Envision & RebeccaD Present "Where Silence Falls"

Yep, they're really good hosts! Thanks David & Rebecca for opening your home to it! You two rock! Hope your family enjoys the trip to Mexico & look forward to hitting the story/script stuff when you get back! :beer: Hopefully I'll have a completed 1st draft by then. :thumbsup:

Your trip will be a nice break from all this film stuff. Ahhh, the sun, sandy white beaches, crystal blue warm salt water ...
 
Hi Envision,
Congratulations to you and your cast/crew with the 2nd prize.
Honoustly, there is something about your film I want to share but I'm hesitating to do it. Nevertheless, it's just my 2 cents so here I go.
The production side of your film shows off, a lot of work has been invested in Where Silence Falls. It looks like a full blown episode of some tv soap drama. But in the same time, it's a kind of overkill. The actors are doing their acting 'too big', too dramatic. I don't know the right English words for it, but it's more theatre than tv/film. And the story is very obvious, I could predict the ending when the word 'sexual issue' of the neighbour was mentioned between the wife and her husband, the only thing I had to guess if the neighbour would survive it or not.
I know every filmmaker does his own thing, but the question that keeps coming in my head is: when I would do all those hard production work, would I choose a story that's predictable/cliche? Isn't there a big challenge in getting a original story told with a film?
Please, see this a reflection of somebody who wants to share some ideas and suggestions, to better understand the way your film was made.
Looking forward to hear from you.
 
Hey thanks, Tung! I want you involved in our next one we're working on, so we need to talk soon. :beer:

Pesie, you bring up some good questions. For us, we had thought of other avenues we could have taken the story, but they were typically throwing us over the 6 minute limit, and or wouldn't have the resolve/ending that we felt this one did. So while it may seem predictable/cliche' to some, it was the best complete story idea that we could personally come up with, which we felt had a solid beginning, middle, and end, and could deliver in 6 minutes or less.

Thanks for the question(s)! :thumbsup:
 
Hi Norm. A bit late I know but thought I'd throw in my 1.85 cents Canadian.(Or has it gone down again)

This was the strongest film for me in the contest 'drama + overall' category.
I thought Norms acting was strong leading up to the confrontation with
Bill and then slipped a bit here and there but I'm sure that's old hat by now.
And if I have to be a critic maybe a timing/beat thing with one of Bill's lines '...that I could ever...'.Bear in mind I don't know crap and I hate being a critic but think you just want honest opinions.

Rebecca D was thee highlight for me. I accidentally read a post or two before posting and was influenced I think by thier observations but I also saw your response so I'll leave it at that (ya got it covered).

I didn't vote, again (still < 100) but overall everything considered: drama-score-acting-cine-audio-entertainment-ect this was it for me.
As I posted earlier I thought '18 seconds' was brillant but I think these two
clips can't be judged side by side. One is art and one is commercial.
I hope that's not offending anyone. It's just my point of view.
Good job everyone.
 
Hey Raptor365, thanks for the feedback & glad WHERE SILENCE FALLS did it for you! :thumbsup: I take 'commercial' as a huge compliment, as that's what I aspire in our productions. While I completely appreciate art films, they tend to have a more narrow niche, and I want to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

Again, thank you for watching & taking the time to comment, late or not. :)
 
WHERE SILENCE FALLS has finally made it up for viewing on Spielberg's ON THE LOT website. I was able to submit this on the final day of the deadline, so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Of the reviews on there so far, it's been positive.

Would love any support you'd like to provide to spread the word to simply have people view the film, and vote/rate freely (if they want to vote) on how they feel it performs.

http://films.thelot.com/films/24667

Thankfully, it looks like the work I put into trying to make sure it had the best size/compression for the site worked ... the resolution has held up pretty well compared to some others I've seen on there.

Again, just asking for folks to view it on there, and comment/rate if they'd like. Not trying to influence how anyone rates it. :beer:
 
Norm!

Hey, congratulations on having your film on the site. What did you have to do to get it on there? Just submit it?

I'm off to have a look now... :beer:
 
Cool, thanks Tommy! Well, the rules stated that the films sumbitted couldn't be more than 5 minutes in length, and had to be accompanied by a 30-45 second introduction of the filmmaker. So I had to find an entire minute to cut out of the already tight running time of 6 minutes we had. The rest was pretty easy. Upload it to the site by the deadline, and submit a DVD with the application & a urine sample.

Okay, I'm kidding about the application. :grin:
 
i really like the winner. Heritage. a great story and their DP is really good. awesome shots. I honestly didnt like where silence falls. i think the story is not good at all and the photography needs improvement. Sorry for my honest critisism.:( On the positive side the performance of the actors was good.
 
Thanks dvpixl!

prisma, would you mind expanding on what it was about the story you didn't like (sounds like all of it, but what was it that caused you not to like it), and why or where you felt the photography needed to be improved? Thanks for the honest critique, and glad you liked the performances.
 
Envision

Well, i will try to explain. Is not that the story is bad, i figured out is the way it was told. There are some shots that in my opinion hurted if not killed the film. I expected some camera shaking shots to intesify the tension. closeups to hands, eyes, trembling lips.
but instead we have a woman in the kitchen disapearing like a ghost. Also, why the main character is not knocking on anybodys door? talking with any consern neighbours? (we dont actualy see the guy talking to anyone) it doesnt feel real, i mean its like a ghost town? i mean in real life neighbours are the ones that start frenetics searchs when a child is missing in the neighborhood. that in my opinion disrupt the sense of reality that was intended from the bigining and the overall power of the story. also the scene when the woman goes out and talk to a neighbour feels like redundant to me since the guy already did that. finally, the innocent child molestor is too young. It doesent feel real, it would be better if he was an older guy around 50-60 years old.

just my honest opinion.
 
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I just want to say one more thing: get rid of the tripod (or whatever thing that camera man was wearing) if you want a movie to aquire real life show movement. I concur 100% with Robert Rodriguez when he says that the moment you put a camera on a tripod, that moment you kill your film. use tripods and steady gear sporadically.

like i said before is just my opinion.
 
Uh...Robert Rodriguez uses steadicam heavily. He only argued against the non-stop use of tripods, (though he said they are good for dialogue scenes). So don't misquote the man. Where Silence Falls uses mostly steadicam. It's ironic that you say to get rid of the steadicam in order to show movement. Perhaps you meant to post something different?
 
YOUR # First Place in my eye,,,,,,,,,,,,

YOUR # First Place in my eye,,,,,,,,,,,,

Excellent Twist at the end .......
Very good film .

Rolando Sanchez
ONPOINT PICTURES
 
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