"Lesson in Life and Death" - A Day 7 Studios production

Brandon Rice said:
Just finished up compiling most of the film together, got the opening credits sequence, end credits (both done beautifully by Sam Balcomb!) and the mix from Ryan in. Waiting on the final two effects shots from Nate, and then this thing will be finished. I also finished the color grading tonight, which was pretty painless :) Larry and I worked on what he wanted in the final look using some screen-shots I had sent him, and I used those as reference tonight and the process was fairly simple and quick.
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bang bang!
 
Yee Haw! We are done! Brandon is exporting the final file even as I type this!

What a journey this has been. Everyone has done a great job on this and I'm excited for you all to see it ... I hope you enjoy it.
 
Larry this was really good, so glad you are directing again. Congrats to you and the whole crew, this was a top notch production from head to toe. I liked the locations and costumes and the characters, very authentic. As we talked about before, the dime novel concept was a nice touch. Good CC too. Who was the young actor, he deserves kudos!
 
Larry! This was really nice. You went with substance over style if I may say that and it worked really well. Yet there was still plenty of style. One of the nicest openings in the fest for sure. Not sure we needed some credits repeated at the end but no big deal. Those opening shots were beautiful.

The kid was really great. He stood out for me but everyone was good.
The story was quite well told and I guessed wrong on where it was going. That's good.
Really well done.

MAH
 
Miss Rose E. Beautoks said:
Very nice job! I enjoyed it very much!!:kiss:
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Thanks .. glad you enjoyed it. Though I imagine you are slightly biased ;)

Chris_Keaton said:
This was a great story. Some of the acting was off, but it really looked good. Great Job.
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Glad you enjoyed it. I really like the story and there is a lot more backstory we built for this, enough that I am now writing a feature script based on these characters and this story.

I wish I was a more experienced director. I find that I have a hard time juggling my attention from directing the camera to directing the actors. I know that with time I'll learn to better divide my attention, and also to better trust the people I hire to accomplish my vision (and that of course includes improving my ability to convey my vision) so that I can focus on performances and get better results. I am pretty sure that with a little time and attention I could have gotten some better results from each of my actors, but overall I'm still fairly pleased with how this came out (especially since we did this in a day and a half, in 100+ degree weather)

Defcon said:
Larry this was really good, so glad you are directing again. Congrats to you and the whole crew, this was a top notch production from head to toe. I liked the locations and costumes and the characters, very authentic. As we talked about before, the dime novel concept was a nice touch. Good CC too. Who was the young actor, he deserves kudos!
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Thanks, I am glad to BE directing again. Already itching to start another. I was very fortunate to hook up with Slone on this, he had some phenomenal looking wardrobe that really sells the look, and I imagine putting them on makes the actors job a touch easier.

I must confess I'm really proud of those dime novels. I'm still tempted to write some stories of these characters and have a couple of the novels printed, just for fun :)

Brandon and I worked for a while on the CC ... I had a particular look in mind from the time I first typed "FADE IN:" and I think we captured it. Its interesting how the feel and tone of the image changes as you move the color wheels around.

I'm sure Tyler will be pleased to hear your kudos ... he did a great job. Spent a lot of time shivering in his boots during take after take and never complaining. And he plays a great dead guy :)

Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Larry! This was really nice. You went with substance over style if I may say that and it worked really well. Yet there was still plenty of style. One of the nicest openings in the fest for sure. Not sure we needed some credits repeated at the end but no big deal. Those opening shots were beautiful.

The kid was really great. He stood out for me but everyone was good.
The story was quite well told and I guessed wrong on where it was going. That's good.
Really well done.

MAH
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For me story is always number one. I got into this whole filmmaking thing because I wanted to write and in the process stumbled into screen writing and while researching that found dvxuser and discovered how much I liked the rest of the process too. I think every discipline is key and should be done well for the whole project to come off, but without a solid story the rest is just eye candy.

Yea, I know I duplicated a couple credits, I went for style over substance in that case :) ... just really liked the look in both titles and credits, and tried to find a reasonable balance in giving props to those who helped out in a lot of different ways, not just the few credits they received (also didn't want to have a hundred credits for a couple people) :)

I'm glad the story wasn't predictable. I had the initial story for quite a while, but it wasn't fully realized. Brandon and I hashed out some details, and then when I met with the actors for final wardrobe approval, Travis and I really hammered out the last of the details that really put everything together in a smooth flowing, cohesive manner.

We had enough backstory from that session that I'm writing the feature now and really enjoying it.

Thanks for the comments ... it really helps to know that people are getting pleasure from all the hard work we did. Glad you are enjoying it.

Thanks :thumbsup:
 
Great work here Larry - I like the direction you ended up going with the color. As I've mentioned before, I really enjoyed Travis' performance as the Memphis Kid. He's a solid, centering presence that ties the film together (kind of like The Dude's rug).

Thanks again for letting me be a part of it.
 
Nice job, Larry. You've come a long way from Leap of Faith. Looks like you had a really good crew on this one. I thought Sam's titles looked familiar.

Some really nice shots here. You made great use of the screen. The grading was well done.

The acting was a bit stiff at times but overall, it fit the piece which I thought had a very Hallmark feel to it.
 
I loved the opening credits, the font choices and the sepia like photography was beautiful.

My main critique would be that you jumped back and forth across the axis quite a bit during the final showdown. This is not a major problem, but it can be a little disorientating when two people are talking to each other and both are looking in the same direction. Maybe this was a coverage issue...

Overall though, great job.

Look forward to your next film.
 
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