Crawl Space

Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee

Veteran
I did not know about this section, just stumbled on it.

Ok, we came down to the wire on sunday doing sound and music. So after many hours of that, I tried to export 10 different settings thru premier h264 but to no avail it stretched it everytime. My editor exported this on a 30p timeline gave me the avi file, so I could add last couple of shots, and fine tune it, and I could not get rid of the jitters period. Sorry, I was out of time, so had to submit what I had.

Kevin.
 
Hey kdawg!!! Glad to see you HERE!

I saw your film and really enjoyed it. I really do need to and WANT TO see it again, but I had some initial impressions that I wanted to share from the other day when I saw it the first time.

First, I love the under the house stuff. How in the world you did that is beyond me. That looked to be some tight quarters. I imagine that it was all on location and under a house right? I mean, you didn't create a set, did you? Very nice work under there!

And while we are under the house, I LOVED the dolly shot (correct term?). That was so smooth and I kept imagining the rig you must have come up with to pull that off. Very nice.

The story line confused me in the beginning. I will watch it again, but I feel that first instincts are so important, because you don't always get to see things twice.

So to clarify, I didn't understand the real estate agent in the house while the kid was digging the hole. Did he just sell the house to the kid? Was the kid related to him? How did the kid know John? Sorry if I missed this and will look to understand this better.

I LOVE videotape events revealing a mystery. I always have. That is just spooky in itself!

I would like to have seen a different camera set-up when the kid finds and goes into the crawl space, unless of course this is John taping him doing so. If that is the case then I would like the "video" of that scene to have a specific look (one similar to the one on the video tape.) Does this make sense? What I am trying to say is that for some reason, John has a video of him revealing the crawl space. When the kid finds it, it seems like it should NOT come from the same "source" that the video had. (I know that I am picky. Just a gut feeling when I saw it and we are all trying to better our filmmaking skills!!!)

Also, a small picky point... I felt that the paper bag that was dug up looked TOO CLEAN. I don't know how long it was buried, but it should have been soaked in dirt and water to really distress it and then used as a prop.

IF it was just placed there to be found, then that's different.

I am being picky because I really like what I saw and couldn't find flaws. It is small attention to detail that seperates some movies from others and I just want to point out what I saw.

Other than that, WOW! I love the money disappearing bit! And I loved the excellerated tension as the kid was trying to get out! Man, I was trapped down there with him! Sweating!!!

Great "monster." Not cheesy and we got to actually see it. Hard to pull off!

I liked the lighting, editing, transitions. The soundtack reminded me of mine. Doing what I could with Garage Band.

Overall, a really good, creapy horror flick!

Ted
 
Yes, due to time constraints (we decided only 3 weeks ago we would give it a shot), the story was difficult to relay in the begining. We filmed a whole phone conversation, moving boxes, and the tape coming down out of the attic portion that we felt did not fit well. So in a hurry we had the real estate agent looking on to make sure the tape was found, thru the homeowner planting out back. Then he knew he would have another house on the market tomorrow. We even kicked around the idea that the house closed the lid on the crawl space, no agent involved. But we felt this motivation was our strongest bet for the story (the real estate agent). Saturday the 30th we almost got around to filming a wine bottle with a congratulatory note on it, and the agent behind it looking out the slider. But that guy was in the middle of moving and could not show up for that.

We wanted to pull of a very claustrophobic look to the film for sure. Wanted to show a creature, and not hide it from the viewer, (that would be the easy way out). So close to halloween, spent 50 bucks and got some good stuff from the superstore. (That was Kdawg in the mask there) The guys did not enjoy being under the house filming with me looking like that, so I was telling jokes with that get up on.

I truly appreciate your feedback Ted. This being our first film we learned alot of how to abide our time. (we spent at least 5 nights, about 2 hrs each under the house) ugghh. And I built a quick small dolly for that scrolling shot. Wanted to use for more, but such a pain to crawl and set up and rehearse. I hope to get an earlier start for the next festival. I love this place!!!!
 
What I really liked about this film was the success you had at portraying the claustraphobic feel of that space. If the key light had been a bit dimmer (so that the flashlight would be the brightest light source) I think it would have even pushed that feeling a little further. Alot of great compositions throughout the film.
 
***********SPOILER*************

The moment where the money dissapeared and I realized someone was down there....was very freaky!!!!!
 
Acting: Wanted to see them stretched a little more.
Script: Great twist, didn’t see it coming. Wanted a little more dialogue.
Direction: Some nice ideas here.
Music: Proper Carpenter!
Editing: A little choppy.
Lighting: Flat in some of the upstairs interiors, like the T.V. section and the crawl space. Now that’s tough working conditions! Props :thumbup:
Loved: The shovel shot, the watching the tape section, cellar hatch, was that a star filter for the torch? Track under house (how you do that?) Loved that bill disappearing (Fav bit), the whole confining nature of the crawl space (euughh), the demon was pretty cool.
Hated: That first pan made me dizzy :) What’s with the jerkiness on some shots?
Overall: A nice little film, you told a solid story with a nice twist. Keep at it; you’ve got some nice ideas. The whole claustrophobic feeling was a great angle.

