Chase Sands test - long take

Wow...That is all I can say. I see no reason to not turn this into a feature and keep it going. I would love to find out what happens next. I also loved that you didnt go over board on the shallow dof. I also loved that almost every shot was moving, it really kept the story moving too. Over all Im very impressed. Keep it up!
 
VERY cool short. I liked the shot selection, the camera movement, acting was overall pretty good on your lead. I liked the writing for the most part, my only gripe is that it is very reminiscant of the film Following by Chris Nolan. (GREAT film btw). The whole story arc is similar, from the protagonist and antagonist, BUT the direction your film went in was different and i like it. Anyway, just a comment.

Whoever your DP was, did an outstanding job of managing yoru lighting if you used mostly natural. Im amazed. Any details you might share would be cool.

That said it wasnt perfect.

Your sound was overall pretty good, but had a few (like when the waitress walks on the wood floor etc...) that sounded echo-y.

When he calls his friend abotu half way through laying on his maroon sheets, its a VERY long take. I would have liked to see 2 or 3 different cuts in that time.

While your Chase Character was pretty good, i felt your lead was overacting (is she a stage actress?) I wouldnt go as far as to say shes bad, more like inconsistent. Some lines its off what is written. Some lines and looks are spot on. also i felt the chemistry between them could have been better. (these arent major gripes, because as i know when yoru an indie film maker you dont exactly have access to De Niro, and Meryl Streep). I do think you could tighten up the conversation between them at the coffee shop. It seems like you keep waiting a second before the other answers, it seems more jerky than an actual conversation. I think if you take out a few of these pauses it will flow a little better.

Thought the phone call with the bank could have used an extra angle or two, and could also use some tightening/trimming (just some slight edits).

I felt like the ending was cool, but at the same time i felt like things were left unanswered. I would have liked a little more explanation but thats just me.

What are your plans for shopping on the festival circuit? I hope to be doing the same in about 3 months when my latest is done.
 
@papa this is pro stuff bro... i loved it... it caught me from the start... congrats bro!!! i hope you submit this somewhere... you'll win...
 
Spenser:

Thanks for the kind words man. Much appreciated

Jon:

Awesome post :) I actually have never seen the film "Following" . Basically, the story was written by this guy Alan Draven, who was the staring stranger in the cafe scene, and I took it under my wing, adapted it into a screenplay and gave it a little hudspa.

I was the Director/DP/Actor/Producer/Editor/yadda yadda. And as i said in my post before, when you do this, there is aLWAYS something that falls short, and my project, as you have discusses, is no exception.

For the lighting, its actually far from natural, so thats really great that you find it doesn't look very "lit" We used 5 lights from cool lights. 2 of the 4-banks and 1 6-bank along with 2 150 watt hmi/cdm lights. We start with natural light as a basis, and because the 7D is so sensitive, we often found it was easier to take the natural light, cut where we need to cut and reinforced rimming whenever possible. Was trying to go for a more contrast look for the majority of the piece.

Sound wise, i agree with you. It can definitely be polished up. Apparently my sound designer was doing a 6 hour session, hadn't saved in a while in pro tools, or something of that matter, the computer froze and he lost a lot of what he was doing, which is probably the qwerks in the sound that we hear that were probably fixed, but then the crash made him lose everything, and because we were under such a time constraint, he needed to get it to me that night regardless of what was accomplished so that i may send it to fantasia the following morning.

As for the acting, I don't think I did a horrible job on this piece, but it's definitely not my strongest work. Why? Merely the focus. When you have your head spinning about having people show up on time, getting the shots in on time, worried about having to cut things out, finding your shots, its difficult to get your head in the game mind body and spirit when your AD calls action.

As for the long takes, this may have been a good or bad decision. I wanted to give myself a challenge for this piece, and specifically, it was a question of how few shots do i need to tell the story as effectively as possible. Up to now most of my works have had a large amount of coverage, and I wanted to see if i could follow the story and make the camera a type of voyeur of Chase. The film has a lot of breathing, his pace is generally slow and he's a creeper. He explores these homes and discovers things bit by bit, and i wanted to camera to do the same thing.

