Ecclesiastes

chris,

The first minute of this film was great for me. For some reason my brain thinks "great acting" when something is in a different language, probably because I don't know how well the lines are being delivered, but it sounds great.

The superimposed image on the TV took me out of the mood that the dialogue created. If they don't have any money, why not just have a crappy TV, scans lines and all playing in the background?

the mirror transition blew me away, I will be stealing that for a future project.

Yes! another shot of the hotel room sequence. The gun took me out of the mood as well, as you could see the plastic seams from the toy.

This was a solid entry, some really good stuff!
 
yea I'm going to work on a better/more realistic composite of the newscast, I just did it last second going frame by frame in final cut. At the time of shooting the first/last scene the newscasts weren't complete so I didn't have that option unfortunately.
The gun took me out of the mood as well, as you could see the plastic seams from the toy.
Click to expand...
the gun in your film definitely put mine to shame, but I guess that's the difference between a 20 dollar toy off of ebay and the real thing, ha. This is open to anyone as well as you: If you thought the gun looked fake which parts of the gun and which shots made it seem fake? I'm going back to that hotel room to shoot the poster photo next week and I'm trying to make a list of shots that we might be able to do pick ups of while we're there, so maybe I can frame something differently or do something to the gun between now and then to make it seem more realistic. For the most part everyone's thought it looked real, but it's not like many people have a seen a sniper rifle in real life.
 
Chris, enjoyed this a lot. A few bumps, but stuff that can be easily ironed out (already mentioned). A strong story - very well done.
 
Chris,

If you want a full blown critique of the gun scene, here we go.

At 4:40 - This is probably the most awkward I've seen someone hold a gun, it doesn't look organic. The gun looks okay from this angle, the scope really blows it for me, that looks like a handgun scope.

4:42 - better shot, he looks more natural, except it doesn't look like he could actually see anything through that scope, almost like it still has caps on it.

4:45 - much better position than the 1st shot, which is problematic because you can tell the angles on the gun are different, a slow rack to the face would have been awesome right here.

4:47 - I would change this matte, it looks silly. the crosshairs are far too thick and I would blur the circle a bit.

4:49 - I like this shot, but this is where you can really tell it's fake and it's because of the giant plastic seam behind the trigger.

4:51 - same matte issues.

4:54 - the sound took me out as well, as it is a silencer sound, but a rifle of that size would make a big boom. As for the performance from the actor, on a gun of that size, you don't just yank the trigger back to fire. It's more of a slow and steady pull until the gun goes off. If you yank back like that, your aim goes completely haywire and you'll miss by a mile.

4:57 - one shot, one kill? the reaction is more effective in this one, but if his eyeball was that close to the scope without being braced, he'd be experiencing some pain from the recoil.

All of these could contribute to having a more realistic assassination. I hope my experience helps you in the future. And you don't have to go and hunt down a 1500 rifle, there are plenty of fake alternatives that will play just as well.

I come from a military family and our actor happened to be an ex-marine, which also helped out a lot!
 
thanks for the imput, I nor my actor knows anything about guns so I kinda figured that we did alot of things that weren't technically realistic. I'll print out these notes and take them with me when we do some reshoots this week.
 
My Thoughts:

Chris, I really enjoyed the film and liked the premise. I could guess the ending half way through of what his job was going to be and I couldn't help but to think of film, "The Saint". I'm not entirely sold on 'elizabeth shue's' character, but was enjoyable to watch none-the-less. I really dug the look of the sniper scene and the conference. The final gunshot rang out from nowhere and I would have liked some closure on who the hell sniped him. Was it the police? Secret service? At least a rack focus of another gun or something to close that scene. Music.. effective. (what little music there was in the film)

Thanks for sharing your film.

/j
 
I really liked the acting in the opening scene. This really felt like a slice of life - and whether heightened or otherworldly even, that's the goal of course and I thought you achieved it here. I was really drawn into these two characters and what was going on with them.

I did not buy the representative, however. I think it was more of a type issue than an acting issue. She seemed a little young and a little too green to be a Representative. So while you had a real kind of intense believable government thriller vibe going her part took me out. Like I said I think it was mostly just type but she did not seem like a confident authoritative public speaker to me while addressing the house or the UN or whomever that was.

I liked the subtle Color Grading and muted look to the film. Very Nice.

The audio was a bit erratic, even within the classical piece. I found myself riding the volume a bit. I think the general rule of thumb is try to keep everything between -6 and -12 db except for ambient on the soft side and gun shots and screaming on the loud side. It's all just taste of course but I find that gives me enough
dynamic range without having people ride the volume knob while watching.

So to sum up. I enjoyed watching this and I really liked the look and the performances of the Asian couple. I also appreciated your confidence in the slow deliberate suspenseful pace. That takes an assured hand and I think it worked for the piece.

Thanks for screening it man, nice work here :beer:
 
**best if viewed with headphones or good speakers**

for anyone who still looks at the spyfest thread, here is the extended cut of the film that i've been working on since spyfest: https://oncourse.iu.edu/access/content/user/mzwiesle/Ecclesiastes_dvxuser.mov

I premiered it Sunday night, we had 2 showings and there were about 70-80 people in each showing, so not too bad of a turnout for an 11.5 minute film. I'm releasing the DVD in about a week or two, so if you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions feel free to let me know. I won't be doing any reshoots but if you see any other changes I could make to make the film better don't hesitate to let me know. Thanks!
 
Chris,

I'm downloading this movie right now. It's going slowly, but that could be my connection. I look forward to checking out the extended version.

Your theatrical opening sounded like it went well. That's a good turnout.

I'll follow up with another post once I watch the extended version.
 
I saw it. Great stuff. Really worked much better at 11 minutes instead of six. I did miss the old ending though where the assasin's girlfriend watched the news and discovered that he's dead. Thought that had more emotional punch than seeing the old guy (wasn't really surprised that it was him).
 
yea i kind of liked the other ending too because it definitely felt more personal, but the 11 minute film was more focused on the Robin Nole character/energy crisis theme than it was about the spy/assassin so i think the new ending was more consistent with the overall story. thanks for the feedback
 
Chris,

I like the extended cut much better. My favorite part is the energy crisis element. It's what makes the spy element work so well. It's not just some random "get the jewels back" story. As pretty as jewels are; they don't matter to the entire planet.

I will watch your film again soon with my filmmaker cap on. I like to watch it at first without thinking of how or why you did this, or that. It clears my head.

talk to you soon
 
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