Lost Children - Mark Harris

Regardless of what stage this is in, some really yummy stuff here.

Acting is top-notch. Love the netherworld feel to the shaking. I know this was headed somewhere spectacular, and hopefully you'll see it through.


Maybe my only tick with casting is the guy was a little too garden-variety mama's boy: balding, a little pudgy, never smelled the flowers - about everything you'd expect.


Where's Gregory Peck with an untreatable psychosis when you need him?

Nice work, Mark. Hope to see this over in user films soon!


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www.alexwhitmer.wordpress.com

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Really looking forward to seeing the finished product, Mark!

Obviously the audio issues KILL this, as it was really difficult or even impossible to hear quite a few of her lines ... but that said, I still got the jist of what was being said, because of the setting, actions, etc.

The acting that I saw in this was SOLID!! GREAT TALENT! Her looking directly into the camera got some serious creep factors going for me, and was kind of spooking me out as I watched it alone in my office ... waiting for something to scare the hell out of me.

Um.....so what's that CHANCE STURGES thing about? I clicked on your sig to come here, and instead get the YouTube video. Forgive me if you've already covered it, but your thread's so massive I don't want to dig around for the answer. :beer:

Again, really looking forward to seeing the finished product!
 
Norm Sanders said:
Really looking forward to seeing the finished product, Mark!

Obviously the audio issues KILL this, as it was really difficult or even impossible to hear quite a few of her lines ... but that said, I still got the jist of what was being said, because of the setting, actions, etc.

The acting that I saw in this was SOLID!! GREAT TALENT! Her looking directly into the camera got some serious creep factors going for me, and was kind of spooking me out as I watched it alone in my office ... waiting for something to scare the hell out of me.

Um.....so what's that CHANCE STURGES thing about? I clicked on your sig to come here, and instead get the YouTube video. Forgive me if you've already covered it, but your thread's so massive I don't want to dig around for the answer. :beer:

Again, really looking forward to seeing the finished product!
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Thanks for stopping by Norm.

Do you have any issues with pacing in this? Like length, or length of sections feeling long, short, etc.?

Also, what do you get from her candle moment?

Yeah, audio is nothing right now. just dumped in there. I kicked my ego to the curb for this one and just want feedback, to figure out what works and what doesn't.

As for CHANCE STURGES, yes, what indeed? :evil:
 
Mark Harris said:
Thanks for stopping by Norm.

Do you have any issues with pacing in this? Like length, or length of sections feeling long, short, etc.?

Also, what do you get from her candle moment?

Yeah, audio is nothing right now. just dumped in there. I kicked my ego to the curb for this one and just want feedback, to figure out what works and what doesn't.

As for CHANCE STURGES, yes, what indeed? :evil:
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That CHANCE STURGES thing, and the matching symbol at the end of each film is pretty disturbing. Good job on messing with peopel's heads, and even more importantly in creating such different pieces of work to give further credibility to both, making people wonder, etc. NICE.

The candle? I dunno, hell maybe? She was lost in the flame? I honestly thought at one point, based on what was happening with the CC and the intensity of the lead male, that Lucifer himself was going to pop in there! Like I said, I was getting creeped out, watching it alone in my office in the wee hours of the morning.

Pacing ... I dug it. Some people could think that it needed to be picked up, but I personally dug the performances, and was enjoying seeing the guy squirm, her work her magic, as well as curiosity about it being his 1st tme, etc.

In a more full cut I could try & look at it more objectively for you, and really critique the pacing, etc., but the audio would also need to be improved so I'm not struggling so much to listen to what's going on & being said, vs just really trying to feel the timing of things & give you notes then, if you'd like.
 
whoa Mark, this is awesome!

Not sure what's going on, but I expect that given that this is merely a segment of a bigger unfinished piece.

The egregious focus buzzes were mildly distracting. Really good directing on the performances. At first I thought he was crazy, but when she went all 'colory' I realized he was right and couldn't figure out what she wasn't reaching out to him.
 
I looked at it again.

