New Site with New Short

D_and_G said:
The only thing that rang a liitle false was when the Hitman met the employer in his office. Not the scene per se, just the location.
Don't know many people that would use such a personal place to conduct that kind of transaction. Even housewives who hire hitters to do away with husbands, lovers, rival cheerleaders, meet in out of the way places. However the location could have been just "what you had". If so please disregard the above (except for the liking it part).

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Good call. I actually shot a scene(an extension of when he opens the office door and greets the hitman) where the the hitman is quite displeased with the location choice and the guy explains how it's fine and that after 5pm the place is extinct.

it is a just "what you had" location, but I put thought into it being that the Mr. Mills character is completely uncomfortable with what's going on and is quite intimidated by the hitman. so he sets up the meeting on his own turf in order to be as comfortable as possible.

Also wanted to "try" and leave viewers in the dark on what is happening in the film until the scene where the hitman holds the picture and asks "is this her?". And I really liked how I was able to transition from the scene of Mr.Mills looking at the picture to the hitman holding it.(which was a ***** cuz the shoulder of Mr Mills was in that shot, took me forever to cover him up with an extension of the background)
 
Awesome film man. I actually watched this one all the way through without skipping around. Its definitely festival material.

Did you make that music yourself?
 
NO CA$H said:
Did you make that music yourself?
Click to expand...
No I had a composer do that for me, but some bullshit issues came up and i only got 3 cues when the film was supposed to have 5 to 6. So I had to come up with creative ways of breaking up some of the existing music I was given to fill the music holes i did not have. That is why the music fades out twice near the end of the kitchen sequence.

I really dig the music for when the hitman runs around the house, for me as the guy who made it - it still really gets me into the audience frame of mind and puts me on edge!
 
Good work!

Good work!

Hey, real good work. Good story and very captivating. Well shot too. I only had two qualms with it:

--I didn't really like the girl's acting. And her scared gun-shaking seemed really forced. She just seemed to overact a bit. The hitman and the guy who hires him both did very well.

--And I had a few issues with writing. Generally it was good (I'm a writer more than anything, so I guess that's what sticks out the most to me). My only real complaint is that I didn't really like how frantic he got when she wasn't in the bath -- I mean, how many people manage to perfectly time their schedule and take a bath at the exact time every day. And shouldn't a trained hitman not freak out if the person isn't where he's supposed to be? It just seemed a bit forced. Besides that, some of the dialogue felt wooden or unnecessary...

But, you know what, I'm majorely nitpicking -- and the only reason I'm doing that is because it was very good. I am very impressed, which is good, since I'm big on that perfection thing.

As a sidenote -- I was secretly hoping that the hitman would live and buy his son the red bike. I wanted to see if you knew how to fix that stupid red problem on the DVX.

Anyway, great job.

:thumbsup:
 
Very good work. I really liked the instant tension build up and your technique for establishing character situations so swiftly.

I really enjoyed it, thanks for sharing.
 
In regards to the office scene, it seemed like a low budget office (like in the secretary's location) I would find a way to dress it up or somehow get access to a nicer office - the house, car, kids room, etc. were all fine - how is a guy who works in a place like that able to afford a nice house/paying a hitman - I mean it can be done, but you need to make your locations look beautiful. Once we get into the husband's office, that location is ok.
 
I started to watch and wanted to see what will happen to the end, you succeed captivated me, so very good work. Good tension build up to the end.

I was not sure for the girl acting too.

Anyway, excellent movie and certainly strong enough for some film festival or TriggerSteet.com.
 
Jargon said:
Hey, real good work. Good story and very captivating. Well shot too. I only had two qualms with it:

--I didn't really like the girl's acting. And her scared gun-shaking seemed really forced. She just seemed to overact a bit. The hitman and the guy who hires him both did very well.

--And I had a few issues with writing. Generally it was good (I'm a writer more than anything, so I guess that's what sticks out the most to me). My only real complaint is that I didn't really like how frantic he got when she wasn't in the bath -- I mean, how many people manage to perfectly time their schedule and take a bath at the exact time every day. And shouldn't a trained hitman not freak out if the person isn't where he's supposed to be? It just seemed a bit forced. Besides that, some of the dialogue felt wooden or unnecessary...
Click to expand...

Don't really want to comment on your first point. As I said in a previous post I rushed into shooting the house scenes and wish that i could turn back the clock and do some rehearsing. This was supposed to be a 20-30 minute film...

In regards to your second comment, sounds like you may be a good guy to have for proof reading scripts. I understand your frantic comment, but i don't know, I think it depends on the person, and I wanted to give this hitman more of a personality with emotion rather than a terminator-esque demenour.

