Envision & 235 Studios - "R.E.M."

[Brandon Rice]

Brandon Rice’s comprehensive and completely subjective film review

Brandon Rice’s comprehensive and completely subjective film review

REM


Script
Pretty simple and basic. I didn’t like the ending… it starts all over again?

Acting
Hey, great work here, Rebecca did a good job with really being scared, I believed her, and her frantic calls to wake up as well.

Cinematography
Wow! I think this is better than Sparrow, the image is clean and the camera movement is SWEET! Love everything about the shots. Very slick feeling.

Editing
Pretty good, I think the intro was a bit drawn out, and there was a weird cut of feet under the door, but overall the scenes moved seamlessly and effortlessly… nice.

Score
Yep, it worked perfectly. Another great score from Justin.

Overall Impressions
Great short piece. I am impressed with the image quality you all pulled off with the HVX. I sure can’t wait to shoot something with that! I really enjoyed your film! Thanks.

 

[Edgen]

Justin did a great job with the score. The guy is PHENOMENAL with larger than life epic scores, and just all around good ... but the images we had weren't really all that scary in and of themselves, so for the final draft of the music he told me he was going to just have to do it with his eyes closed & imagine the scare, lol! Then he could sync it up to the picture, etc. Great work, Justin, thanks!

see what happens when you just turn picture off and score just to score? Could you feel the anger?

It was a crazy thing cause I would rather work around Sound FX and not make up my own hits and stingers. It was soo great seeing thing in all its glory completely with sound fx. Wowa. The kitchen radio thing even scared the bejezus out of me!

My only crit was when rebecca fell down at the top of the stairs. It was cool when i heard the 'beast', but I would have like to of heard a nother stinger as she slammed down to the floor that would have sold the fact something indeed grabbed her and was gobbling her up the wall (norm). I also would have liked to see those cover get yanked completely off the bed. It started to at first and I was like Double Tee Eff main!? Then, they just kinda quit.

In the amount of time, i'm proud of all you guys. Looking forward to future projects and hopefully a filmic collaboration if you are ever out in this neck of the woods.

cheers,
/j

 

[TristanPR]

Good job Norm! I enjoyed it.

The only constructive crits I have are some of the actual framing. A couple shots felt awkward and left a lot of empty space that looked as if it should be filled.

Acting was nice - but not in the "wow - she's hot - therefore she's a good actress" kinda way. I actually thought she did a decent job throughout.

 

[Blaine]

Norm, I like this one a lot better than the butchered version of Sparrow. This one seemed more like a shot that was shot to the time period, rather than cut to it. Rebecca did a good job, too. I liked your story and felt the cinematography and editing were solid, too. Ryan did a good job of getting the look he was going for, in camera. (with Tung's help, of course)

The story on this one isn't as "big" as Sparrow and that's why it probably works better in a six minute version. I liked the score, too.

Of the three DVXUser fests I've seen, this is my favorite outing by you.

Of course, Sparrow on the DVD was a completely different animal.

 

[235 Studios]

Thanks for the detailed feed back- that is always appreciated.

[Cinematography
Wow! I think this is better than Sparrow, the image is clean and the camera movement is SWEET! Love everything about the shots. Very slick feeling.

Thanks- I had fun filming it- and it was something else getting the dolly down that hallway, I only had about 1/2" clearance on either side!!!

Editing
Pretty good, I think the intro was a bit drawn out, and there was a weird cut of feet under the door, but overall the scenes moved seamlessly and effortlessly… nice.

Yeah, both the title credits and the end credits are rather long- I believe they total almost 1 min. We felt since we had the extra time, why not use it...

Thanks again for the comments.

 

[235 Studios]

sIn the amount of time, i'm proud of all you guys. Looking forward to future projects and hopefully a filmic collaboration if you are ever out in this neck of the woods.

That would be fun- I'll let you know if I'm ever out your way. I've been traveling a lot this past year, so who knows, maybe I'll get a chance to swing out to your 'hood.

Thanks again for the score- I continue to be inpressed with your work.

 

[235 Studios]

The only constructive crits I have are some of the actual framing. A couple shots felt awkward and left a lot of empty space that looked as if it should be filled.

Interesting crit- care to elaborate- just lake of set dressing to fill out the empty space, or the actual framing, or both? What shots specifically? Thanks for the input.

 

[235 Studios]

I liked your story and felt the cinematography and editing were solid, too. Ryan did a good job of getting the look he was going for, in camera. (with Tung's help, of course)

Thanks- yeah, Tung is one kick ass gaffer- I like working with him,as he is easy to work with, but he also gets the job done. His skill and input conitue to be a valuable resourse.

 

[VersuS]

Really nice and solid work!!!
I loved the lighthing and the editing. I LOVED the running up the stairs scene. I was a bit bothered with the scene when she is drawn into the room and she grabs the door, it had that poltergeist thing in it but I'd rather have a different color than blue...maybe just white...She was amazing of course and I'm not talking about the outfit...she really seemed scared and she cried out like a pro and I could understand her words perfectly.

Did you intentionally use red-led clock for the kitchen (dream) and blue-led for the bedroom (reality)??

The score was of course great but I knew what to expect from the BTS. The ending was abrupt and confusing but didnt really bother, its one of the times when you dont really know what happened but dont really care coz the overall feeling is quite positive.

I loved the kitchen man! I want one just like that!!! Big kitchens make me jealous!!!!!

