reasoning here.

It goes back to the writing stage - with quite a bit of research on paralyzing victims and different techniques that Catherine could apply. When writing I decided on a spine break because it immobilizes someone, paralyzes them and then she could have her dinner conversation ritual. We've all seen the cliche scene in a movie "hey I can't feel my legs" – so that is what I wanted to do but not in a cliche way.

I thought about the process of an accident where someone gets there spine broken. The actual breaking of the spine causes you to lose feeling and not feel pain or anything from the waist down. But lets say this were to happen in a car accident. Then the pain you would feel would be from all the other injuries like bruising to the face, arms, other broken limbs - from the waist up.

In this case, it is a perfect clean spine break from an inhumanly powerful creature. Nothing else is damaged or hurt. I came to the conclusion that this act is not causing pain - it is removing pain / feeling, and mobility. We decided to act it thru with only the barest grimace of pain followed by confusion from the part of the victim, then the victim's realization as to what happened. The choice of a low volume break sound is because I wanted the audience to identify with the 'what just happened?' feeling that the victim had. The plan was for the audience to realize what had happened after the back break had occurred. I'm hoping that it worked.

edit:
earlier I mentioned Richard's coollights. Actually all lighting in this film was from Richards lights. Thanks Richard.
 
Last edited:
I was on a tight budget so I only had three of your coollights. Two of the led256's and one of your dimmable flo's with the two tubes.
Was there any shot in particular you were interested in?
 
Maybe the shots around the beginning at the table where they were talking and she was going to drink the blood.
 
spoilers below............................


Some amazing shots! Loved the look you gave the film all throughout. Great choice in using a red walled apartment too. Fits in real well with story. And terrific use of the church! Really liked the way you used the camera. Especially for the last scene! That was a strong choice to film the vampire through the screen and to film her directly looking into the camera.

Acting... The vampire performed well! The end was the best part for me. Thought she really hit a home run there!
I thought she nailed most of it too, she followed the man around like a disciplined sort of shark. ( with her eyes and her body language, etc. )
the man was only ok. he played the dying part well, but he was off in other parts, he looked choreographed. ... He didn't seem in love with her. He didn't have that passion that would make him remove his cross. And I think she would've played off even better if he did. She'd have to almost fend him off until he removed his cross. It seemed as if she was looking to work with something more there, something that never quite arrives.
And he wasn't quite believable where he spoke to her of her fate while he began to die.
And that's not only on him, that's also the story/script i suppose. I wished for something like, " I am now to off to see God... I am not afraid," then pause and then we can see this sort of relief for he finds that he truly is a man of God. He has faith. And then he turns and sees her. His reason for dying. and instead of anger, he feels sadness for her, for he loves her and she is lost. tragedy. Then his words will hit more like a freight train when he says them to her. i guess i missed the power of this scene because i cannot feel for him or his death at all. he does not come off as real but only as a device for her, and that's ok because this is a short but i, as a viewer, cannot so obviously know him to be a device or for me the game is up. does this make sense? I hope so, lol.


The music... i thought it mostly worked ok. i liked how you kept it out while the man was dying. I really didn't like the end music after she asks , " where is my soul." the music cheapens the scene. That scene is soooo good. leave it alone there.

Loved the transition at 10:37. Real cool!

Also liked the different telling on the vampire story as a whole. Neat question posed here.
All in all I liked your film!
Congrats!
 
Cool Lights said:
Maybe the shots around the beginning at the table where they were talking and she was going to drink the blood.
Click to expand...


4843712167_db9d277d78_z.jpg



I used the dimmable flo with two bulbs (cl-255pmd) on the right to light him, you can see the fall off casting half of his face in shadow (like he is falling into shadow). Its also catching the wooden chest of drawers behind him. I have both led256's on her and they are each side of the camera. The one on the left is flagged so it catches her shoulder but not the back of her head, the other catches her face and hair. There's no rim lighting. The back wall has a practical on the left on a dimmer. There is another identical practical lamp on a stool behind him thats catching the back wall behind his head. This same hidden lamp is causing the unusual shadows from the wine rack - these shadows go contra to the lamp they are next to.
 
hoz said:
he looked choreographed. ... He didn't seem in love with her. He didn't have that passion that would make him remove his cross. And I think she would've played off even better if he did.
Click to expand...

My production plan for this film was to rehearse a lot with the actors so that during the shoot I could concentrate on cinematography. And to this end I succeeded. But this film is probably going to be the last time I am operating the camera as my work as a director is being hindered. There were problems and tensions that arose because of scheduling difficulties and I think they show in the acting. Its easy to point a finger but things are not as they seem. Maybe if I had not been so caught up with being a cinematographer ...

Anyway for the time being I've pushed cinematography as far as I want to go. I've reached a turning point and my new series 'Just Actors' is where I avoid cinematography. This way I can concentrate on actors methods and create a base for the feature I am writing.

hoz said:
Really liked the way you used the camera. Especially for the last scene! That was a strong choice to film the vampire through the screen and to film her directly looking into the camera.
Click to expand...

The end is the only POV shot in the film ... glad you picked up on that. Actually everything was written around this end shot with her looking thru the mesh screen and into the lens. My goal was to have her stare at the audience and have the audience stare back ... and have absolutely nothing happen. No dialogue. Nothing but tension building. All done with facial expressions. She is a RADA graduate so I knew she could do it. But still we did 50 takes. We put a lot of work in that scene.

It was fantastic to sit in a theater in Manhattan and during this moment, I stood out of my seat near a wall and watched the audience. The 'pregnant pause' lasts a full 30 seconds and no one in the audience broke away their eye contact! Its was beautiful.


hoz said:
I thought she nailed most of it too, she followed the man around like a disciplined sort of shark.
Click to expand...


lol cris you crack me up. I'm looking forward to reading these sketches your planning you crazy cat
 
Last edited:
Interesting short.

Beautiful to look at for sure. Sounded great on my iPad as well. What did you have the input level set to on the H4N?
I really liked the lead, she was good. Slow pacing wasn't that bad for me. I liked it.

The breaking back scene seemed a little odd to me. I think it was mostly the reaction to it.
The story worked. Loved the ending.

The cinematography was lovely.

Nicely done.
 
Hi and thanks for watching Michael. Its not an H4n its the older H4. It has a mic/line selector switch for the xlr so I choose line and feed it from my Sound Devices MM1
 
Hey J. Davis, thanks for sending me the link. I thought it was an interesting take on a Vampire movie, a bit different than the usual genre fare, and I enjoyed it. My only main crit. would be I wish some of the shots were more varied, probably a bit more close ups / extreme close ups to make it more intimate. But yes, good job.
 
Well done!
(love the slider shot @ 11:34)

Beautiful lighing and great locations. The ONLY thing I might have tried (IMHO) was a very slow dolly in on her face @ 12:50 instead of her move towards the camera.
Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top