hunters-the necromancer by janzie
- Thread starter janzie
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Slimothy
Veteran
Okay, I watched this one the other day and a few things stick out in my memory. I remember it having cool aspects and some cool camera work. Also alot of the actors you got weren't just kids and it really helps sell the movie alot when you don't have kids. That being said, alot of the special fx were really, really lacking. I remember the muzzle flashes being really bad, and the blood being really fake. It's really hard to pull some of these things off on a limited/no budget so I would suggest finding other means to do it, or really practice. Was the sky turned yellow? I remember seeing the yellow sky, but in between some of the leaves in the trees there was still white present as if you tried to mask off the sky or something. Also, I remember the graveyard looking very fake...Was it real? One last thing: work on the sound fx. Sorry if it's like I'm tearing your apart. Just what i think will help you next time.
Ought2bCommitted
Veteran
I liked many of the visual aspects of this piece. Some nice shots in the beginning and some really nice angles. What I found lacking overall was the story. I know this was "part one" but it didn't leave me hanging for a "part two". The fight choreography was a little weak as well. I didn't like the change to b/w in the middle. It felt unnecessary and didn't match the visual style early on.
Some really nice elements. very good job.
Robert
Some really nice elements. very good job.
Robert
CallaghanFilms
Veteran
I feel you have an interesting style.
I thought your action scenes were well planned, and your framing choices were wise ones.
However, the film was flawed. I won't add to the critiques Slimothy has listed, but I must concur with them. It is my feeling that you may have thought too big in terms of scale. Possibly a more character-driven approach would have played much better...still having action/fx shots, but not allowing them to be your centerpiece.
I thought your action scenes were well planned, and your framing choices were wise ones.
However, the film was flawed. I won't add to the critiques Slimothy has listed, but I must concur with them. It is my feeling that you may have thought too big in terms of scale. Possibly a more character-driven approach would have played much better...still having action/fx shots, but not allowing them to be your centerpiece.
janzie
Active member
thank you guys. don´t be sorry if you tear it apart, that´s exactly what i want...
the black and white wasn´t planned, but i had only 1 day to shoot and ran out of daylight-i had to work a way around the huge differences.
some parts of the graveyard were fake (the part of the "action" scene)
@slimothy
can you maybe tell me more about the sound fx (what you did´nt like at all etc.)
the black and white wasn´t planned, but i had only 1 day to shoot and ran out of daylight-i had to work a way around the huge differences.
some parts of the graveyard were fake (the part of the "action" scene)
@slimothy
can you maybe tell me more about the sound fx (what you did´nt like at all etc.)
J.R. Hudson
Spirit Animal
Aside from the films shortcoming I think for every one of them, there is a bright spot; this is one of my favorites in the bunch and proves that its not always the perfect technical execution that makes a good film.
This film has character; starting with maybe the hottest chick in the undead bunch and clad in leather pants and brandishing a crossbow.
Whenever church bells ring you know it's gonna be fun. The opening BASS riff is great; I love the simplistic appraoch to the score; it works for me and as its own unique vibe. I always really thought it was cool having the two dudes shovelling a grave; I was gonna do something like this as well (The gravesite approach) but instead did shite (Pestilence).
The wardrobe choices led to a nice ambiguous vibe as well; I did not know where this was; New Orleans maybe? There is some kind of cowboy goth atmosphere (Austria was it?) :huh: and the all-white vampire guy is a great choice; he has a Manson quailty which is spooky
The partial view of the corpse unearthed is a nice touch. The ensuing confrontation is good fun and sound fx really work me here; from the whoosh of the arrow to the thud of the bodies.
The bottomline is I loved every second of this short; it works for me. It has a nice old school feel (it feels familiar) and as simple as the approach is technically (rudimentary camerawork IMO) it rocks. It' one of 5 films I still have in a folder as the rest have been 86'd from my harddrive.
I lok forward to seeing more of this piece. Great job. One of the funnest ones in the bunch
This film has character; starting with maybe the hottest chick in the undead bunch and clad in leather pants and brandishing a crossbow.
Whenever church bells ring you know it's gonna be fun. The opening BASS riff is great; I love the simplistic appraoch to the score; it works for me and as its own unique vibe. I always really thought it was cool having the two dudes shovelling a grave; I was gonna do something like this as well (The gravesite approach) but instead did shite (Pestilence).
The wardrobe choices led to a nice ambiguous vibe as well; I did not know where this was; New Orleans maybe? There is some kind of cowboy goth atmosphere (Austria was it?) :huh: and the all-white vampire guy is a great choice; he has a Manson quailty which is spooky
The partial view of the corpse unearthed is a nice touch. The ensuing confrontation is good fun and sound fx really work me here; from the whoosh of the arrow to the thud of the bodies.
The bottomline is I loved every second of this short; it works for me. It has a nice old school feel (it feels familiar) and as simple as the approach is technically (rudimentary camerawork IMO) it rocks. It' one of 5 films I still have in a folder as the rest have been 86'd from my harddrive.
