DVX Short titled "Graphic"

In terms of professionalism: Fantastic. Acting and sound were very good. The use of locations was great and not something commonly seen in low-budget.

The visual style is where I ran into trouble with it. Most of the shots looked the same from a framing aspect. Two people sitting at a table, same C.U. every time. The only differences between scene was the CC. In a movie that's basically completely dialouge driven, I had a problem with this.

The ocean scene at the end was interesting. Jumping between the silhouette shot and the others shots I found slightly jarring.[FONT=&quot][/FONT] And, why did you crosscut the fake break up scene with that ending? I found it very interesting to watch, but couldn't understand it at all.

Also - what brand and model of mic did you use. Sounded great.
 
Thank you for the comments.

The break-up the scene was written to be at the begining in the original scene, but after I finished editing it... it took way too long to progress to the next part of the movie. The break-up scene was long and although the acting was great it just slowed the rest of it down.

So I was presented with a dilemma of having the beginning stagnate while leaving the viewer with a (not very interesting) happy ending. The original version had her running off with the best-friend after she faked him out with the dead body. As kind of like a final "Got Ya". And I liked that ending but it seemed too easy to do it that way. So I chose to give it a unhappy ending with the break-up scene interwoven into the end scene... The attempt was to showcase how she was really just cutting off their relationship or friendship even though she had been on board the entire time.... while at the same time, speeding up the beginning.

That ending seemed more interesting and esoteric to me... Having it nicely tied into a bow at the end seemed cheesey. It is supposed to be understood, not saying that it isn't, but i thought there was a little more of an artistic spin with this current ending.

And I agree with you comments on the same set ups for the people sitting at the table. When you're shooting 12 pages a day it gets somewhat hard to be as creative as we'd like. I would have loved to have more movement in those sitting scenes or some nice crane moves, something else to make it more interesting... but we literally ran out of time to do it like that. Plus using just those simple set-ups was directly linked to my limited directing abilities... This was my first project as a director and that's why the framing seemed redundant.

As for the mic questions... im getting the answers... The guy who DP'd the shoot was also doing sound. I'll get the specifics from him and I just called him... should get a call back soon. But from what I remember, we used two Lav mics and a small mixer that hung off the tripod so he could not only adjust the camera, but also the mix of the audio as the actors were speaking. Crazy.

But I will get the specific info on the mics.... just hold on...
 
Nice. Can't wait to hear more about the technical stuff, but it seems like you guys managed to solve all of the problems that occured on set. That's one of the best skills to have, and someone can't really teach it to you.
 
Hmmm. Interesting to know (about the break up scene). I've frequently had similar cases with making rather large changes to movies with ideas in editing. The more I've done though the better I've guessed what I'm going to like or dislike in editing. One of those things impossible to teach.

For a first project you've made something far better than most. You got the acting right instead of the camera, which honestly was the better thing to get right. I recommend studying dialouge scenes in Spielberg films (maybe all of them, but I know for certain that Jaws, Minority Report, and Catch Me If you Can have them) for non-standard ways to film them.
 
really liked it. kept my attention all the way through and like others said great acting by the girl.

good work!
 
ncje said:
Was a little predictable. Thats not always a bad thing from an audience perspective. People are creatures of habit, and like to be right.
Click to expand...
The end was just okay. I was suspecting some Fatal Attraction stuff. I loved all the chracters. (At least watching them was interesting). A drama that can keep the attention of a hardcore action guy like me has to be good. Then again I love a good morality play.

-Nate
 
hey man, i really enjoyed this... to be honest, after i saw the length i didn't think i'd watch the entire thing, but i did and thoroughly enjoyed it... i agree with your choice to cut b/w the two scenes at the end, and thought it worked well... as said before: great sound, great acting (cute girl), good locations, and i didn't mind the lighting being a little blown out.

one thing i didn't really like, was during the coffee scene in the beginning, the camera kind of bobbed up and down... i liked handheld, and i dont mind shakiness, but i found the up and down movement a little distracting... you guys didn't have it on a steadicam, did you? it almost appeared to be tipping forward and backwards... i dunno, might have just been me.

i watched the video on the myspace page, and on the widescreen, there is a little white between the bars... it'd be a quick fix, and it may be just on that version, but i think pure black would work better...

again, great film, i really enjoyed it, real impressive for a debut
 
Papa - I'm still waiting to hear back from him. He works on the TV show "Dirty Jobs" so he's missing for weeks at a time. He's probably in Africa documenting monkey farms.

Drummerboy - That up and down movement was because we had the camera on a uni-pod and then balanced that on a chair. We tried using a stedicam but that didn't work, then the image stabilizer went out in the camera and all these error messages we're flashing on the screen. So we needed a better way to balance the camera without using a tri-pod.

Yes it was only going backwards and forewards!!!! We were lazy. Here's a picture of what we were doing.

GraphicPicture12.jpg


It gave the camera just a slight bit of movement.

That jerking shot was a mistake. It was a result of the rubber from the bottom of our monopod sticking to the cheap plastic chair... the jerking.... so if you look closely at the picture we put a dinner plate between the chair and the monopod. We had no idea what we were doing.

But also that jerking show was the only shot at that angle with movement so we went with it. I know it looks bad, but I had nothing else.

Thanks for watching it. I just drove to Portland today to buy an HVX, 2 8 gig cards and a P2 Store. We're using the HVX for out next one. It's pretty cool to have it in my hands!!!
 
Whoa! Billy Heywood!! Little Big League! haha, that's terrific. Anyway, you had a very nice cast. The acting was very good throughout the film. I think I enjoyed Robert Seay's performance the most.

Remote mics... that's a great idea. The sound was great, and I was surprised at some of the shots you were able to get and the locations you shot AT.

CC was very well done. The images looked great and each portion of the film had a different tone. I liked that.

Well, I definately enjoyed this short. Thanks for posting it. :thumbsup:
 
just thinking about the luxury you could have when using wireless mics,, get away with so much more, but at what cost...... hrmmm
do find out the mic info asap, im totally curious, chaaaa

'sup lawsuit.
 
The sound information is as follows...

1. Lectrosonics - UCR211 Receiver
2. Lectrosonics - UM250C UHF BODPAC (Wireless Transmitter)
3. Tram-TR-50BML (Lavalier Microphone)

There you go... i hope that helps. I know that stuff is pretty expensive so renting it is probably the best thing to do.

I'm getting the link fixed... bandwidth exceeded... the myspace video still works though....
 
I thought the girl actress did a pretty good job. I'd be interested in working with
her in the future. Does she have a agent or anyway way to contact her ?

thanks
 
wow that was great! i still can't hardly believe that was with natural lights -- you seriously didn't use any lights other than the boob scene? did you turn the shutter speed down to 1/24?

the only thing i didn't like is where the opening showed the bloody fingers/tomato juice. it was obvious that was put there just to try and trick the audience and then had to show the meat/tomatoes so that it would work. i would of just made the phone call without any blood.

great job!! what was your budget!? the female actor was AMAZING! the whole cast was great!
 
Only used lights on the boob scene.

Most of the other scenes were right in front of a big window or outside so we got really lucky.

The shutter speed changed throughout... what ever looked good on the monitor we just started shooting.

The budget was the cost of the DVX and some food. All the actors worked for free... thank god.
 
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