As for the acting style of the female lead, I gave her direction to make it very styalized and very subdued. Perhaps that doesn't work and it's my mistake, but the direction was given from me. So if it doesn't work then good to know for next time.

I love that you had questions that needed answers at the end. My favorite thing about a short is the open end leaving you wanting to know more :) So thank you :)


BASICALLY, lol, this project was put together and done very very quickly, so that I and a few of us may get a stab at starting the whole film festival thing. I have never entered into one before and i felt maybe it was time to get involved in these things just to see what it's like to 1) submit 2) be accepted or denied 3) attend and if by chnce 4) win awards, make connections and see where that takes you.

So if the film is a success in any one of those things, then I am very pleased considering this entire project was a rush.


Krum: Cheers man, I hope so too! I'm hoping before the festival screening, since i handed in a DVD version, that maybe we will have time to fix a few things sound wise at least before burning it to bluray for the actual screening during the summer.


Thanks for the 26 minutes donated and feedback.
 
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Wow…this was awesome. This is the type of stuff I wish I could see more of. I didn’t know what to expect when I decided to watch this here at work while my director was hovering around me right outside my door. But geez….that main character’s obsessive compulsive behavior (I guess that was you) gave me the creeps…like…Ted Bundy….excellent job. It was the moment he found pictures of himself in that one house that got me glued to my seat. I said to myself “alright now..it’s on” at this point.

I liked the girl…she was soooo conniving, slick and pretty at the same time (dangerous combination). I liked how you fooled me into thinking that guy staring in the background was his stalker (that dude looked very creepy with his intense stare). But once the girl started talking I was like…Oh Snap!! I thought the actress played that well. Her character was very confident and convincing in how she took control away from the other lead. I wish we seen a lot more of her.

Got to say…loved how this piece had a lot of movement with the dolly.. That helped to keep it interesting. I seen some bumpy moments in there but it wasn’t too distracting. There were certain parts where I felt that the scene held on just a tiny bit too long…like for ex. when a door closed I expected a quicker cut to the next scene etc. But all in all…..the lighting…man…it looked very very good. It all looked very cinematic. How were you able to concentrate on acting and getting all that attention to detail done? Crazy!!


Anyways I give a +1 to SpenserS’s comment…please keep this going. I too want to see how this turns out. This can EASILY turn into a feature.
 
haha, Ian, you're too kind man. Love the compliments guys, but right now, i need someone to brutally attack it so that i can fine tune it to the Tee.

Beat the crap out of me please. I wanna fix every little detail i can for the bluray copy. :) Merci!
 
One other comment i might add is the length.

The script i wrote thats going to start shooting on the 17th was originally spiralling in length. My producer/professor urged us to keep it short enough for a 7-13 min run time.

She has sat as a judge on many of these and let us know that all the winners for most of the stuff she has seen has been in this time range.

Kinda makes sense, that these festivals etc... are limited in time, the shorter the film the more you cna screen/accept etc... So we really had to trim the script to keep it short. Not srue how long our TRT is gonna be but im shooting for 10-12 mins hopefully.

Not saying you should trim your film to pieces, as honestly i like it how it is (aside from some minor trimming you should do), but jsut a comment to keep in mind for next time. Honestly i have a hard time finding time to watch shorts of this lentgh (in your case im glad i did, but still).

You might consider making a "festival" cut if you have a hard time getting accepted places, and see how far you can cut it down.

Just on your long cut, i think you could use to lose a minute or two, just cutting out pauses etc..

One last comment. I noticed a few times where you cut to a blank scene, and then started the motion. Ive always learned this is your first instinct, but good editors always cut on motion. An example would be when your camera is pointing at stairs on the left and an empty doorway on the right. We sit still for liek 2-3 seconds, then the camera tracks bacward, and THEN you finally see that actor start walking through the door way. Id trim those 2 or 3 seconds, and start the cut after the camera is already moving. These types of edits keep the audience interested, and trim your TRT.
 
I want to watch it again without any interruptions but one thing that does stick out for me is the score. I wish it were louder or had more presence. For me it was too far in the background. I’m not sure where you got the score from but there were certain times I felt that it could have helped the scene more. One of those times was the moment he realized when viewing those photos that he was being watched and he quickly turned around as if to be startled. I would have expected some sort of musical crescendo to help draw in more excitement from me as the viewer. But overall I think the soundtrack needed more presence….to help give it a “bigger than life” feel.
 