 

[Darkline]

This was fun. Very nicely shot, and the build up was good.

I love the bit where she runs up the stairs, very Wes Craven.

I would say though it left me unsatisfied as I think there were too many questions left unanswered. That can be a good thing; but it can also be a bad thing if you dont satisfy the audience on some level. Some questions left open are good, but I really felt confused that nothing at all had been explained.

Techincally very acomplished. Editing, sound and lighting score very high!

 

[235 Studios]

Really nice and solid work!!!
I loved the lighthing and the editing.

Thanks, glad you liked it. Tung's the man when it comes to lights!

Did you intentionally use red-led clock for the kitchen (dream) and blue-led for the bedroom (reality)??

Depends on what you mean by intentionally- Norm went to the store to pick up the clocks and he chose two different colors just to have an option when on set. When we arrived on set, I looked at the clocks and wanted to go with the red one, as I liked the red image- since this is a horror flick. Then, since we still had an extra clock, I decided that we would use it upstairs, that way it would help seperate the two areas, and also since I wanted to go with a darker more blue lighting upstairs it would work well up there.

So was it intentional- kind of- in so much as the choice was intentionally made when on set. But had norm only picked up one clock, or if it was a different color a different choice would/could have been made. So it was not intentional durring the scripting process (Which was only about 1 - 2 days.). So it was part choice, part happy accident if that makes sense.

 

[235 Studios]

This was fun. Very nicely shot, and the build up was good.
I love the bit where she runs up the stairs, very Wes Craven ... Techincally very acomplished. Editing, sound and lighting score very high!

Thanks, yeah the run up the stairs is probably my favorite scene as well.

I would say though it left me unsatisfied as I think there were too many questions left unanswered. That can be a good thing; but it can also be a bad thing if you dont satisfy the audience on some level. Some questions left open are good, but I really felt confused that nothing at all had been explained.

Good point- it is always good to NOT leave your viewer confused at the end. Some questions are fine- and I personally like unanswered questions, as they encourage more viewer participation in thinking through the film. Put there is a point when that questioning becomes confusion and you've lost the viewer ....

 

[VersuS]

About the colors, ever since I saw Eyes Wide Shut when it was released I cant stop thinking in color terms....like what does this represent? why did you do that in yellow? how come he is green? so I guess red downstairs, blue upstairs is the right way to go

 

[tung n' groove photo]

Thanks for all the responses on lighting. I really enjoyed working on this project. I think it's time for us to expand on our fog/smoke supply. The smoke juice was cool. If we also had fog juice, it would have helped also.
Time to learn more...I think I'll be purchasing some gaffer texts soon on Amazon

One crit: Being on the set and having read the script, it sucks not being able to experience the film the same as others! If we had a chance to do another take on the door grabbing thing, I'd try to have Rabecca not "walk her hands" up the door frame and to try to have her "resist" the pull up the frame. But that would've broken Norm's back perhaps. I'll have to review the film a few more times to offer more.

Downloaded all the films yesterday at school in under an hour onto my portable backup drive...phew! What a collection! Watched a bunch of them yesterday and had trouble sleeping hahaha!

Yeah, my favourite scene was the running up the stairs bit...that was very cool.

 

[Steve_Arm]

Ah... for some reason there were shots that I couldn't focus on the film
Everything placed carefully together, great job as I expected!
Music the best theme so far, did I say the best?
Cheers.

 

[TimurCivan]

I feel llike the dolley shots were unmotivated. Too much movement, toom uch following. But the story worked was simple enough to activate six minutes effectivly. Look was nice. Thank you for the gratuitous butt shot in the begining.

 

[JaydeeG83]

I liked it, thought it was really good, except that you can see the rope pulling the girl into the room in the shadow against the wall, lol

 

[VersuS]

I liked it, thought it was really good, except that you can see the rope pulling the girl into the room in the shadow against the wall, lol

yep, that HAD to be avoided

 

[235 Studios]

I liked it, thought it was really good, except that you can see the rope pulling the girl into the room in the shadow against the wall, lol

Yep you can. That was the take that had the least amount of noticable shaddow in it. Unfortunately, with starting so late (About a week before the deadline) we did not have a whole lot of time for post work. But we are addressing that for the DVD version. Jerry (fititinpost) is working on roto'ing it out as I type this. So that issue will be resolved.

 

[Norm Sanders]

I liked it, thought it was really good, except that you can see the rope pulling the girl into the room in the shadow against the wall, lol

Thanks everyone for the feedback ... keep it coming! :thumbsup:

For the rope, you're right. If you look in the BTS you won't see it there, but that was when we were finally done with the other takes & had apparently gotten it down right for Tung to take some BTS/Promotional pics.

Oh well, at least the DVD final (for cast/crew, etc.) will be cleaned up. Jerry Turner (fixitinpost) who was also our PA sent Ryan & I a little .mov file of a quick rotoscoping he did to get rid of the shadow. EXCELLENT job ... so Ryan's exported out a PNG sequence to get to Jerry for him to clean up, then we'll lay it back in before rendering out the DVD. Perhaps, if Jarred will allow it, we can update the DVD version as well for DVXuser.

Timur, I'm not sure why you feel the dolly shot was unmotivated ... could you explain? If you're referring to the hallway, I think it feels better to track with her, than to have this wide shot of her just walking up the hallway. By staying closer, it should keep us in the moment more vs. watching from afar, IMO.

EDIT: I guess I took too long to type, lol. Ryan addressed the rope thing.