My recently completed 11 min short - pulp noir meets spaghetti western

A

aithendodge

Member
A Bullet Riddled Atheist and the Man Upstairs is the second short film from my Olympia WA based independent film company Mutually Assured Productions. This is the story of two dying men having a theological discussion, whilst uncovering the mysterious details that lead them to be dying together in this pulp noir meets spaghetti western. Check it out, I'd be more than happy for any critique or praise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wzx0yuG5YSQ
 
Was your soundguy a neighbourfriend who was just holding the boom and not moving ?

The dialogues are very "roomy"... Which is because the mice is not right pointed to the one who speaks...
Or was he afraid of the image ? A boom-mice should be 0,00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 inch out of frame

Don't forget to turn off fridges, heaters, airco's, motors, clocks, elevators,.......

The story itself is ok....but not an oscar winner.... I think the acting was to.....dry....
 
I agree with some roomy sound, but honestly i think you need some big editing decisions to trim this down. Your shots are nicely framed and while you dont have oscar winning actors for your short film, who does?

The problem i had, is the first 5 or 6 minutes it seemed was just setting up the beginning of the story. All from only about 2 or 3 angles it seemed. It became a bit boring and tedious, despite how well you framed those few shots you need more, especially since your characters are esssentially just lying there. You had some flashbacks momentarily of hte action, but still.

I had a very hard time getting to the meat of the story, i skipped a head a bit and could see finally you came to telling what had happened, but im sorry to say i tuned out and could not finish it. This was a little dissapointing for me, because i love the two genres that you were aiming for, so i was very excited just to see someone had made something paying homage there. I think some strong cuts, trimming a good 2-3 minutes off of this piece would really help pick up the pace. Also some B roll cuts in that opening sequence would help visually to keep things a bit more interesting.

The story itself, seemed good,and i had no problems with the writing, just get to the meat faster.

jon!
 
Dre83, we used two different mics, a shotgun at the bottom of the stairs, and a wireless lav mic at the top. I think the shotgun actually picked up a lot cleaner audio. The audio from the wireless had a lot of the "roomy" noise you're referring to. I ended up taking that and using it as room tone throughout, in order to keep it consistent. I know it's no Oscar winner, but it was a lot of fun to make!
 
jonE5, I completely agree with you about the slow pace in the beginning. It does take a bit too long to get to the meat of the story. I'm thinking about getting in and cutting it up a bit more, to lean it out and make it flow faster. I agree that trimming 2-3 minutes could help the finished product be just a bit better than it is now. Thanks for your feedback!
 
aithendodge said:
Dre83, we used two different mics, a shotgun at the bottom of the stairs, and a wireless lav mic at the top. I think the shotgun actually picked up a lot cleaner audio. The audio from the wireless had a lot of the "roomy" noise you're referring to. I ended up taking that and using it as room tone throughout, in order to keep it consistent. I know it's no Oscar winner, but it was a lot of fun to make!
Click to expand...

Don't confuce mice's with....lamps....

Lamps have to be fix...you can not suddenly move a light during a take...

Mices have to follow sound...so they HAVE to move... you might think "well yeah...the guy will surely speak into the same direction every time"...No, he will never....

It's just a fact that soundguy's don't know much about directing...as directors don't know much about sound :-p

If you had someone to boom it (maybe a 2nd year student doing filmsound) I think it would have been much better.
 
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