Friday the 13th: The Storm (tribute short shot in HD)

T

TWJP

Active member
Hey all ---

Friday the 13th: The Storm is a short tribute film that I directed. We shot it in HD with the HVX200a, using Nikon Prime lenses (can't remember exactly which lens adapter we used... but it definitely wasn't one of the ones that flips the image back to normal for you ;-) ).

We shot it over 3 days in Burbank, CA... it was a blast to shoot, and I think our DP is a member at this site as well. Maybe he'll jump in this thread.

Here's the link (to vimeo)... hope you guys like it!

http://www.vimeo.com/5648794
 
The dude did a great job playing Jason and his costume design was fine.

Pity the blonde chick wasn't into the kissing scene, being the opening shot and all. The opening shot seemed to static for me for the time it lingered, I'd say if you didn't have another cam to get the side shot/reverse shots then maybe try moving the camera about slowly.

The brunette seemed to be the stronger actor to me.

Props for the nudity, every horror needs boobs.

To me the biggest problem was the lack of setting up a scene, script wise. Just didn't seem to be any real cohesion.

The blackout scenes could maybe have done with a little backlighting to define the persons from b.g. in shot.

Some of the action with Jason did look pretty cool, again the dude did a great job. I would have loved to see a bit more screen time from him, even if it's just him stalking a victim.

Where did you get the costume from? I started writing a Jason fanfilm the other day myself.

Did you like the latest Friday the 13th flick?
 
Backlight was against the theory of illumination. I thought it would be better if the darkness overtook the characters allowing the feeling of uncertainty and shadow help the anxiety and confusion of being alone in the dark with a killer.

Backlighting would have given a clearer idea of what was going bump in the night and eliminated that feeling of uncertainty in the dark. It's also a really 'tv' thing to do, and in my opinion is against my lighting scheme for cinematic imagery.

Not sure how it looks on other screens but on mine it is almost perfect balance between what we should see and what we should leave to the imagination. The lack of backlight should really let the killer and victims struggle in the cover of darkness.

I hope that helps understand the decision to not use obvious rim lighting and etc.
 
The dialog seemed a little off and inconsistent.. What type of mics did you use and what placement.. The Sound effects were pretty good. Overall good job.
 
Lighting and cinematography looked great. The editing was pretty good as well. The dialogue audio was a bit inconsistent and muddy at times.

I preferred the brunette as well. :)

Not bad. The writing did seem a tad weak and I could have used more stalking behaviour, more chase.

Nice work though.

MAH
 
Voorhees fan here. Great job on getting a fan film completed.

Having a lot of trouble swallowing this pill, but this is just me. With so much Friday the 13th material out there to study, I have to wonder why certain basic elements such as pacing have been skipped over?

To me, the pacing shifts abruptly and it becomes slightly exhausting to want to follow. I won't post spoilers here unless asked, but if you'd like examples I'll be glad to give.

On the story side, I mean it works as a snippet out of the Voorhees chronicles. Chics get done dirty by the J-Man. As a stand-alone entity, I'm not sure? I'd like to ask: what dictated the decision to invest more time into characters-- that may or may not have been particularly interesting-- as opposed to doing Fan Service? More Jason, more kills, much faster?

Technically, a great effort. I can't say I'm a fan of most of the image here. One thing that finds me curious is the matte. Why the faux 2.35:1? The other would be compositions. In most I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be looking at. So instead I look at the entire image and I get lost. It feels like a lot of the frame composition was stuck in the middle of going one way or the other, but never decided on being wide, medium or tight.

Is this because of the limitations in locations?

The sound itself is a bit trying on the senses. Birds in the beginning are much louder than conversation forcing me to ramp up the audio. In fact, a lot of the dialogue sounds too low? Probably an easy fix.

Those are serious questions I ask, though, and would like to know why certain decisions were made. Not that they were bad, just wondering what spawned them and what the goal was.

There's really no right or wrong choice, just the one that seems to work at the time.

Again, great effort. If anything I've typed here sounds offensive it isn't meant to be. Take it with a grain of salt as well if need be. =D
 
As a fan of the series, I really enjoyed it! I thought the HD was beautiful. I even liked the dark images, as that's what the first movie was like (something I also emulated in Wulf) My only dislike was the sound. But other than that, great job!
 
First off --- holy f*$%k, Ryan... I'm sorry man, I don't know what I was thinking!! Wish I had some kind of excuse, but I'm just plain ol' retarded. I'll get that fixed asap.

The audio --- I agree 100%. That's something we knew would suffer going in (as our audio guy bailed on us 2 days before the shoot). We made due with what we had, which was a beat up old boom mic, that sometimes was held by 'Jason' himself, sometimes leaned onto a wall pointing in the general direction of the actors. I know, its horrible... but it was either that, or cancel the shoot.