I lok forward to seeing more of this piece. Great job. One of the funnest ones in the bunch
Slimothy
Veteran
Okay, the camera work throughout is really good. I like the choices you guys made with the compositions. I still see the sky as being distracting------>what exactly did you do to it? All the characters are really good and sell themselves very well. The shot at 2:22 w/ the gravestone in the foreground would look better w/o the fake spiderwebs. The fake spiderwebs-some people used them and I haven't seen any of them that really looked like real webs. Of course that is a VERY small thing and more of a nitpick. Music as mentioned above really fits the piece. Would've been better w/o the B&W, but I know why you did it. As far as blood splatter, on the second time, I kinda like it as it has a KILL BILL kinda vibe, but still looks a bit fake. As far as sound f/x, alot of them were just off time-Like at 4:48 when she's hitting the zombie and it falls, it's not synched up properly. Once again the muzzle flashes look really fake and the sound of the guns isn't too good. I agree that this is def. not in the lower bracket comparing to all the films entered. There was overall good production value. The "Oh no......" at the end had me laughing, sounded really funny, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing as you took a more serious approach. Good job and hope this helps.
Feel free to head over here and review my film Human Endeavor:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=34759
Feel free to head over here and review my film Human Endeavor:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=34759
Actually that is Puffy the Zombie Slayer, Buffy's long lost sister. I liked it very much. Some rough edges on the fight scenes (camera was too static watching the action) but good overall nevertheless. The cell phone display trick wasn't fixed. Enough of bad things now this piece kept me watching from start to end without having me wanting to click the viewer time bar to forward through the clip. The music paced the action well. My favorite part was the opening shots, very well made! Kudos!
Cheers,
Gualbert
Cheers,
Gualbert
Norm Sanders
Script Wrangler
My general notes from when I watched this last Saturday: Scores above average. Started out cool, then got corny with bad SFX, somewhat bad layout/editing adds a little bit of confusion (i.e. when zombie came back to life, grabbed girl).
Okay, those were just fast notes I made at the time ... watching it again now:
Okay, those were just fast notes I made at the time ... watching it again now:
- Really like the shot from the side of the road of the SUV approaching
- At around 0:32, either LOCK that camera down next time so there's no handheld movement, or you'll have to do a better job keyframing your track motion to keep the video more realistically placed within the phone to sell that it's really high tech & not just thrown in during post
- 0:40, so far several nice interesting camera angles ... I'm liking it so far.
- So far up to 0:58, no issues with SFX/Music ... really works for me & I like the fire background of the title, but it's too short, or too quick of a cut ... I'd do a fade/disolve into the cross.
- 3:07 SFX of the crossbow stretching was too unbelieveably loud.
- Gunshot SFX are poor, and I'm not sold on the flashes/FX
- 3:28ish, Next time, I'd SHOW the bolt/arrow going through his hand MUCH closer to the webbing of his fingers, as right now we CLEARLY see it smack through the middle of his hand, however when we cut to the next shot it's a few inches higher, clearly stuck in between his fingers (so we can SEE him pull it out). Would be a little more believable if we saw it hit closer to the webbing perhaps.
- 3:34 SFX when it was pulled out ... again, too loud ... should be more subtle.
- 3:43 Interesting SIN CITY style shot, but having the blood sparkle. Kind of cool.
- 3:53 Cool shot of her coming through the smoke
- 3:56 Love that with the wave of his hand everything returns to color.
- 3:59 WAY too Particle Illusion (or whatever FX) on the blood spraying. I'd rather not see it at all, or have it be a thicker stream/spurt
- 4:11 Here's where I said the editing was confusing ... we see what looks like she's kneeling in front of the zombie (zombie's face in the foreground), 4:19 the eyes open, then 4:20 we see a bald henchman grabbing her. I'm like "huh?". Maybe you did that on purpose, but it pulls me out of the film because I'm wondering what I just missed.
- Around 4:23 it's just all confusing in the way you're showing the shots. We see the Iron Maiden zombie open his mouth which looks like he's about to bite, but instead we cut to the dark haired zombie chomping the guy next to the grave.
- 4:47+ the SFX are really off here. Seem out of sync, and the punches sound very fake/hollow.
- Hearing the voice "Oh No!" at the end, especially the sound/tone just kills the feel you had going up to it. Up until this point I don't really think there was anything that's supposed to be funny or campy, and I would expect that last part to be in something more of a spoof.
- Overall a good little film. Some great cuts/edits with the crossbow & the bolts hitting the victims/henchmen.
- Camera angles throughout much of the film, specifically up to the 2:00 mark seemed to be consistantly askew, which was great.
janzie
Active member
again, thanks to everybody!
i was kinda pissed, because i missed the feedback round last week (no internet access)
i´m really trying to get up to date with your film´s reviews...
i know that the story lacks, but i tried to work around the language barrier (no time for subtitles) and the fact that i didn´t have real actors-just a bunch of good friends helping out!
