Chase Sands test - long take

That was incredible man, the feeling of watching him go through the house was intense. I was expecting the home owners to show up unexpectedly or something. I love the long cuts and simplicity of it, of course the lighting was incredible also.

Thanks for the inspiration!
 
jonE5 said:
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.
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I enjoyed the film, but REALLY agree with the run time for festivals. At 26 minutes it's going to be harder to program the movie. Cutting it down will HURT, but the audience is never going to know what's missing from the end product. I strongly recommend cutting all the fat down, and see if you can get it to 15 minutes.

With the exception of short docs, I feel like the majority of shorts I've seen in good festivals are always under 15 minutes.

Good luck with the short, and keep up the good work.
 
Rory_B said:
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.
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Great feedback man, and very much appreciated. Will take another stab at the editing to see if i can throw away useless information.

fyi, i was inhaling lol. I think the sound is just too loud in the mix. :)
 
bwwd said:
No info on lenses?Which ones did you had ? I like how its wide but still with shallowdof in shots.
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Used the 7D with nikon lenses.

stuck mostly with nikon 24mm @ either 2.8 or F4 for the most part, same for the 35mm and 50mm.
 
robmneilson said:
I enjoyed the film, but REALLY agree with the run time for festivals. At 26 minutes it's going to be harder to program the movie. Cutting it down will HURT, but the audience is never going to know what's missing from the end product. I strongly recommend cutting all the fat down, and see if you can get it to 15 minutes.

With the exception of short docs, I feel like the majority of shorts I've seen in good festivals are always under 15 minutes.

Good luck with the short, and keep up the good work.
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Again, like most of your guys's comments, i agree completey. The 26 minutes was to keep it exactly in time with fantasias short film submissions

5-26 mins for short, 26-45 i think for medium length, and then feature length.

Will revisit the film to cut it shorter. I think that iwll greatly help the piece.
 
Great job on the film...very believable acting. I can only imagine what it must be like directing as you act, no easy task.

I have to agree that it could be tightened up as I found myself wanting to jump ahead
in spots. The VO was a bit much too, but didn’t pull me out of it, just went on too long and explained too much.
That first cut to black, again just a bit too long for my taste.

Sound design and score was very well done…although I’d like to hear more of the score.

Love the camera movement & slides! ;-)

Pick up the pace of the film with a tighter edit and this baby will sing!

(the above are only my opinions and should be taken with a grain of salt)

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Ah ok. Sound definitely threw me off along with lack of smoke coming out the nose. Combined made me think you weren't inhaling. Either way that's a minor point I was making and as I said didn't take me out of the moment. Just happenened to jump out to me when I rewatched it. I'm sure you'll snag some festival spots with this short; you have plenty of really good elements.
 
Great job Jonathan. I really love the idea and the script.
I would not mind too much about those long shots. They look much like what you see in German or Scandinavian films (so I´m probably just used to that) thou I understand the needs for festivals, I would keep them in as much as possible.

Kohli and the rest of the gang already said some wise things, there is only one thing I would like to add.

When Chase and Jane are in that coffee shop, the camera movement distracted me.
We all love our sliders and what they can do but this was to much unmotivated.
It worked at the last scene where you used it for a transition, but not on the rest.

Using a master, one from the side and then (as the conversation gets more intimate) going tighter and tighter till the camera even goes between them, would have worked much better IMHO.

I understand how you wanted this scene to look, but than you need much faster cuts, a longer lens and more tighter and intenser dialogue. And it needs to look like one fluid move, even if you cut between the actors.

Otherwise, I think this has much potential Jonathan. Streamline it and turn it into a feature.

my ct2, Frank
 
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