SHORT: Embers - my first short film

[iamWZA]

Been in the works for more than two years. Shot on the Canon C300. Total budget was around £5000, all self-funded.
I wrote, directed, shot and edited it. My brother wrote the music. I'm pretty proud of it as a debut short. It's my interpretation of a silent film.

Please, if you can, watch it in 1080p with good sound. The master copy is actually 20GB and this version is very compressed (3GB).
Let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwbmNvKQRTw#at=1384

Will

 

[dre83]

ok, it's a silent film...but is it a silent film because that was your intension ? Or because the sound was so bad that you thought "héé, let's make it a silent film" ?

 

[Justin Kuhn]

Pitch to deaf people because no one with hearing is going to sit through 30 minutes of talking heads with no voices whatsoever.

 

[iamWZA]

ok, it's a silent film...but is it a silent film because that was your intension ? Or because the sound was so bad that you thought "héé, let's make it a silent film" ?

it was a conscious decision from day one. i knew i wouldn't be able to get good enough quality audio so i decided to try this. i think it's really engaging.

Pitch to deaf people because no one with hearing is going to sit through 30 minutes of talking heads with no voices whatsoever.

i think this says more about you than it does about my film. but i get what you're saying. thanks for the response

 

[Justin Kuhn]

I would sooner watch a foreign film with subtitles than a dub, because the original language is what the actor did. To me, the emotion in the voice and the subtitle combine into a performance. In other words, reading subtitles is fine, but missing out on hearing the emotion is not ok. Paying any kind of homage to the silent film era would be something different than what you did. Making a dialogue-based, subtitled silent film...just, why? I don't have time to read all the text AND pick up the acting. So it's kind of un-viewable and that sucks, because it's obvious you put a lot of time in it.

 

[Supertramp]

I didn't watch the whole thing, but I skimmed through. The short seems to rely heavily on the performances, which are possibly fairly decent. I have to say I do find it incredibly bizarre that we can't hear the actor's voices. There's very little action taking place and we're mostly watching conversations, so the lack of sound was very problematic for me.

Did you record any sound on the day? I've only ever tried a couple of things with shoestring budgets, so £5000 seems like a lot of money to me. How much more would it have taken to choose audio over subtitles? I think the overwhelming majority of people who watch this for entertainment purposes will find the lack of vocals to be a deal breaker. Perhaps someone who watches this from a certain artistic perspective will appreciate your goals, but I'm afraid I just couldn't handle the format.