@slimothy:
to be honest, i was aiming for a look (colors and lights) like your outside shots- it turned out to be a cloudy day, a washed out sky and complete darkness at the end. i didn´t do anything to the sky,just tried to make the difference not too obvious with CC
@hudson:
what can you do, when you live in austria and aim for a texas-look?
what happened to your undead nation project?
i was kinda pissed, because i missed the feedback round last week (no internet access)
i´m really trying to get up to date with your film´s reviews...
i know that the story lacks, but i tried to work around the language barrier (no time for subtitles) and the fact that i didn´t have real actors-just a bunch of good friends helping out!
@slimothy:
to be honest, i was aiming for a look (colors and lights) like your outside shots- it turned out to be a cloudy day, a washed out sky and complete darkness at the end. i didn´t do anything to the sky,just tried to make the difference not too obvious with CC
@hudson:
what can you do, when you live in austria and aim for a texas-look?
what happened to your undead nation project?
janzie
Active member
Envision said:My general notes from when I watched this last Saturday: Scores above average. Started out cool, then got corny with bad SFX, somewhat bad layout/editing adds a little bit of confusion (i.e. when zombie came back to life, grabbed girl).
thanks envision.
the confusion of the last minute is a result of the best learning part of the whole project:
while shooting, two of my zombies had to take off, it was easy to replace the little guy with the cheap mask, but the other one (guy with gun dressed in black) had to be scretched from the "script" and that created problems with the fight.
after that we rushed through the last part and i could only use a couple of shots in post. (and even there i had to live with lights in the background, crew in the background and tons of lens flares...)
but i´m sure we all learned our lessons and start WAAAY earlier next time and don´t wait till the last second...
again, thanks for the detailed review, i hope to deliever yours this week
Hey, you took your time getting up your section (wink).
I liked your flick. After I saw it, I pondered why I found it so entertaining. I guess it was a sense of fun, and fully embracing the tropes of the genre.
Some good stuff - Your actress fit the part, and more importantly had screen appeal (although I couldn't shake the feeling I've seen her in something else). You had some nice framing - dynamic - caught the atmosphere and action. Pace was right on, building to the action. And without reems of dialogue, you understood (pretty much) the world you were introducing. There was also some good choreography involved (I think it was a roll your actress did).
Ok, the not so good - By using a tried and true formula, on the one hand, you have a shorthand with the audience, but on the other, the surprise factor is lessened (some others stuck to a formula, with mixed results, but those that overcame it added more of their own flavor or p.o.v on it). Your cinematography seemed not to be as good in the later(night?) scenes as earlier shots. Also, in some of the fight footage, I noticed your editing was too stacatto, it seemed the handles on your edits 1-2 seconds, cut into the natural flow of the hit - for example when she went to make a strike, you'd cut prematurely to the result (if that makes sense). It's more a nuance thing, where you make it more of a dance with the actors, and the editing. You just stepped on the old editing toes a couple of times. And that LS of the zombie walking from the grave broke the spell a bit. I don't know if it was the persons movement, or the hair and mask, but I thought different ccoverage would have been helpful.
Ok, so the final verdict. The only thing I marked on was entertainment value, so yours did pretty good. In a way I was a little hesitant, because technically, and pushing boundary-wise you weren't as bold, but I just damn liked it so... I liked your framing, and some of the dynamic feel of your short, so keep it up. :beer:
Sorry if this wasn't comprehensive, but I just was going on my memory.
Cheers.
I liked your flick. After I saw it, I pondered why I found it so entertaining. I guess it was a sense of fun, and fully embracing the tropes of the genre.
Some good stuff - Your actress fit the part, and more importantly had screen appeal (although I couldn't shake the feeling I've seen her in something else). You had some nice framing - dynamic - caught the atmosphere and action. Pace was right on, building to the action. And without reems of dialogue, you understood (pretty much) the world you were introducing. There was also some good choreography involved (I think it was a roll your actress did).
Ok, the not so good - By using a tried and true formula, on the one hand, you have a shorthand with the audience, but on the other, the surprise factor is lessened (some others stuck to a formula, with mixed results, but those that overcame it added more of their own flavor or p.o.v on it). Your cinematography seemed not to be as good in the later(night?) scenes as earlier shots. Also, in some of the fight footage, I noticed your editing was too stacatto, it seemed the handles on your edits 1-2 seconds, cut into the natural flow of the hit - for example when she went to make a strike, you'd cut prematurely to the result (if that makes sense). It's more a nuance thing, where you make it more of a dance with the actors, and the editing. You just stepped on the old editing toes a couple of times. And that LS of the zombie walking from the grave broke the spell a bit. I don't know if it was the persons movement, or the hair and mask, but I thought different ccoverage would have been helpful.
Ok, so the final verdict. The only thing I marked on was entertainment value, so yours did pretty good. In a way I was a little hesitant, because technically, and pushing boundary-wise you weren't as bold, but I just damn liked it so... I liked your framing, and some of the dynamic feel of your short, so keep it up. :beer:
Sorry if this wasn't comprehensive, but I just was going on my memory.
Cheers.