Jargon said:
As a sidenote -- I was secretly hoping that the hitman would live and buy his son the red bike. I wanted to see if you knew how to fix that stupid red problem on the DVX.
Click to expand...
Nice!

If it's the problem I'm thinking of, change your matrix setting to normal, it mutes down the overall saturation.
 
soarprod said:
In regards to the office scene, it seemed like a low budget office (like in the secretary's location) I would find a way to dress it up or somehow get access to a nicer office - the house, car, kids room, etc. were all fine - how is a guy who works in a place like that able to afford a nice house/paying a hitman - I mean it can be done, but you need to make your locations look beautiful. Once we get into the husband's office, that location is ok.
Click to expand...
Gotcha. It is a pretty bland office. Good points on how it doesn't match the house and ability to pay a hitman. But as I left out backstory for all we know the wife may come from a wealthy family.

I shot at a location available, probably will use it again in the future.(but I'll consider some set dec for future shoots - thanks!)
 
Excellent work!

You mentioned you used Magic Bullet. Could you please elaborate more about what kinds of presets you used and how they were tweaked to achieve this look? Any challenges along the way ... and did you consider using any other filters which are in the same league as MB or better?

Thanks and great concept and execution!
 
LOVED IT! The pacing, great shots. As others have mentioned the girl over acted a bit, but what can you do? I thought it was a wondeful story! One of the best shorts I have seen on this site so far. Keep it up man!
 
Fab short...Nice to see some real actors for once...Chad was very good.
Editing/ Sound slick...Well done.
Good work fella!
 
alumna said:
Excellent work!

You mentioned you used Magic Bullet. Could you please elaborate more about what kinds of presets you used and how they were tweaked to achieve this look? Any challenges along the way ... and did you consider using any other filters which are in the same league as MB or better?

Thanks and great concept and execution!
Click to expand...

I have been trying to get my MagicBullet disc to open in my machine so I can remember which presets I used, but for the life of me all of a sudden the stupid disc won't work.(I didn't copy the presets onto my harddrive cuz the first time I did it, it made Final Cut shut off upon opening)

But here's what I remember...

All the house scenes where the main action took place:

BLEACH BYPASS. But I lessen the CONTRAST under the POST tab. The dark areas where just too dark with the contrast set as it was. I slowly lessen it until I found a comparable point that look good and not too dark.

For the exterior scenes of the woman jogging and the car pulls up at the beginning:

pretty certain I used TROPICO WASH.

For the kid's bedroom and the hitman looking in mirror:

CURAHEE. But I played with the amount of contrast as well in this preset.

For the office scenes:

I think I did a combo of:

PUNCHY & BISTRO. Try those out together, I think they are what I used.

Once these were all rendered I exported a quicktime so I had a version with the looks that no longer had any chance of being rerendered.

I then opened this new quicktime in the timeline and added as a last look:

DIFFUSION MAX. But with a lot of tweaking. Try this out sometime, it can do a lot to make your image stand out and have a softness to it.

Wish i had my program to tell you exactly what to change... but here goes:

Once you apply the DIFFUSION MAX, it'll look way too blurry. Open the clip in your viewer and click the filter tab to access the diffusion max filter.

Scroll till you see BLACK DIFFUSION. Change the numbers in this order from first to third: 4.05 / 1 / - 40 .

Change the WHITE DIFFUSION to: 1 / .25 / 0

This will tone down the blurriness a whole lot yet give it a slight soft look. Feel free to play around with those settings to find something that works for you.

After I've rendered this again export a quicktime movie so you can export it to compressor without having to wait 2 days for it to render.

Thanks for all the kind comments everyone, I'm glad you guys are enjoying the movie!!
 
Stabb_Films,

Thanks very much for your detailed and thoughtful reply to the MB question. It was highly informative and helpful. I will definitely try out your suggestions and hope they turn out to be half as good as your work!

Really appreciate the thorough way in which you respond to questions by dvxuser members.
 
drummerboy678 said:
And I think the jackass comment was referring to 'Chris Pontius'.
I thought the exact same thing... Looks a lot like him.

http://www.mtvla.com/prensa/imagenes/shows/vmala03/alfombra/B0BF9841.jpg
Click to expand...
You know you guys are totally right. i remember a few years ago i saw a clip where Pontius would start a dance party or something like that and suddenly strip down to just a g-string in like a supermarket and start dancing. The moment I saw him i out loud said he looks just like Chad. Yeah they soo look alike!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top