Well done guys good little film you got here.
J.P.
 
I really liked the basement scene. Just catching a glimpse of something, the money going into the floor was by far the best bit.

I didnt like the face reveal, maybe thats me but I'd prefered the creature to have been anonymous throughout.

I had a ***** of a time with the H264 files too - my biggest expense was buying quicktime pro.... (and it's S**t) :-(
 
MY REVIEW | Possible Spoiler Alert!

Hey dudes. I watched Crawl Space a while back and saw no thread, now that it's here I rewatched and remembered as much as I could of what I wanted to say.

I think that you really had a longer script than the time slot than you were alotted which makes this bad. You really had a decent idea with the Crawl Space, I just think the execution wasn't as tight as it could've been.

You guys should recut something that works and let us see what you were really going for.

The Crawl Space is freaky.

 
jpbankesmercer said:
Overall: A nice little film, you told a solid story with a nice twist. Keep

at it; you’ve got some nice ideas. The whole claustrophobic feeling was a

great angle.
Click to expand...

I agree with this wholeheartedly. The addition of greed on the lead
character was also a nice touch. This is a great film idea and worth
pursuing if you chose to.

I also think Crawl Space contained all the trappings of a good horror
flick; suspense, feeling of dread, mysterious events, and the "Oh jesus
dat ***** is gonna die... run faster! I mean, CRAWL FASTER!"

You have far to go in the technical department but, this was extremely
enjoyable for me despite some B movie qualities.
 
Wow , only 8 views ..I really like this short ..predictable BUT Good !!!

I had an idea that maybe a whole bunch of these creatures would crawl thru the crawl space BUt hey I still enjoyed it >
Ian
 
Hey Kdawg, just following up here.... Your FIRST film? Wow! Great job! You did some mighty fine work there!

And I totally forgot to mention how I love the dvx box!!! Awesome! I would never do it again because it quickly took me out of the movie (only for a second or two) but it was funny. And every single viewer here knows what that is! If you do, do it again... make it descreet. Create a "Where's Waldo" game out of it. But as the camera panned across, I thought that I was looking at test footage from my camera when I first took it out of the box!!! (I know that you know all of this... just wanted to comment! Great fun!)

Again, one of my favorite movies. Very well done!

Ted
 
Thanks again Ted. This festival turned out to be a real blast hearing from y'all. The dvx box is another story. We wanted moving boxes in our first idea, so I brought over a bunch including that one (thought it would add a bit of humor)
And yeah I wanted it to be more subltle, mixed in with the other boxes. But we 86ed that idea.. did this pan and had to hide my buddy's huge tv in that room with the slider. Becuase it would seem unfitting to watch that tape in the bedroom on a little tv, after seeing the other tv. I now know much more about how DVX fest works with all the promoting and banners. So much fun to be a part of, and see the talent and share some as well.

The guys I worked with, dont exactly want to stick with dvx festivals. I however do, if they wont help, then I'll hold the camera in front of my face while I act lol
 
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That's what I did! The whole ONE MAN SHOW business!

I hope that there is NOT a repeat performance of THAT!!! (by me, I mean!)

I understand about the box... I did think it was funny. And I was just razzing you. But I think that you knew that.

I don't know where you live... (I wish that I had other DVX owners in the New England area).... but I would work on a film with you.

Great job... you need more attention on your thread here. See what I can do.

This is such a worthy film!

Ted
 
Yeah, I just got to this and it was really a nice, simple and effective short.

You built up the tension nicely.

a) You chose a naturally tense place to put your character.
b) You led him and us on beautifully.

Couple of things:
The sound in the end is REALLY bad. If I were you, I would consider getting that actor or someone else to ADR. It just drops off badly.

The music was a tad bit tinny. But it worked.

What's funny is just last night at a screening of horror shorts, there was one with an almost identical plot!!! Except that one was set in NYC where realtors actually would do this kind of thing...
 
This one wasn't technically awesome, but the ending monster, (although it looked a bit fake) was VERY freaky looking to me for some reason. I don't know if it's because I'm watching it late at night, but that **** was scary looking man.
 
Kdawg, you dog! I hope to meet you sometime. Sounds like we've got a lot in common besides the dvx and the tools!!!

Keep up the great work. What you did was outstanding!!!

Congratulations and Good luck!

(why isn't there more people commenting here!!!!)

Been a great ride!

Ted
 
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