BOUNTY ON A DEAD MAN'S HEAD - By Matt "Defcon" Harris

Curugon, I don't disagree about the exposition. One of my friends makes fun of me all time that I do too much exposition. I'm overly afraid people won't understand my intent. The good news is, I actually took OUT a truckload of exposition I was going to have. So baby steps. ;)
 
Heh, I know the feeling. Being so close to the story always makes me nervous about how clear it is.
 
This is your best yet. Your Dad really kicked the crap out of this one. I completely bought his performance, hook, line and sinker. The effects were subtle and well placed. Score was nice as well. The best part for me was the ending. It sold the whole thing.

You should be proud of this one. Very polished, looked great.

MAH
 
Matt, I'm Anthony.

Hell yes. This was damn good. His abilities felt real which can easily go cheesy. It was well executed too. Your lead was stellar. If I were you I'd keep him close, ha ha. My only true gripe is the dumper guys weren't wearing gloves, I was surprised. I'm gonna give you a nit-pick too, If the truck would have been a black suburban or a more modern utility vehicle, like a Sprinter, I think it would have sold the kill attempt better. Just my opinion.

That lead character had all his own style and I really enjoyed it. He just felt no bullshiz. The ending was nicely foreshadowed by the 'something in the water' line. Can't call you on the cowboy hat. Ha ha. Where did you get that satellite? It was amazing for this kinda thing. Really impressive.
 
Anthony congrats, you blew the lid off the fact that my guys aren't wearing gloves! We were stuck in the middle of the woods and used what we had, therefore no black truck. :) Satellite shot was designed by Graham Wilson who is a pro after effects master here in Hollywood. Thanks for watching and enjoying Anthony!
 
Where in the hell did you get that satellite? They were dumping mop buckets? When they have to do this kind of dumping it involves a lot of waste, I guess we were seeing the end of the job. Loved how he only used his head to do all the psychic effects. Really well done, felt like a bigger film. Dude needs to learn how to stack wood. :) Great Job!
 
There are a bunch of great films in the fest and this is another one of them! Great job.
Your dad was spot on and this is his first time acting. How cool is that? Make sure he gets
to read some of this stuff....a star is born. (break out the wallet)

Back to the film... yeah there were a few little things that caught my eye, like when he was
doing the mental ax thing and I saw hands on the ax handle or maybe the dialogue audio was
a little harsh and unnatural...all just tweaks.

Congratulations to everyone involved, really good film!
 
Zaza, blasphemy! no hands on the axe handle (are there? LOL)!
The Hazmat voices are slightly distorted through a guitar amp, they sounded too boring without the effect. Thank you sir for watching, reviewing and the kind words.
 
Keaton - mop buckets! Too funny. That is actually a little story, the kind of stuff that happens on set.
We had a real waste bucket, but it started raining so we had to get the equipment in the prop bucket and i was forced to use the mop bucket. Watch the short agin, there are a ton mini-goofs like that. oh well, it's all part of the process.
 
This is one of the films I was most looking forward to, particularly because of the tag line. I really enjoyed this film - while not perfect, you hit this one really well Matt. The conflict between the old man and the Hazmat guys was spectacular. The moves were executed perfectly and came across really well. The location was great. My main issue with the film is the introduction and exposition by the Hazmat guys drags on a little long. I agree with the others that time could have been used to better build tension on the coming conflict. Because when it hits, that conflict is great. It definitely pays off. Well done Matt, thanks for putting this in.
 
Thanks 4100, I appreciate that review and it was well put. It seems I may have over explained in the dialogue, although from past fests, if you don't explain enough people are like "what is this all about".
it was a fine line I was walking on. Thanks for watching and commenting!
 
Matt, you really did a great job! You had some great cinematography here and I can see your growth as a filmmaker and it's cool! The only issues I can see with this film is the music seems a tad too loud in the beginning. The VO and the music were competing with each other. The VO is way more important at that point. The hazmat guys voices seemed like VOs instead of their real voices, especially the first time we see them. I don't know why I picked up on that though. Maybe there wasn't enough BG ambience with birds or wind to mask it, but it seemed to stand out.

The shot of your dad running through the woods was obviously sped up, but was it sped up to try and show that he's super fast or just sped up to try and show that it's normal speed? At any rate, I could tell and didn't know if I was supposed to be able to. I really don't even think you need those shots. It might be pretty cool to just go to the hazmat guys and then the next thing you know, your dad is there! I don't really know if we need to see how he got there, because we can infer, because of the distance it was across the lake, that he got there super fast (via his powers).

Anyway, all of your effects were fantastic! It did look like there was a hand or shadow of a hand on the axe in one shot, but other than that, everything looked really stellar. You dad did an excellent job - "Son. . .don't call it in," was just great. You should be so proud. You keep doin' your thing, man. I'm sure I'll be going back to watch it again. I know you went through alot of twists and turns and locations to get this thing done, so kudos to you. Great job!
 
Marlon what up! Thanks for watching and reviewing. All good comments. For the running through the woods scene, I did undercrank it a touch just so he didn't look so pedestrian, I tried to rev him up a bit. I wanted to show him running because it tapped into his animalistic side, his aggressive desire to protect his land. But you aren't wrong, I think movie would still work with the scene cut. I just had to make the old man sweat a little. :)
 
man this was really good...can't believe how it was shot on 2 of the lowest grade cameras of the fest yet it is one of the best looking films of the fest. incredible. really awesome film, it was like an X-Files episode from back in the day. may i ask how you got such vibrant forest colors, lush greens and such with your cam(s), was it color correction or certain settings or what?
 
I really appreciate that Homunculus because i have certainly had my fair share of tough times with the hvx+letus and the hv30 in past fests. Although both are amazing cameras, I'm not the best camera op, and i would often poorly white balance my footage and then try to fix the cc in post.

For this short film, the switch to the T2i was a very intuitive step for me because the camera is so light and easy to use. The white balance was set to "shade" and i simply boosted the contrast and the "green" curves a touch in post.

The secret is "secondary" colors, when color correcting. After the CC looks good, you go back in and do another round of cc-ing, where you can boost specific things. In this case, i boosted the overall saturation and "green" curve so the colors started to literally pop off the screen. thanks for noticing!
 
yeah it was crazy good because that's one of the biggest things i find shooting my gh1 around in forests is the 'color information' or colorspace or whatever people call it is lacking compared to what i see on footage of Red One and such when Red is in the woods, yet yours almost looked like the vibrancy of red footage at times to me so I was blown away, gives me hope because I would think that t2i and gh1 are comparable in that regard so hopefully I can make some footage look that good with some color correction. What did you use for CC if i may ask
 
The GH1 with the new (13) mod hack is way sharper than the T2i. Did you do the hack? Do it.
I use the Final Cut Pro suite, which comes with COLOR for color correcting. I cannot recommend it enough. It is so fun to color correct in COLOR. After you CC, you hit another tab and it says "secondary" colors and then you can boost the green and your leaves will pop. If you have COLOR, i can walk you through it.
 
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