Jack Daniel Stanley & Mark Johnson's REKINDLED

Mark and Jack,
What a beautiful work Rekindled was. From the moment the title came across the screen, I knew I was in for one hell of a ride!

The record with the title... what an idea, what an idea!! The soundtrack being the vinyl's music really gave the whole piece a spine. Everything was so tightly packed that by the end of viewing I felt I had accomplished something... something very worthwhile. -- And I had, I had accomplished handing over the HVX. (Something not easily done...) ;)

Your film screamed 'kickass' in every way, every direction. I was terrified of the eye-holes in the portraits, terrified of the girl's first words "i live here?" -- the bathroom scene where it kicks in and out of your lead wearing a welding mask and the girl bleeding from the mouth -- brilliant editing!!

It's tough to pull off a stalker's 'room' full of photos and articles... but you pulled it off SO WELL!!!! With my film I tried doing the same thing, but I lacked the polaroids and newspaper clippings that your film showcased so beautifully... well, maybe not beautifully... but perhaps 'scared-me-shi*less-ly' i dont know.

I loved it. 10's across the board from me. Thanks so much for sharing and you have taught me more than I could ask for in the course of 6 minutes.
Bravo Mark and Jack!
-Kyle Stebbins
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Kyle,

Interestingly, I was working on a review of DEVELOPED when I saw this post. I'm particularly pleased it was 3/4 finished so that I wasn't influenced by your extremely kind and appreciative words here. The fact is, though, that I had included DEVELOPED among my top 10 and have not arranged final places among those. I had also not seen your thread until I saw this post, so I wasn't aware of your BTS stuff til now.

I'll post my review on your thread and will be interested in your comments in response to it.

Thankyou again for your extremely generous words.
 
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Well, to that good sir I say...

cheersforfest.jpg
 
Mark Johnson said:
I'm lifting a scotch. Cheers dude. That was an amazing piece of work. You and Theatre Guy are my new heroes.
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Hey! I heard that!!!

Oh, wait... "heros!" I get it! :)

Thanks Mark! There is a WHOLE LOTTA LOVIN' going on here. (because I feel the same way about you! :love4: :grin: )

And I am lifting a nice 2004 Concha Y' Toro Merlot!
 
mameragex said:
As always Jack. You have a way of telling a story that makes it hard to turn away till it's done. This one could be a really cool stage play. But it more so gives the eerieness of those so few really good Japanese Horror movies.:thumbup::thumbup:
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Thanks :beer: When I was first editing it and I had the opening dream montage with the drill together and edited through to Jin's appearance in the Red Room, I was like .... "ok ... hostel ... meet the ring ... weird ... I hope this works." :Drogar-Evil(DBG):
 
Jack,

I must say you have outdone yourself once again on this beast of a short film. As my friend/filmmaker partner said to me "I'm so ****ing pissed, how can jack be so far ahead of the curve on everyone else."

I can't say anything more than what has already been said about your short, but i do know that i don't really start to feel right about myself until at least 24 hours after watching your film. It has that kind of impact. Congrats dude, now you won't have to fly mark in to use his HVX (unless y'all do a 2 camera setup next time ... then we are really in for a treat.)

great job bro. :beer:
 
amazing work

I'm literally blown away by the production design on this film - the location, the set dressing - everything is so rich and detailed. Those locations tell a story on their own.

The cinematography was also very nice - great use of color and texture

I like the very montagey feel to the whole piece, and the way the sound design totally reinforces the cuts to the flashbacks

overall everything feels very polished and ready for hollywood

the story seems interesting, but it's way too dense to get across in 6 minutes which makes this feel sort of like a trailer to a feature. albeit a trailer to a movie I would watch.
 
the most hell I've ever put an actor through
and one of if not the best attitude I've ever worked with the whole time
Her "big scene" wasn't even included in this cut.
It involves a very complex VFX shot that we underestemated the complexity of for the fest. But I think Mark is working on that at this very moment ....
 
thekyleman71 said:
Mark and Jack,
What a beautiful work Rekindled was. From the moment the title came across the screen, I knew I was in for one hell of a ride!

The record with the title... what an idea, what an idea!! The soundtrack being the vinyl's music really gave the whole piece a spine. Everything was so tightly packed that by the end of viewing I felt I had accomplished something... something very worthwhile. -- And I had, I had accomplished handing over the HVX. (Something not easily done...) ;)

Your film screamed 'kickass' in every way, every direction. I was terrified of the eye-holes in the portraits, terrified of the girl's first words "i live here?" -- the bathroom scene where it kicks in and out of your lead wearing a welding mask and the girl bleeding from the mouth -- brilliant editing!!

It's tough to pull off a stalker's 'room' full of photos and articles... but you pulled it off SO WELL!!!! With my film I tried doing the same thing, but I lacked the polaroids and newspaper clippings that your film showcased so beautifully... well, maybe not beautifully... but perhaps 'scared-me-shi*less-ly' i dont know.

I loved it. 10's across the board from me. Thanks so much for sharing and you have taught me more than I could ask for in the course of 6 minutes.
Bravo Mark and Jack!
-Kyle Stebbins
Click to expand...
Thanks man ... I liked your film a lot as well, but been to swamped to comment on many, hopefully I can tomorrow, but in the interim THX! for the feedback.
 
The first minute is perfect. And by that I mean bad ass perfect. All of the elements were in the right place and just singing. After that, the whole thing became a bit slow. It was entertaining, but with such a strong start, I wanted more. As the story went along, I wanted more visual and less talking.
On the whole, I dug it. Of your films that I have seen, on the whole, it is the best technically. I liked the Odd Squad better for entertainment.

