Joel 3:15

Just a quick note.... I flipped the final scene in post to make it look like the radio announcer was looking towards the doorway for the sake of continuity. I had it the other way originally and it just didn't seem to work. It's amazing what you can do in editing even if you don't have the exact shot that you need.

Also added the final effect with After Effects.

*Made a new Joel 3:15 banner as well, still working on it.

Cheers,

Mike
 
REVIEW:
I liked this one a lot and there's a lot of potential for more with it. The atmosphere you created was erie and awe-inspiring. Great job! One of my favorites.

FILMAKER-TO-FILMMAKER:
Excellent job. Loved the tracking shot out of the front door.

I don't think I would have weaved in the credits as they took a little away from the body of the film. And I KNOW the goosebumps would have been more prominent had you made the sun coming out part of the film and not the end credits.

Ok, so, when are you going to make the feature? This is truly a no-budget, BIG film. Basically, what happens when a married couple is faced with the prospect of a slow, drawn out death. The house is the only REAL location you need. I like the radio broadcaster as the "voice" of the film.

Seriously, go out and make this film.
 
cinealma said:
REVIEW:
I liked this one a lot and there's a lot of potential for more with it. The atmosphere you created was erie and awe-inspiring. Great job! One of my favorites.

FILMAKER-TO-FILMMAKER:
Excellent job. Loved the tracking shot out of the front door.

I don't think I would have weaved in the credits as they took a little away from the body of the film. And I KNOW the goosebumps would have been more prominent had you made the sun coming out part of the film and not the end credits.

Ok, so, when are you going to make the feature? This is truly a no-budget, BIG film. Basically, what happens when a married couple is faced with the prospect of a slow, drawn out death. The house is the only REAL location you need. I like the radio broadcaster as the "voice" of the film.

Seriously, go out and make this film.
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I really appreciate this coming from you. I love your entry and will be commenting further on it in a day or so.

You're not the first to say that I should pursue this one further. I may just do that... probably as more of a side project though. I really like to take what I've learned and move on to the next project. I also have very little time due to my work (and home) schedule. My daughter eats up a lot of my free time, but I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

I need to find a way to turn this hobby into a profession! That might work...

Thanks again,

Mike
 
deedive said:
i was too powerful
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LOL! I doubt that...

I guess they were getting sick of them. I just thought it was odd that mine was sniped first since there have been many others around here for quite some time. Some even months...
Mine lasted a few hours.

Looks like they are cleaning up the rest now.

hybridtheory said:
sweet, the animated gif banners are catching on! what did you make yours in?
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Not anymore! :)

I made mine in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5
It was tough to get it down to a decent size actually. I need some sort of dedicated Gif software. What did you use?

BTW, I have no hard feelings towards the mods. It's a tough job.
Believe me, I know.

Cheers,

Mike
 
I did mine in photoshop and imageready, neat little program really. it might have been that the resolution was too big on yours, no more than 569x70 i think, mine's like 500x70.

it is kind of a pain in the butt process tho, like a frame by frame animation. how big of a file size did yours end up being?

ack ... i was sniped, what's the use of being able to upload gifs then?
 
The atmosphere delivered in droves. Dark, intelligent, icy cold feel, and the music echoed that flawlessly. Despite the fact it is hot in my room right now, your film made me feel decidedly frozen. You took me out of my present state and pushed me into a new one. I cannot think of higher praise.

However, I wasn't a huge fan of the plot. With such amazing trappings, I felt you could have created a much more interesting "main story" as opposed to the suicide-pact.

Per example: An examination of the lives of the people affected by the oncoming frozen earth by living out their uttermost desires. They'll all be dead soon anyway, right?
Grandmother's smash through department store windows. Reverends use drugs. Husbands and wives engage in S&M, etc...

You can keep the news report, and the ending, but now it's all (imo) much more effective. The twist could be "oh crap, what have we done?" and you could double twist it by making the various patrons who partook in immoral behavior actually happy to have "tasted" living that way...

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Just brainstorming, I guess.

Anyway, you cooled me down for the duration of your film, and for that, you are commended.

Good work.
 
StefanHaynes said:
The atmosphere delivered in droves. Dark, intelligent, icy cold feel, and the music echoed that flawlessly. Despite the fact it is hot in my room right now, your film made me feel decidedly frozen. You took me out of my present state and pushed me into a new one. I cannot think of higher praise.

However, I wasn't a huge fan of the plot. With such amazing trappings, I felt you could have created a much more interesting "main story" as opposed to the suicide-pact.

