My Soul To Keep - presented by Easy Water Films

Looking good guys. Definately interested in seeing where this one is going. Oh, and extra props for working with kids. :beer:
 
just watched my sould to keep, I loved the concept, and the lighting it looked beautiful, but the acting needs some work, but te concept was a great idea.


btw its links to freefall for some reason not to here
 
Alex is in contact with Larry to fix the link. I'm sure it was just an oversight, but we hope it's dealt with quickly.
 
Another First review!


Nice movie! The little girl, Bere Van Rihn (Brooklyn Garrison) stole the show. The other girl was very good as well.
I loved the shot of him reading by candlelight. Very nicely done.

The story was also quite good. I loved the wide open shot outside as well. Very nice. The audio needed some work here and there. I tend to listen with headphones to avoid outside distraction. There was some noise showing up in some voices but not in others, that can pull me out of the movie a bit.

Nice work overall.

Good entry.

Mike
 
Thought this was a cute story. I think there are maybe two areas you could try to improve and really make an impact. The first would be in getting more natural performances out of the actors. Amateur actors intuitively want to indicate and "act" when they get in front of a camera. They feel if they are not doing something, they are somehow failing. There are many ways to combat this but taking a peak in the acting section may help. Good acting makes up for a lot so its always a great place to focus off the bat. Second I would try to make your audio a bit more consistent throughout. There were noticeable changes in the audio depending on the camera angle and location that became distraction. the complete absence of sound was as well.

Congrats on putting a film in the fest. I look forward to more from you down the road.
 
alex whitmer said:
Do you mean all the actors? One performance in particular?

Just curious. Some were stronger than others.

aw
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I would say the gentleman playing Clarance could have been helped more from a few insights. The kids were a little closer but had moments where a little more direction would have helped. You can see that everyone had worked hard though and gave a sincere effort.
 
Really nice job with a good story! I have to say I enjoyed this film and the cinematography worked for me (nice camera work) over all. I felt like it might have jumped around a bit too much which threw the pace off a tad for me. The opening shot were just beautiful. There's a funky looking shot at 1:07 that doesn't seem to match with the old guy watching her? I also picked up a couple of 'wind noise' spot here & there.

Over all...great job & congratulations to the entire team on a job very well done!
 
I think Chris did a great job despite every cemetery in Missouri saying no to filmmaking. I see a few other films here with cemetery shots and have to wonder how the heck they pulled it off.

Thanks for commenting. Excellent observations.

aw
 
ZazaCast said:
There's a funky looking shot at 1:07 that doesn't seem to match with the old guy watching her?
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My first experience with shooting day for night, and you're right, it does look funky. If I ever shoot day for night again, I'll know how to do it better.

Thanks for watching and commenting.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Nice movie! The little girl, Bere Van Rihn (Brooklyn Garrison) stole the show. The other girl was very good as well.
I loved the shot of him reading by candlelight. Very nicely done.


Mike
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I passed the comment on to Brooklyn and her family. They were very happy indeed. I honestly think she has a future on the big screen. She has a few shorts and a feature lined up for 09.

Sierra really played the bad girl well. Some of the footage that didn't make it show a consistent performance with the roll. When she gets 'discovered', film will have a great new antagonist.

The candle scene is my fave as well. Very Rembrandtian in ambiance.

Thank you for the comments.

aw
 
alex whitmer said:
The candle scene is my fave as well. Very Rembrandtian in ambiance.
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You guys should have seen Nathan's face when I said "Ok, for this scene you need to light it so that it looks like all of the light is coming from that candle." :grin:

He did an incredible job lighting that scene (as well as all the others) and pulled off what you see on screen with a single 250 watt light, and a flashlight filtered for tungsten balance.

It's also my favorite part of the film.
 
Reviewing while watching:


I love the opening. The extreme wide shots are very nice.

Great mood set early on.

The night time stuff doesn't look very real.

Acting is pretty weak. Transitions from scene to scene aren't very smooth.

Lighting looks great by the candle light.

Flashback scene is nice visually but would benefit from some audio and a better transition into/out of it.

----

Ok. I like the concept. I'm not 100% sure that I understood everything in the film, and I think this is mostly because of the delivery of the dialogue.

Pros: Tone. The tone/atmosphere is very strong and spot on. The images go well with the music and I enjoyed the feeling I had while watching.

