BLACKOUT - A Chris Curl Film

About to watch it now...:beer: My you-know-whats tingle with anticipation.


EDIT! Chris...ummm...how do I put this gently. Email me so we can talk about YOUR EPIC GENIUSNESS(sic)! I love.

!!!!! <--- That.
 
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Good job Chris.

What distracts me a bit is, the guy with the red shirt is almost all the time out of focus.
Is there any intention in this super narrow DOF or did you shoot open because of light issues?

Frank
 
Thanks, glad you liked it, so yes, there are focus issues and they are in no way intentional, I had just gotten my lens adapter a couple days before and I didn't have it set up correctly before we shot, and we underlit those shots as well, oh yeah, and I was using a zoom lens, another nono. Not a good combination, it was late in the game and I reshot the things I could but there was no opportunity to do it all over... lesson learned.


Postmaster said:
Good job Chris.

What distracts me a bit is, the guy with the red shirt is almost all the time out of focus.
Is there any intention in this super narrow DOF or did you shoot open because of light issues?

Frank
Click to expand...
 
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I loved this film! The story really sold it and helped gloss over the focus problem. Would make an interesting FEATURE...
 
Very cool film. The conversations seem choppy but the story does help to ignore it.... the music is great too! I love superhuman movies!
 
I enjoyed this one greatly - technically and story-wise. You could very well expand this to a feature if you'd like. My only complaint would be Marshall's execution of is lines. I think that he was a good fit for the role, but maybe needed some more coaching in delivering his lines with more emotion and clearly.

Kegan
 
Chris: I liked what you did with the storyline and film as a whole (barring focus issues) but this isn't a short film.

You have a nice setup and you take us through his loss, but that part seems glossed over to get to the Thunderbolt character and set this up to be a feature or a longer story. I felt that if you had dwelled on the loss of his power and how he now has to cope with being normal.... dude that's gotta screw up his whole routine in a major way. Things that he took for granted before.. now all gone. The gradual devolution would have been nice to see and would have been more complete as a story, especially if Thunderbolt only entered with an offer at the end.

Right now its just a setup for a bigger story and yes it leaves me wanting more, but doesn't leave me with a feeling of completion.

You have a great eye and a good story, but develop the human side a little more, what makes us connect to the characters and you'll have a GREAT story. Remember, it's not the powers we can relate to.. it's how the person deals with the power itself that endears us to them.

Good luck in your filmmaking and I'm really lookign forward to seeing more from you.. and especially where you can take this story (major hint: feature or series)
 
Stop hurting superheroes people... just out of curiosity, if it was they were the result of a military project, wouldn't they be super soldiers not really super heroes? Just nitpicking, I dug it. Loved the lighting, tense mood, and I liked thunderbolt. It just sucks that the hero wants to strike a deal with a "bad guy"
 
Great film.

I dug the story and the whole look of it. The opening shots in particular are wonderful - that silhouette of him in the bathroom door is phenomenal. I really loved your lead actor - he had a great face an I felt his pain. I also like how you ended it with the voice under the credits. Great music and style throughout.

Very well done.
 
I really like the concept here... super-heroes who had powers which the government took away, it's a great setup and the opening scene with him losing his powers is pretty cool.

I have some issues with the acting here and there... the doctor taking his powers away is too intense for my tastes, it doesn't come across naturally, I think it's a mixture of the performance and writing because the doctor seems like he is arguing with him but he already has the guy under his control, so it seems overstepped that he'd go through that extra effort to drill something into the guy, making it personal... if this guy had done something to the doctor, perhaps it'd warrant the outburst but as it stands, it seems unmotivated.

The girl with the glasses, telling him 'they appreciate him' also didn't fit with me, maybe too young? She just didn't seem to fit in the environment, I'm not sure what it was precisely but it through me off a little.

The lead, Marshall, was on and off for me, some scenes he was really good and I liked his performance, other moments came across too forced, too strong.

I think composition was the best aspect of the production, yes, there are some focusing issues occasionally, but from a directing/composition/shot choice perspective, it's a well told story and has a distinct visual flow to it. Nice work on that end. Feels like you boarded this well from pre-production and recaptured it well during production.
 
I thought that this film had some great intentions and succeeded on some of them, but I feel like the overall presentation left a lot to be desired.

While the performances of the two leads were covered pretty well and the supporting were fine, there were a few weak links to be found.

I also found that the piece in general didn't seem to find a consistency in image. The sound remained pretty strong except for a few small hiccups, but the picture just felt a little too blown out in the lab and the focus was too dull in the rest. Less brightness and a stronger focus on compositions of shots (ie wides and a careful attention to the geometry of the room as well as an attention to subjective vs objective framing, as well as an awareness of the ability to induce claustrophobia or isolation) would really help. And I agree with puck on the topic of finding a way to give more closure to the story. It works the way it is, but I'm sure it could be tighter.

Once again, while I feel the film lacks a certain panache of its own, it still manages to stand on both legs and make it through the gauntlet. Great effort and I'm glad I got to see it! :beer:
 
Thanks for all of the great feedback so far. I am still pretty new to this so I have tons to learn, so any feedback is good to hear. As I am still learning all the technical stuff that definitely got more attention from me than it will once its second nature, especially with a small crew, you have to worry about that part of it, without it theres no movie.

This was definitely a case of building a movie out of scenes that I wanted to try to shoot, so in that sense it was a big experiment for me, and that may happen again, at least until I feel confident enough to try something else, I learned so much and hopefully will have something better after the next fest.

I don't think I will be carrying this concept any further though, I have so many things I want to try that it is way too early to put alot of energy into continuing one idea.

I hope to make it through all of the films in the next few days and make comments, I will definitely return the favor!
 
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