LAKE WICWAS: {the sacrifice} - By Defcon

Thanks guys, yeah i use mostly ambient light. or available light. it has its ups and downs. for this short, there are some nice looking shots (the ones i posted) - but there are also some underlit shots
that i wish i threw some sort of rim light into. and in one scene i tilted a light at the camera and it looks... well it doesnt look how i wanted it to look. live and learn.
 
thanks for askin'. yes i did pull off the shot, although it's not as "money" as i had hoped.
My CGI guy was slammed this week and was only able to do one pass on it. with a few more
hours of work it would have been great, but as is, it is serviceable to complete the story. i

long story short: im lucky i got what i got!
 
Lake wicwas: Disclaimer

Lake wicwas: Disclaimer

I've done several dvxfests, enough to know when my production values arent up to snuff!

Before I get ragged on:

1. despite several mic tests, the shotgun mic i used sucked so i ended up with hissy sound. real hissy. as a result i ran my audio through soundtrack pro with noise reduction filters and it ended up sounding how it does. like an mp3 with a super low bit rate.
but i assure you it sounds better than the original. best i could do.

2. i used a canon vixia - i tried to control the exposure as much as possible but theres only so much i could do. its all pro-sumer automatic (i think). a few shots are over-exposed and whatnot.

3. my CGI could only do one pass at what is now officially NOT the "money shot".
he's a busy man and could only do the best he could in limited time. but we will do a revise in the future for a director's cut.

everything else you can bust my chops!
 
herman, yeah, the shotgun mic was a sennheiser mke 300 which cost like $150. i got stuck in the middle of nowhere and thats all i had. my bad. I will get into details with you because you are a killer composer and know your stuff. i did some "tests" a year prior with a pro shotgun mic. a year later i used this cheapie sennheiser and thought my "tests" would hold up. they didnt. i blew it!

my actors live in Boston and I live in LA so i couldnt so ADR. EPIC FAIL.
 
Voices aside, pretty interesting premise. I found it a little hard to follow with the back and forth reveal. The story seemed pretty straight forward though once it all came out.
I also thought that the actors did quite fine. The music was spot on. Good editing.

BTW, you can totally see the camera operator in the reflection of the sunglasses. Not sure why you kept that shot?
Probably could have blown it up and bit and cropped him out.
 
ahhh you saw my reflection in the sunglasses. good catch. i showed the short to several friends and noone caught it so thats why i didnt yank it. my previous shorts for dvx (glassjaw, cabin, clara, solution) all have scenes where you can see me holding the camera in a reflection. its sort of my "hitchcock cameo". thanks michael for watching and reviewing, this was a wierd movie for me to make so i have no clue as to what people will respond to. thanks for taking the time to watch it.
 
Defcon said:
ahhh you saw my reflection in the sunglasses. good catch. i showed the short to several friends and noone caught it so thats why i didnt yank it. my previous shorts for dvx (glassjaw, cabin, clara, solution) all have scenes where you can see me holding the camera in a reflection. its sort of my "hitchcock cameo". thanks michael for watching and reviewing, this was a wierd movie for me to make so i have no clue as to what people will respond to. thanks for taking the time to watch it.
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Ah, well if that's your thing then I shouldn't have mentioned it. I'll remember that for next fest. :)

BTW, I like the attitude of the lead actress. She came off really well. Very natural.
 
You obviously had sound issues... everything sounded very distorted and we had to turn yours down. There was also a part towards the end where there was a lot of weird sound artifacts.

I liked your color grading during the exterior shots, but not during the interior nights shots. We struggle with lighting ourselves, so take it for what it's worth, but it seemed like you had a hard time with the lighting during the interiors.

The beginning was a little confusing. I'm not sure what the point of the one character being "mute" was. The actors seemed to do a decent job though, and one I caught on to the story further in, all was okay.

I enjoyed the concept, just felt it didn't reach its full potential.
 
You had some nich shots, but the dialog was baldy distorted which really detracted from the whole movie. Othar than that it was very enjoyable.
 
I did not understand the fire part? I sort of did understand most of the movie, the bet, the sacrifice? The guy was a servant of the water creature?

It was okay, and the actors were okay, but it was just an okay film for me. It sort of left me confused. And even Michael Phelps could not swim out to that Island and back in five minutes, more like see you in a bit, or in an hour.
 
I don't know what I was thinking during it. But why was she mute, because she couldn't remember her lines? But I was confused as hell when the dude was on fire. Was that a ghost fish? Interesting piece. Good job.
 
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Again, i applaud you for being such the jack of all trades.

I wish the big catfish in the end was a little more defined and/or perhaps a yell screech from the victims.

Till the next round!
/j
 
thanks for the comments guys and gals, i appreciate you taking the time to watch.
and yes i had more than enough technical difficulties on this one, i just did my best to work through them.
 
What was up with the guy being on fire? I didn't get that? The music was kind of weird to the film but cool in a little way. My favorite part was showing the big monster at the end, that was pretty cool.
 
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the guy being on fire is supposed to be figurative, the fire wasn't really there, it was a tribal sort of ceremony although the fire thing doesnt seem to sit well with people. i thought the music was my only saving grace! it was pretty much the only thing i didnt botch technically.

thanks for watching!
 
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