Cons: The changing scenes aren't very smooth. The story jumps around a lot and it's sort of difficult to follow. The acting could also use some work.

Overall I thought this was a solid entry. Good work!
 
Another fine script from Alex Whitmer.
I liked the opening sequence a lot. The space.............. the loneliness, and the intrigue all worked as one with the cinematography and music. It's refreshing to see big wide shots where a person is just a speck in the frame. Very cinematic and uncommon around here, probably due to the tiny LCD's we all look through. I liked how you faded in the ghosts- had me hooked.

My critiques are really two basic things- Tone and Emphasis.
The acting didn't quite fit the tone that you started off with, and I felt it could've used a stronger choice on how this guy feels about these ghosts popping up. Either scared, or intrigued, or wary, or something. It was pretty neutral.

There were quite a few very nice lighting setups, especially inside the house. The exterior day shots didn't quite fit the mood for me, again, I think it's related to that choice.

I had to watch it several times to figure out the story, and for me it all hinges on the lack of emphasis of key lines, the main one being- "These flowers are for my resting place, nobody ever pays me a visit" This line tells us what the story is about and she had her back to the camera and swallowed the line. I missed it four times. There were a couple other similar lines, but I think you get the point.

When I skip from the beginning of the movie to the end, I can see the transition you made from the desaturated look at the top, to the over-saturated look at the end. I think that's a good choice, and tells us that these girls are at peace now. It might've been more effective if all of the other ext shots were either at night, or on a cloudy dark depressing day, so the emphasis was stronger. I'm sure shooting schedules and realities of weather not being under our control (Damn!) would've made that tough.

The B&W moments I liked a lot.

Overall a decent short with potential still left in it in the areas of color correction, another take for those key lines, and maybe even more sound design to enhance the mood. Nice job.
 
Thank you for the detailed critiques. They are a tremendous help to all of us in improving our craft.
 
Drew Ott said:
Reviewing while watching:


I love the opening. The extreme wide shots are very nice.

Great mood set early on.

The night time stuff doesn't look very real.

Acting is pretty weak. Transitions from scene to scene aren't very smooth.

Lighting looks great by the candle light.

Flashback scene is nice visually but would benefit from some audio and a better transition into/out of it.

----

Ok. I like the concept. I'm not 100% sure that I understood everything in the film, and I think this is mostly because of the delivery of the dialogue.

Pros: Tone. The tone/atmosphere is very strong and spot on. The images go well with the music and I enjoyed the feeling I had while watching.

Cons: The changing scenes aren't very smooth. The story jumps around a lot and it's sort of difficult to follow. The acting could also use some work.

Overall I thought this was a solid entry. Good work!
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Hey Drew - thanks for the thorough reveiw.

There does seem to be a consensus the candle-lit scene is the strongest. And music choice is also strong.

Storywise there were some last-second adjustments due to the fact no cemetery became available. Really a shame - but that's film! In a nut shell we have one girl responsible for the other girl's death, and as as neither recieved a proper burial, they reamin stuck between two worlds, and the animosity between them continues.

The older gentleman lost his own young daughter, so he sees the ghosts as a chance to say hello to his family. In the original script before the scramble to make changes, the older man was the caretaker of an old cemetery, and all the caretakers before him were scared off by Anais bent on keeping Bere from ever resting in peace. Not finding a cemetery put a few dents in the overall fluidity of the story, but in the end I feel Chris did a great job with a field and a couple planks of pine.

Not sure if you mean ALL the performances were weak, or one or two in particular. Clarence was stiff, but I thought the girls did a terrific job.

Anyways, really appreciate the comments. Lot to apply to future films and writing.

aw
 
alex whitmer said:
I think Chris did a great job despite every cemetery in Missouri saying no to filmmaking. I see a few other films here with cemetery shots and have to wonder how the heck they pulled it off.

Thanks for commenting. Excellent observations.

aw
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Its called Gorilla film making, when all else fails just show up and shoot...


OK so here is my review of this one. Alex the story was awesome I wish this would have turned out more like I was hoping it would. The story has such a great beginning, middle, and end but due to bad acting and strange effects that killed it for me. It was obviously shot on quality equipment but the performances lacked any sense of reality for me and the period costuming didn't work. Even after all is said and done it was still an enjoyable story.
Pauly
 
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