Pre-apologizing for this post...

Good efforts, technically. I'd rather not go into visual, aural, etc because people have their own opinions and the backlash isn't worth it. If you want thoughts, ask and I'll happily post.

This might just be me, haven't read comments yet, but the voice over disturbed my viewing experience in a most frustrating way. Like, physically frustrating. I wanted to just mute it so that I could watch it.

It's not JUST that it's a voice-over, it's unappealing. She goes on for nearly three straight minutes in the beginning and repeats the same thing over and over. I'm not going to say how it should have been done, could have been done, but it's certain--at least on my end--I didn't want to hear her talking again, but it comes at the end, anyway. And, once more, it wasn't an interesting bit to hear. Her Games, etc.

It's a bit long for me, fifteen minutes too long for what it is. There's a lack of focus on what really matters, so to the point that I can't figure out what's important. By the time the female is introduced, the interest level is near-to-ground zero and it's very hard to elevate it once more.

Shuffling aside every technical aspect, my every discrepancy lies with whatever was written or how it translated to screen. While you start with a somewhat popular and interesting concept, it drags along and what's interesting about it gets set on the back-burner for an even more trite (no sour tone here) contest of "who's badder?" that doesn't really play out to any satisfying end.

The dialogue is repetitive and (kid gloves here) very on the nose. An example?

Chase: So what, is this some sort of game?

The whole of the coffee shop scene made me want to stop or, at the least, skip ahead and out of the moment. There's no tension because she's babbling on about how she's been watching him and strokes of luck, twists of fate, on and on. Then she finally gets up and Chase manages to find an angry streak that MAY make the audience think he deserves what he's getting? Okay then... but, it just isn't all that interesting.

Speaking of Chase deserving what he's getting: at no point did I think that he was the type of guy that needed to be punished for anything. Sure, we know it's "bad" to break into houses, no matter what the reason. But, there was nothing visually or contextually strong enough to warrant the world caving in on him in the end. Now, by the last moment (when the door slams) I've gotten the impression that he's just miserable and even-more-so miserable thanks to a female who's motivation is near-to-non-existent.

If I was supposed to finish up feeling "poor guy", it was something close to that.

There's a bit more, but I think it's easy enough to sum it up at this point and say that the actual content, while beginning with an interesting premise, becomes very uninteresting and very fast. The dialogue sounds flat and most of the time I don't register what's being said because it's presented in a way that's on the nose.

It's long... and feels even longer than the actual runtime, if you're happy with it then I say roll with it, and take what I say with a grain of salt! I watched it, though, and that's what I got out of it.
 
Kholi said:
Pre-apologizing for this post...

the voice over disturbed my viewing experience in a most frustrating way. Like, physically frustrating. I wanted to just mute it so that I could watch it.

It's not JUST that it's a voice-over, it's unappealing. She goes on for nearly three straight minutes in the beginning and repeats the same thing over and over. I'm not going to say how it should have been done, could have been done,
Click to expand...

Im sorry as well as at 3 minutes, I was wondering if I could go on.

I thought you did a lot of really good things in this. Maybe I was thrown a bit on your description though, and incorrectly assumed a lot of things before viewing. Watching it without reading that may have made it a different experience for me. The proposition of a guy going breaking into houses and trying to connect with people through images, made me think of a disconnected guy with a bleak outlook and then I started watching the images and thought they somewhat fought against that proposition.
 
lol, nah kholi appreciate the post, don't delete. Good things to learn from what you wrote. Will definitely take more time at your comment and see what can be applied to the final version.

thanks for the in depth comment!
 
PaPa said:
lol, nah kholi appreciate the post, don't delete. Good things to learn from what you wrote. Will definitely take more time at your comment and see what can be applied to the final version.

thanks for the in depth comment!
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I'm glad I didn't post anything about the technical aspects. Nothing that struck me as "bad", and I hope I didn't use that word in my post, either. Nothing's at all "bad", either.

Micro-managing an entire shoot is nasty, so you got more than you possibly could've hoped for, I'd wager. Script, however, is something that can be fine-tuned even during shooting, and mostly at no expense outside of time spent.