I tried watching it on a bigger screen, but the size of the movie file was small enough to muck up the resolution plenty. It looked better, doubled its native resolution, on a computer monitor for reviewing.

The handheld cinematography is well done. Was it really entirely handheld? I like the drifting to the envelope in the hand, etc.

The boxes with labels are creepy in concept, but they look too new and clean. You might have a reason for this. I don't know.

When the shot at 2:38 cuts to 2:39, there is an issue with continuity. Leah's mouth opens and closes. The reason why I point this out is that the focus is on Leah in both shots. You might not be able to do anything about this. I would rather you preserve the performance over continuity.

The jump cut from 3:29 to 3:30 works, except it sounds like you cut in the middle of Leah's line, "Relax." You can cheat it by pulling up the audio without upsetting the timing of the cut.

5:00 is really nicely done. I like the red fading away on Scott and then cutting to Leah cold and desaturated, then fading the red back in.

Breaking the 4th wall is good. Do not change it. With a little sound design you can make this work for everyone.

There is also a closet door in the background (5:51) with a big gap on the top and sloppy green paint around the edges. For some reason that drew my attention.

I will not try to guess the symbol in the beginning and end, but it is a very Lynch-like touch.

Love your work, Mark.

BTW, I got the Huey Pro and it is really a big help in monitoring colors. Thanks for the tip.
 
Thanks everyone for the input. It's been helpful and I've been taking it all down and weighing it as I finish up the cut. The whole film is just about locked now.

Right after the fest, I will have this thread moved to User Films, and put the final film up when it's ready. Shouldn't be more than a few weeks. Though I was just informed of a certain deadline pertaining to our feature, so life is about to get, how do you say it...busy as hell?

Anyway, thanks again all for the feedback.
 
Mark Harris said:
Thanks everyone for the input. It's been helpful and I've been taking it all down and weighing it as I finish up the cut. The whole film is just about locked now.

Right after the fest, I will have this thread moved to User Films, and put the final film up when it's ready. Shouldn't be more than a few weeks. Though I was just informed of a certain deadline pertaining to our feature, so life is about to get, how do you say it...busy as hell?

Anyway, thanks again all for the feedback.
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Looking forward to it.
 
I have a fair amount to say about this one (lots of good things, don't worry Mark), but I feel that I should probably withhold some of my comments this late in the game, especially since the film is almost locked. Heck, I'll give you something for now.

I'll say that I really liked where this piece is going. I like the intimate climate it dropped me into and I felt that the characters and performances both were quite strong. I found myself more interested in the female character, though. Something about the male just did not sit right with me. I understood his character and I can presuppose a lot of things about his sudden excitement, the lines he utters in a jumbled manner, and his blow up. But I felt that even though he handled the lot of quickly moving lines he was given in a fairly accurate manner, something about it felt the slightest bit hesitant.

The transition from reality to her locked moment with the fire (which could be read as allegory for a sudden perceptual jump into a prediction of a fiery future) and back again was an interesting idea that succeeded in a way with the sound, but the image just did not hold up at all to me. It was overprocessed, too orange, and would have been much more effect with actual lighting changes instead of altering the image in post. It just really threw the entire piece on the ground for me. I was expecting a very intimate portrait of an older virgin (going in the opposite direction of The 40 Year Old Virgin) and demonstrating the kinds of pressures the idea of sex and sexual relationships are placed on people in such a prudish country as America. I find that sort of deconstruction more intriguing than a possible allegory of good vs. evil + schizophrenic-like delusions of godly messages. Those are too complex for a short film that starts out the way this one did and have so much information to be dissected.

I guess I shouldn't say they're too complex for a short film in the way I said it. If you're very specific about affects of misguidance through cultish behavior, ie find a certain dynamic of it to play with, it can be done well. I guess I just felt his sudden outburst of the "knowledge" he has accrued from some misbegotten prophet felt as if it needed a lot more subtle development. Perhaps this will happen with the longer cut?

