Blade Assassin

Very cool work man.

Couple questions for you

1) the stuff shot in slow motion, was that done in 720? Curios as to why im not seeing soem aliasing in the straight lines

2) the last shot where he walks away, i notice there isn't any signs of moire in the ground pattern, how did you avoid this?

The stuff that has some sort of velocity envelope, was it shot at 720 and sped up in sections from 60 fps to 24, or was it shot in 24 and you used some sort of slow motion effect in post?

Details please :)
 
Not a fan of the post, and I thought the fight scenes could've been given some more energy with tighter shots and quicker cuts, plus the shadow on the guy kneeling down's face really distracted.

Everything else was quite nice, really like the craned wides.
 
Thought the fight scene looked great! Though, I think the color correction/grading was a little bit too much on this...
 
PaPa said:
Very cool work man.
1) the stuff shot in slow motion, was that done in 720? Curios as to why im not seeing soem aliasing in the straight lines
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Yes, that was done in 720p. You can actually spot moire and aliasing in some shots like the windows in the title shot. Check the 1080p version for a clear view. Also on of the slowmotion walking towards shots has the ground tingling because of aliaising. I had to also cut one shot out because it was pretty bad.

The trick is to open the aperture to get some dof. Small apertures and 720p = not usable.

2) the last shot where he walks away, i notice there isn't any signs of moire in the ground pattern, how did you avoid this?
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That was 1080p. And it probably also helped that the tokina 11-16mm was focused like a metre in front.

Any other questions? :2vrolijk_08:

Tighter cuts/shots for the fight? No way, the idea was to mimic hk-fights so that definitely meant going for long shots and none of that Hollywood "everything shakes"-stuff. I actually wanted the fight even longer in the crane shot but the performance wasn't as good so I had to tighten it still a bit.

The post was my way of going slightly into a surreal comic book world. We blew out our skies too much so it was also a way to hide it.
 
Wow this was amazing. The gradnig, very professional looking, i actually liked the blood effect, gave it more of an anime/kill bill sort of universe for your story.

I did feel that a few of the shots were graded a little on the washed out side, but aside from that no complaints.

I really dug the guy with the long hair. It was almost metal gear solideque.

The sound, and music was thrilling, im having a hard time finding things to criticize here.

I think maybe a few tight face shots would have added a little, but other than that, the only complaint i have is how short it is. Expand this longer and make it 9-12 mins! Get more of a story going.
 
loved it! the cuts were smooth, transitions suberb and the sound was good. Well done on the performance/choreography. The location was really cool as well haha, lucky with the interesting sky!!

the one thing that bugged me was the grade. I cant stand the color grade you added, too harsh for my taste
 
Looks pretty cool to me. Could nit pick, but I'll admit I was more into what was happening. I also liked the fact that you kept it short and sweet.
 
It's a nice piece, but the sound recording was pretty bad. The music covered it up a bit but the moment they start talking the background rumble becomes very obvious and really distracts; seems to have been shot on the onboard mic. Takes away from an otherwise professional production.

I would favor faster cutting as well, not as a stylistic choice but to cover up the somewhat slow reaction time of the stuntmen. For example at 2:20 the head Yakuza guy took a swing at him and then just...stands there for three seconds. Then again during the crane shot you can see the stuntman to the right anticipating his turn to block the blow. Things like this really detracts from the intensity of the fight because you can immediately tell they're trying hard not to hurt each other.
 
Huy Vu said:
It's a nice piece, but the sound recording was pretty bad. The music covered it up a bit but the moment they start talking the background rumble becomes very obvious and really distracts; seems to have been shot on the onboard mic.
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We used a Rode Videomic. It sucked ass. Won't use it again.

I disagree on the cutting part vehemently. It's just way too easy to hide everything by cutting all around and pretending its intense (Hollywood I look at you). Yes, this way you may see some stuff that doesn't movement wise look perfect but otherwise I think this works well.

Things like this really detracts from the intensity of the fight because you can immediately tell they're trying hard not to hurt each other.
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You say "things like this" when in reality there is just one (I count only the first sword strike and standing around after it as one).