Doesn't look like you wrote this, right? Maybe your writer can jump on the boards and talk about the story/short? Just don't want to sound like I'm putting down someone's material versus projecting on what I gathered.

Thanks again for showing.
 
Kholi, the reason i appreciate your post so much is because I am on the same page as you. I can look at my project objectively and see the "flaws" or things that bring the film down, which you pretty much hit on the head.

It's just unfortunate because the entire thing was done in such a rush you wouldn't even believe. There is only so much we can do after the matter, and whatever can be done, you'll bet i will try and fix.

So little nit picky thigns like voice over can change, some of the edit can change, the music mix, can change. It's a question of getting it out there, having people like you go in depth and care enough to write such a long response, because it reinforces the same feelings i have about the project.

So yeah, thanks man. I will take the comments and put them in point form, and see what can be adjusted on the film.

And no, i didn't write this.


Cheers guys!
 
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krumprak said:
what did you use for audio?
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the audio still needs to be worked out some more for EQ and reverb purposes, as well as compression, but i used on set an AT4073a along with 2 sennheiser wireless G2 microphones.
 
I will preface my below remarks with this: I enjoyed the film and can absolutely appreciate having to make something in very little time. I also think there's very much quite a bit of potential here with some honing to the editing. Kholi is right that some dialogue is very on the nose, so you can't change it at this point, but by tighting the pace of the dialogue and cutting out a few lines here and there you can build more tension into the scene.

Personally I think you can lose the Voice Over all together. It'll add more of a suprise later when Jane shows up.

Because of the voice over I was waiting for her to show up. By cutting out the voice over it'll allow you to trim some of the time down and make the cuts quicker to get to the point more efficiently.

I've fallen into the trap of pacing things like a feature inside of a short in the past myself, and the opening 1/2 of the short has the pacing for a Feature film; however, I think for the purpose of getting it into festivals as a short film you'll need to trim and I think instead of having chase visit that same house twice before seeing photos in the folder, he sees them the very first time. This compresses your time and allows you to get to the meat of the matter, because at this point we already have gathered that he breaks into houses.

Also when Chase sees the computer, you did a double take. Do you do a double take in every shot? I only ask, because it's not true to the character you have established. This guy breaks into houses and lays on peoples beds, eats their food etc, yet he is surprised to see a computer in a bedroom. It almost feels as though it's a cue to say "THIS IS IMPORTANT" whereas if you simply sauntered over tried to logon had no luck and then non-chalantly open the folder there's more of a jolt. The scene has all the elements, they just could use a slight tweak.

Also for a short film, I feel as though 25 seconds of opening credits is really long. You could almost get away with having the credits over your opening sequence of Chase wandering around the home.

Even though you probably have no desire to do this, it would almost be interesting to show Chase at the coffee shop briefly looking at his photos and maybe have Jane sitting in the BG, not really acknowledged, but a way to foreshadow her prescene. Only a thought that popped into my head as writing, not really needed though, especially since I'm trying to give suggestions for shortening/tighetning it.

I think if you take your opening sequence and compress the time to allow you to get to the smoking scene sooner and then from there you combine the 2 visits to the house with the photos of Chase, it will allow you to save valuable time without affecting the mood or tone of what you're going for.

Chase can still take a photo of the house as he wanders by, but at that point I don't think he should enter. Instead go to your scene with the trophy wall and then cut to him entering for the first time and then discovering the photos of himself. You can still have the scene with the note saying "I've got my eye on you" just simply in a different spot earlier on.

One note about the scene with smoking. You can tell you're not inhaling. This doesn't ruin the scene for me, but it is something that is noticable since not a single breath of smoke comes out your nose. Just a note for the future. You can always get herbal cigarettes if you're not an actual smoker, so that it'll be easier to actually inhale and not make you sick.

Anyways that's just my 2 cents and feel free to disregard it all if you see fit.

Again overall I think it's a solid piece that with the right polish will have an easy time gaining entry to various festivals and you've got some really good talent in front of and behind the camera, it's just a matter of honing it, but that's something that never ends in the endeavour of creating the perfect film.
 
No info on lenses?Which ones did you had ? I like how its wide but still with shallowdof in shots.
 
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