Backlighting in the blackout scenes --- Ryan and I talked about this briefly before the shoot, but we both agreed that it would look silly, so it was a short discussion.

Kholi --- 'More Jason, more kills' means more $$$ (and placing more trust in a possibly un-reliable FX crew). To ask why we didn't have more kills is like asking me why I didn't include any aerial photography, or have any massive, practical explosions. I would have loved to do a lot of things bigger, but only had so much to work with. More kills also means more actors, and at the ultra-low budget fan-film level, you never know just how reliable people will be, and I purposely kept the cast as small and seperate as possible. Not the best way to create a story, I know... but again, dealing with reality of what we had to work with. Just to be clear, I agree... but we just couldn't pull any more then what's on screen together. Although, I do disagree with the opinion that too much time was devoted to characters. I think they fit well into the F13 universe, and the scenes with them helped create a story.

Same goes for the (lack of a) chase --- We shot in LA, and I had no legit contacts with any extensive amount of private property. I actualy added the garage scene into the story a day or two before the shoot, in order to drag out any semblance of a chase scene.

The wide-matte -- not sure what you want me to tell you. I think its a little ubsurd to frame the question in the manner you did. I disagree with the framing opinion as well, not sure how you got lost in the imagery. Call me a layman, but statements like that scream of a filmschool student trying to impress his professor. I think Ryan did a great job composing interesting shots with the limited resources he had.
 
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TWJP said:
Kholi --- 'More Jason, more kills' means more $$$ (and placing more trust in a possibly un-reliable FX crew). To ask why we didn't have more kills is like asking me why I didn't include any aerial photography, or have any massive, practical explosions. I would have loved to do a lot of things bigger, but only had so much to work with. More kills also means more actors, and at the ultra-low budget fan-film level, you never know just how reliable people will be, and I purposely kept the cast as small and seperate as possible. Not the best way to create a story, I know... but again, dealing with reality of what we had to work with. Just to be clear, I agree... but we just couldn't pull any more then what's on screen together. Although, I do disagree with the opinion that too much time was devoted to characters. I think they fit well into the F13 universe, and the scenes with them helped create a story.

Same goes for the (lack of a) chase --- We shot in LA, and I had no legit contacts with any extensive amount of private property. I actualy added the garage scene into the story a day or two before the shoot, in order to drag out any semblance of a chase scene.

The wide-matte -- not sure what you want me to tell you. I think its a little ubsurd to frame the question in the manner you did. I disagree with the framing opinion as well, not sure how you got lost in the imagery. Call me a layman, but statements like that scream of a filmschool student trying to impress his professor. I think Ryan did a great job composing interesting shots with the limited resources he had.
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Hmmm. I don't think I said a single negative thing. But instead of responding to this any further I'll give you a pat on the back and say good job.
 
I dont remember any aerial shots or explosions in fridays 13th's.
I must say that some shots look too professional for the sound, sound is like "what is it? why it sounds so strange and looks quite good ?".
Some scenes outside were overexposed but your shots inside the house look very nice at times very filmic.Some scenes would need more cuts ,like the scene where blonde is going to sit on the sofa ,its too long and shes not visible ,this scene is framed weird,i think she sat too far almost offscreen.
Some guys posted that the other actress was their more believable etc. i just think that they would like to see her body instead of blonde and see her more onscreen,they just wont admit it straight that its because she is the better looking one.
Yeah it has weird framing here and here,too much is onscreen or not enough.
Im really surprised ,some scenes look like from actual friday 13th with your jason actor.:thumbup:
Just those scenes on infinity with bad framing need to be rearranged,another time maybe ? Cause I would like to see some more but i would like to see some fast fancy killing like jason did in friday 13th's ,some quick kills(like you did with guy in the kitchen - that was nice) ,not wrestling with victims cause it looks like hes not strong enough and has some problems.
First scene which looks filmic for my eye is when blonde is goin to the car. Its nicely lit and not overexposed like previous ones.
Ah one more thing, non tripod shots are much much better and "alive" than those on tripod, did you shoot handheld when not on tripod ?
 
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I really enjoyed this short but must agree with bwwd, the audio was lacking substantially. Sound effect levels seemed a little too hot and dialogue, too low. I'm assuming the hiss was a result of poor boom placement and an attempt to gain the levels in post. Needless to say, I thought it was excellent.

You definitely stayed true to the franchise and with your limited resources, did a hell of a job....no pun intended.
 
Had another look at the short and yeah, the lighting was good in the night shots.

Where did you get the Jason costume?
 
Nice work. It definitely looked great. Im a big Jason fan. Are you the same guys that had a flick called F13 the obsession way back?
 
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