Per example: An examination of the lives of the people affected by the oncoming frozen earth by living out their uttermost desires. They'll all be dead soon anyway, right?
Grandmother's smash through department store windows. Reverends use drugs. Husbands and wives engage in S&M, etc...

You can keep the news report, and the ending, but now it's all (imo) much more effective. The twist could be "oh crap, what have we done?" and you could double twist it by making the various patrons who partook in immoral behavior actually happy to have "tasted" living that way...

I don't really know where I'm going with this. Just brainstorming, I guess.

Anyway, you cooled me down for the duration of your film, and for that, you are commended.

Good work.
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Thanks! I really do have a lot more in mind for this idea but when I wrote the script I kept it down to 6 pages on purpose, had to cut some out. There's a lot more on the back burner though. Not sure if I could fit in all your ideas and still explain what was going on in the rest of the world. Worth a shot though!

The atmosphere delivered in droves. Dark, intelligent, icy cold feel, and the music echoed that flawlessly. Despite the fact it is hot in my room right now, your film made me feel decidedly frozen. You took me out of my present state and pushed me into a new one. I cannot think of higher praise.
Click to expand...
:dankk2:
 
Love it, although I'm bias to apocalyptic theme films. The CC sees a bit off to me, perhaps too much of a bleachy effect but thats just me.

Perhaps an apocalyptic fest is in order?
 
that was nice and ambitious for so short a film. You used the radio announcer well to indicate the rest of the world. I wasn't partial to the ending, but overall, this was quite effective. Will be eager to see what you do with the idea.
 
Chan Ee Jien said:
Love it, although I'm bias to apocalyptic theme films. The CC sees a bit off to me, perhaps too much of a bleachy effect but thats just me.

Perhaps an apocalyptic fest is in order?
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Thanks! Glad you loved it. I tried to get some CC help on this one, but due to some email problems (on my end) it fell through and I didn't have the time. I really wanted to mute the colour though, that was intentional.



Mark Harris said:
That was nice and ambitious for so short a film. You used the radio announcer well to indicate the rest of the world. I wasn't partial to the ending, but overall, this was quite effective. Will be eager to see what you do with the idea.
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The radio announcer really was key for me. When I was writing this a good friend said... "You will have to have the main character doing something, he can't just stare at the radio."

He was dead on, that's where the radio announcer idea came from.

I also really wanted to improve my storytelling with this one. So many people think that you can't tell a story in 5 minutes. I worked hard to do so and did it in under 5 minutes, added extra time to my credits as well. :)

I've had trouble with that in the past. I'm slowly learning as I go.

Thanks for watching!

Cheers,

Mike
 
Well I read that stuff about the 5 min story on here all the time, but in this case, you would have really benefited from more time to get into that couple's relationship.

I said I wasn't too happy with the ending, because it seemed like a fake "gotcha." but if that ending stays, I would want to see a lot more back and forth between the husband and wife before doing the deed, and give me some insight into why they end up with that decision, rather than the hope that things will get better.

Not a knock on your film, just saying if you had say 10-15-20 min, you could use it to add so much more depth to this story, which wants more depth, I think.
 
Mark Harris said:
Well I read that stuff about the 5 min story on here all the time, but in this case, you would have really benefited from more time to get into that couple's relationship.

I said I wasn't too happy with the ending, because it seemed like a fake "gotcha." but if that ending stays, I would want to see a lot more back and forth between the husband and wife before doing the deed, and give me some insight into why they end up with that decision, rather than the hope that things will get better.

Not a knock on your film, just saying if you had say 10-15-20 min, you could use it to add so much more depth to this story, which wants more depth, I think.
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Agreed, I think that can be said with just about any film though.

and give me some insight into why they end up with that decision, rather than the hope that things will get better.
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I think a lot of people listening to and reading the news that he was would probably come to the same decision. I predict mass suicides in an "End of the World" type predicament.

As someone else said, it's almost as if the radio announcer helped convince him of what he should do. I agree.

Quoting the radio announcer...
It's an odd feeling... knowing that you're about to die. So... that's my next question. How are you going to go out? Are you going to wait for the cold? Our lines are open...
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Thanks again for watching!

Mike
 
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Just curious about a few things that I put in my movie, were they noticed?

Did anyone notice the sound of the clock ticking during the conversation with the husband and wife? I added it to try and stress that her time was running out.

Or the dolly pull out of the living room to the dolly push into the studio? I was trying to show the viewer that we were leaving one area and entering a new one. Did them pretty much at the same angle as well to reflect that, just reversed the exit and entry.