Regardless, the actors did a very fine job holding it together and besides the previously mentioned topics as well as some sound and image hiccups (don't worry though, I know it's still a rough cut), this is a very strong film. :beer:
 
Thanks Jon,

you are right on all counts. The cc I have in there for the tonal change is way wrong and a temp solution. We actually should have had a lighting change, but the truth is, I wasn't sure exactly what the effect would be going in. So now I am weighing trying to re-shoot that shot, or I have a professional color grader person on the horn who is willing to take a look and see what can be done.

The same effect happens later in the piece as well, but that footage is much cleaner and easier to deal with. Live and Learn. One thing to note though, is that this is the real benefit to working with RED footage. It's really pretty shocking how far you can push it. In this I threw on an oversatuation real quick. But in COLOR, I am able to do a LOT with it. Hoping a professional will be able to use this and point me in the right direction.

Yeah, one note I got from my GF was that I had killed a lot of nuance in the effort to rush this into the fest. So I think(hope) when you see a longer cut of this scene, the guy will not come off quite so hackish. Looking back through the footage, already I think there is better stuff, I just didn't have the confidence to let it breath in the right places.

Again, thanks for the response. Very valuable.
 
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Hi Mark:

I think that it's difficult for me to get a good grip on what's going on here since it's not the full product, so my comments may be way off from what's actually happening. But hey--that's par for the course for me.

I liked the actors and the acting very much, I was kind of squirming around a little bit in my chair in the beginning. I notice a lot of the nuances in the final minute of the film but I'm not sure how to interpret them. When we go back and forth between her and him while he is yelling, and as he gets more intense, the reds get redder, but on the reverse shot of her the reds are gone, and to me this was a little distracting. I really, really liked the shot at 5:37 right before the dialog sound starts again, the one where the saturation is slowly decreased.

I'd be interested in seeing the full film. Thanks!
 
Okay, so the impression I'm getting from this is that they are living in a world where life/color/emotion has bled out, either by the government, or some other force (Something like the book The Giver). Sturgess is a man helping people to see the world in its full form.

I could be completely off track here. But this is what led me in my interpretation of the candle scene. I see it as her being shaken to the point where, for a moment, she sees in vibrant color. And this scares her.

If this is all close to what you're going for, I would cut the back and forth color effect before we see the candle. I don't see what this adds. It seems gimmicky and doesn't help clarify the story. If the first time we see the color shift is when SHE first sees the color shift on the candle, then I think it will be clear and specific.

In terms of pacing, I think you could cut some of the shaking. It makes me think of him as a violent man, which I don't think is really what's happening there. He just really wants to wake her up.

I also think the moment where he puts his hand on her leg is too long right now. It seems to take forever for his hand to move two inches.

Besides those notes, I'm really digging this piece. The acting is great. The characters have depth. There's great flowing cinematography/camerawork. And there's clear definable moments.
 
Have I totally missed something? THis one didnt show on my download lists. On either the zips or individual. Where is it????? I saw Evie. HELP!
 
Should have been in the zips, unless you downloaded them very soon after the films went live.

Larry can provde you a direct link to download it. All the films will be back online after round 2 is over.

later,
Jason
 
Noel, Evie is what we're discussing. The title of the thread is just still Lost Children, but Evie is a scene from the larger film.
 
Mark. Top notch pro work with depth and angst as always.

Her reaction after is this your first time ever was confusing to me - seemed ill spirited. Maybe but up is this your first time ever with her next line, which is also something like that, and then have the awkward moment between them.

His rant at the end seemed rushed and not varied in pace. Maybe put some spaces in it at the top through the middle, more reactions back and forth between him and her, then build to the pauseless frenzy.

Her gaze on the roses / candle is effective and affecting. On the technical side, the roses coming in and out of color will have a greater impact than the candle which has a beige flame and beige wax which is in the vein of the more limited palette you're playing most of the scene in anyway. So make the roses the focus compositionally of that shot rather than the candle. Also, just on a Jungian shared symbol type level, we associate flowers more with color than candles and not seeing color in flowers would seem more tragic I think rather than not seeing colors in candles.. So see if you can push that 4k around in the frame to push in on the flowers not the candle - my 2¢

Those are just the nits in what's a WIP that's already great.
 
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