One thing, dude, the quotes above your banner are too much. They make you come off as pretentious. I know you not to be this way. Let your film speak for itself. It does a fine job of that on it's own.
 
hybridtheory said:
Jack,

I must say you have outdone yourself once again on this beast of a short film. As my friend/filmmaker partner said to me "I'm so poo pooing pissed, how can jack be so far ahead of the curve on everyone else."

I can't say anything more than what has already been said about your short, but i do know that i don't really start to feel right about myself until at least 24 hours after watching your film.
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uhm ... sorry? :)
hybridtheory said:
It has that kind of impact. Congrats dude, now you won't have to fly mark in to use his HVX (unless y'all do a 2 camera setup next time ... then we are really in for a treat.)

great job bro. :beer:
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Haha thanks, and I know you are just joking, but there are so many good films this fest . :beer:
 
luster said:
amazing work

I'm literally blown away by the production design on this film - the location, the set dressing - everything is so rich and detailed. Those locations tell a story on their own.

The cinematography was also very nice - great use of color and texture

I like the very montagey feel to the whole piece, and the way the sound design totally reinforces the cuts to the flashbacks

overall everything feels very polished and ready for hollywood

the story seems interesting, but it's way too dense to get across in 6 minutes which makes this feel sort of like a trailer to a feature. albeit a trailer to a movie I would watch.
Click to expand...

glad you liked it ... I hear you on the story ... I mentioned earlier that these 6min films can warp you as a filmmaker a bit, and they are the only films I make, lol, so I think I'm kind of pushing against the edges of the cage because I would like to do bigger things of course :beer:
 
Hey Jack,

It's a pleasure being in the 3rd dvx fest with you.
This short is very good. you have a way of putting someone in a world that you create. You are simply the best at that. The visuals and the sound (which is a huge improvement over your other shorts) is top-notch.

The gripes:
The story was a bit weak, I feel stupid saying that because i'm a terrible writer and I can't tell you WHY I feel that way, but I do.
Also: the editing distracted away from the simple-grittiness of the story. something that could have been punched without all of the fancy edits.
Great work.
 
I think Jack has made a solid effort with Horrorfest; I knew he had the goods with Shed, I knew he had it with ODD ..

I questioned his 3rd go around at Bonehand but with this film; he has taken a quantam leap. This just feels so much like cinema; higher art ....

There aren't many filmmaker's on this site I consider legit Auteur's but Jack is one of them.

I think Jack is ready for Prime Time. This is really one of the most solid films we have ever had for one of our fests and I am left wanting more of Jack. I want too know what he's working on and when and I hope he isn't waiting around for dvxuser to hold him back.

Go the way of Rich Lee and get on with the career. I used to think I might be on the same page as Jack as far as filmmkaing talent went; albeit different styles .. but he is off into the stratosphere .... I'm left scratching my head and scrambling for another short ... I have a ton to learn still while Jack appears as if he;s already figured it out

This is the kind of film (subject matter or not) that we should all strive to achieve.

Bravo !
 
WEll i think his 15 years of Theatre direction, helped. i mean hes directed like 20 plays. (is that right jack?) i think thats harder than doing film. i bet film is easier for him, cause if theres a mistake you can correct it.
 
10 years prof exp, directed 36 plays, and I think worked on 50 or so.

this is much harder because I do almost everything and I barely get the scrippt done before I get the set painted before I help set the lights before I do the makeup before I go to sears to buy costumes before we shoot

the execution of the art direction and getting the craft services together and costumes and makeup about kills me.

so then I hardly have anytime or mental energy to get into working with actors / DP mode

A REAL film would be much easier but this is much harder than theater.

On real movie sets I've been (look quick and you'll see me in Lyndsay Lohan's just my Luck) I've been like "are you kidding me? film directing is effin easy! three hours betweeen setups to work on a two minute chunk!" In theatre I'm use to prepairing to make a 4 or 6 hour rehearsal session productive the entire time to work on a 10 or 20 minute chunk of the play.

And while you get to fix things in film, you can only fix so much. After spending 4 weeks with the film you cannot decide that your protagonist should be wimpy rather than overbearing and somehow edit that in if all you shot is overbearing.

But you have 3 weeks to sit there and look at overbearing in theatre and go "you know something's just not right"

where theatre helps me the most is looking at a production as a whole and relating the mise en scene (in the theatre sensee where it means every element of the production vs. everything in the frame in the film since) but making sure that all aspects of the production reflect both theme and dramatic action as much as possible and in so doing create a specific world that has to do with the protagonists central concern.

I try to make the production design an OBSTACLE to the main character's journey.

In Shed it's a dark place that seperates the man from his loved one.
Odd Squad its an world that's fallen into chaos as the protag applies single minded blind approach to put it back together.
Bone Hand is a cold world where its hard to connect.
Rekindled is disjointed and surreal, lapsing in and out of dream logic, as the protag struggles to put pieces together and create meaning.
 
I've already commented on Rekindled, but watching it again, I had to reiterate how impressive the craftsmanship is. If you did the production design and lighting and everything else, I'm even more impressed. You have a really finely honed vision, and I agree with others, your talents are ready to go pro. I am curious though, whether you've considered directing other people's scripts? As you say, you barely finish the script when you have to start running around in prep. I'm wondering if you're scouring the planet for a good screenplay, because I don't doubt you could do some amazing things for the big screen.
 
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