Just wondering if some of the things I did, especially the audio... were picked up. Maybe I was too subtle?

There were a couple of other tie-ins but I won't spill the beans on all of them. :)

If you noticed any, let me know. It might help me on my next project.

Thanks,


Mike
 
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What's the ruling on showing new edits? I have a new cut of my movie that I think works a tad better. The sound is remixed a bit and I changed a shot or two. I think it works a little better, nothing drastic though.

Mike
 
Hey Kyser,

Sorry it took so long for my comments. I've been finishing up a music video I shot with the HV20 and Letus. You probably would enjoy it since you're an hv20 user. It's in my sig if you want to check it out on youtube. I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Now on to the review.

I like you story. It's a very good apocalyptic drama. You shot this well. I like a lot of the shots and you had a lot of production value with the dolly's and shot choices.

I know a lot of people have said that it would benefit from being longer and I agree that this was a pretty 'big' idea for the 5 minute limit, but I think you could show it in the 5 minute limit.

One thing is that because you have so much to tell you ended up using the Radio DJ to 'tell' everything and though this is an efficient method it's not as effective as showing it. The story in this is more about the relationship of the wife and husband and that is the part I found most interesting. I really only wanted to see them instead of the DJ. I would have liked to see them before the sun disappeared. To see how happy they were etc. I think you could actually start the short with the shot of the husband about to shoot the wife (very nice shot btw). This would be a powerful intro shot and immediate engage me. Then go to a time before that when they were happy. This way you can show the character arc and make them more well-rounded. It would be good to show that the wife's transition to wanting to die where as now it seems hard to believe that she would want to kill herself after just 3 days of no sunlight. I mean half the day is night and they have lights still. It seems like people would fight to live more...except maybe religious fanatics who think it's the end of the world because some higher power deemed it.

I didn't get the sense that it's morning with the first scene. It seems like it could just be night time. You could show some shots of the main char getting ready for work...the morning routine. And then the dolly shot of the other man in the background outside (also very nice shot) would be more effective if maybe the other guy was in a bathrobe with a newspaper to reinforce that it's supposed to be morning and light outside.

I can tell you had a message with this but that always runs the risk of being to heavy handed. This actually reminded me of a short I saw in film school were they used a 'shock' DJ as the lead and he was arguing with callers about race and inflammatory issues, but then in the story 9/11 happens. It sort of makes everyone equal as being human and americans. It was a good idea, but came across as too preachy. Your's plays this better but it's seems to harp on the idea that world leaders would just abandon everyone and 'those bastards are screwing us again' sort of statement. This is one of the places that I rather see the wife and husband instead. Their story is more intriguing then world news. I'm not saying to take all of it out, but I think it should serve the purpose of setting up the 'world' and situation this two characters are in rather then being so much of the film.

I like how the husband calls the DJ about killing his wife. That scene is interesting. The DJ actually can be more of a character too instead of him being more of just a narrator. You could have him being very hopeful about the fact that there has to be a scientific explaination of why the sun is gone and that we will figure it out. He could have religious fanatics calling him and yelling at him etc.

I don't see how the Joel 3:15 ties into this story. I almost think you don't need any of those references unless you want to convey that the sun disappearing is an act of god. You probably could take out all the title cards.

The scene where the sun comes out on the dj after the man kills himself seems like an after thought...like you didn't shoot that to start with and tried to fix it in post. I think a good shot would have been seeing the husband dead with the dead wife. Also I think the husband would have laid down with this wife, not be at her feet. He'd probably shoot himself so he would be lying right next to her.

Okay so please don't take all this as being harsh or anything. I really like you effort and the film is actually very good. I feel like from your other posts that you are very open and hungry for comments because you are wanting to get better at being a filmmaker. I know that I will always be learning how to improve making films because it is such an endlessly evolving medium.

You did a very good job shooting this and the actor's were also directed well. The story is there and good and that is to me the hardest part. You just need to find out where the meat of the story is and throw out everything else that doesn't advance that story.

I cut out a couple scenes of Meat that I felt were hilarious but they didn't advance the story at all. It was painful to cut them but it had to be done.

Your editing was pretty good overall but some of the ending was weird with the light coming in a couple times on the dj. I think I know what you were trying to do, but it was jarring.

The production value was good...sets, characters. Award for Most Hideous Wine Glass. :laugh:

I don't know how open this film still is to edits or shooting pickups or if you plan on moving on to the next project, but I think it could be pretty awesome with a little more work, not that it isn't very good in the state that it's in.

I hope that some of this helps. HV20! Unite!

Sincerely,
Ando
 
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