Faster cutting is something editors and directors tend to favor because they've seen the fight about a thousand times and at some point they stop considering the audience who will only see it once. The fights in Bourne 2 are a great example of fast cutting / camera movements / intensity going way wrong.

Besides, HK-style demands long takes and I'd rather try to perfect them (and maybe not succeeding) than go the easy way.
 
maarek said:
You say "things like this" when in reality there is just one (I count only the first sword strike and standing around after it as one).
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There were a couple of smaller moments during the crane shots that I didn't mentioned, plus that big one at the end where the guy was obviously anticipating the hit. Keep in mind I noticed all of this during the first viewing too, and that really took me away from how "serious" the fight was. It only take one moment to remove the audience's suspension of disbelief.


maarek said:
Besides, HK-style demands long takes and I'd rather try to perfect them (and maybe not succeeding) than go the easy way.
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Nothing wrong with this. I'm a fan of the style myself. However those HK films also feature professional stuntmen with years of experience. Your actors are clearly skilled, but they're not there yet. It depends on how you view the final product really. If you're just practicing then by all means, but if there's an imperfect take that detracts from your film, why not fix it with editing?
 
Super awesome.

If I had a single comment, to give it more national appeal, maybe you (or the screenwriter?) next time can make something without dialog. For instance when they bring the guy to the gallows, the executioner could have taken out a picture of what appears to be some assassinated politician or something (which then adds character development to the person being executed and tells us why he is being executed). In that scenario, no dialog needed.

Or, at most, they could show him the picture of a woman in a blind fold and say something like "I wanted you to see this before you die. I wanted you to know what we've done." Etc.

Heck, a large clock could have struck high noon somewhere. Point is, IMO, less is more if you don't have a writer on staff. I hate to see the bad dialog detracting from the moment.

Other than that, though, I'm a fan.
 
Huy Vu said:
but if there's an imperfect take that detracts from your film, why not fix it with editing?
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I did take away the last kick from the crane shot as it didn't hit but I really missed it that the crane shot wasn't used completely.

The part about professional stunt people doing everything 100% correctly is partly wrong. There are a lot of badly done choreographies coming out of Hollywood and only a select few get them 100% correct in a year.

Not to boost us in any way, I just have seen a lot of bad stuff coming out from professional hands so the reasoning "professionals wouldn't let this guy stand around" is completely wrong as they let a lot of stuff go by.

Chamber: Yeah, the dialogue is somewhat bothering me too, so next time we will have to either script something sensible or dub it in japan or ... something, don't know what. :cheesy:
 
Huy: I noticed that damn slowing down of the guy when he's anticipating the damn sword. ARGH! Why did you have to tell me, now I see it everytime :cry: :2vrolijk_08:
 
AWESOME JOB MAN!!! Really fun to watch, great vibe.
I personally am a fan of the "Bourne Ultimatum" style of fight scenes, but honestly only because it's soooo much easier to pull off than what you did. So I COMMEND you for doing this, which is much more difficult and I hope you keep doing more, I'd love to see what you do next :)
 
Yeah this was very cool, only thing I would say, and this I guess could be considered personal taste, but I love it when CG is used to improve practical effects. Rather than exclusive CG. That being said I would say I was okay with the all the digital blood until the last slice, where I think it would have been very easy to do that practically, but the CG looked overly synthetic for my taste.

Other than that very cool, grading maybe a little over the top, but still looked great, and the main bad guy looked like he was right out of a Steven Segal movie.

Oh one story note, the way the fight went down it the main villain presented the least challenge to the guy... I feel like there should have been a more fighting between them at the end, cause as a viewer you know the lackeys arent gonna kill the hero, but the head bad guy just might!
 
Nice, but didn't like the bad guy's face being in almost complete shadow once he turns around. The grading could use more work.
 
On the face of it I thought this was a pretty well executed fight scene. I didnt mind the grading, I thought it was set up pretty heavy in style and the grading worked to assist it.

I wouldnt really call this a story. More like a scene.

On your youtube description it says "to meet up with the local Yakuza". I'd lose the yakuza reference. Im pretty sure its universally known that Yakuza are japanese. Id also lose the "local" reference which infers small time.
 
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