"Night Terror"

cellulararrest

cellulararrest

Active member
So I've been at the New York Film Academy workshop at Harvard University for the past 3 weeks. I've been shooting on 16mm film but my buddy, who's in the digital program, has been shooting on the DVX100a. His final film is quite good and really makes the DVX look great. I just thought I'd post it up here. Let him know what you think!

http://www.cotbol.com/videos/night_terror.wmv (14mb)

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sorry about the fairly poor quality. I know everyone apologizes, but since the video's about 3 minutes, I really didn't want to eat up my bandwidth anymore than required.
 
Wayyy too much darkness for my taste. I liked the idea of flashes coming up to see what's going on, but there was too much of that.
 
Yeah I didn't get that on either. It was a guy looking around with a flashlight. Something needed to happen but it just didn't. The lighting looked pretty cool when there was some, but it was just too dark. If more was going on, than it might have worked.
 
I also did not get this. In fact; with the complete darkness for the majority of the film it kind of sucks. Perhaps this was an experiemental piece? As mentioned NOTHING EVER HAPPENS other than:

... dark - flash of lightning - dark - flash of lightning - dark - flash of lightning - dark - flash of lightning - dark - flash of lightning - dark - flash of lightning...

Some of the visuals looked nice and looks truly 'lighted for night' but the darkness part is boring to say the least? I mean we're staring at a black screen for practiaclly the entire short.

So what are they teaching you at this academy anyway? Isn't it like $7000.00 or some absurd amount?
 
I didnt like the darkness either...it was kinda getting annoying to me towards the middle. All i hear is footsteps..and see his little flashlight throughout the whole thing...i got a tad agrivated. lol

I stuck out to the end only because i thought something scary would pop out at the kid out of the dark or something...but i was a tad dissapointed....night terror..doesnt that mean...something that scares you while you sleep? example...ghosts...vampires...etc.

How did he do the light flashing parts though? Cuz in my next upcoming film..im making a horror and i need the flashing lighting look....did he just turn off the power on and off on the lights?
 
Hawkman

Night Terrors happen to children. My son had like 2 once when he was about 2 1/2 and then never had one again. It's more scary on the parents I think cause your sitting there like an idiot and cant do anything while the child 'literally freask the fock out' ya know? But he's not awake; that's the trick.

Night Terrors in the classical sense are:

Some children have a different kind of scary dream called a "night terror." Night terrors happen during deep sleep (usually between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.). A child having a night terror will often wake up screaming. He or she may be sweating and breathing fast. Your child's pupils (the black center of the eye) may look larger than normal. At this point, your child may still be asleep, with open eyes. He or she will be confused and might not answer when you ask what's wrong. Your child may be difficult to wake. When your child wakes, he or she usually won't remember what happened.
 
Hmmm..not being able to see anything was really bugging me, because I wanted to see it. The darkness just goes for too long.
 
I am just gonna go out on a limb here and be honest..

that was terrible.

It wasn't a film, it was a lighting test. I will say it had good lighting.. when we could see what was going on.

But perhaps someone should mention that when lightning flashes, there has to be a window for it to shine through... doesn't seem like there would be a nice big window in what looked like a basement staircase..

perhaps change the name to something more appropriate... "black screen" or "no picture" :happy:
 
Or perhaps... "dont watch..I'm just a black screen with a fooky flashlight"

...sounds catchy... :thumbsup:
 
hiro said:
It's neat. good idea... Did he make the flashes in post?
Click to expand...
the flashes weren't done in post. They just flashed the lights.

--

As for the rest of you, I completely agree on there being too much black. I wish he had more ambient light and flashed above that. But overall I really liked it. The story was lacking minorly, but overall it was enough for me. Could've been shaved down quite a bit.

I appreciate the responses from you guys.

P.S. - The program is great. The teachers are amazing, especially Mike Civille. He has a new short film he just finished up (www.afterjune.com). We shoot on Kodak black and white reversal which is a pleasant challenge to light and expose properly. The whole experience has been absolutely great.
 
cool, I just wanted to make sure... in fact I really like the short, I wish he would have tried to put suspense into it, making it scary. When watching it, I was waiting for it to flash again with something or someone behind him.

the url is not working --
 
cellulararrest said:
the flashes weren't done in post. They just flashed the lights.

--

As for the rest of you, I completely agree on there being too much black. I wish he had more ambient light and flashed above that. But overall I really liked it. The story was lacking minorly, but overall it was enough for me. Could've been shaved down quite a bit.

I appreciate the responses from you guys.

P.S. - The program is great. The teachers are amazing, especially Mike Civille. He has a new short film he just finished up (www.afterjune.com). We shoot on Kodak black and white reversal which is a pleasant challenge to light and expose properly. The whole experience has been absolutely great.
Click to expand...

Keep us inthe loop. I'd love to see your film when done. :)
 
Hey
I would say that I liked the lightning effect but every 2 seconds was a bit much. Around 3 minutes into it when the flashlight comes by the camera you can see the gel wrapped around the flashlight. I guess this is to tone down the brightness of the light itself. But it doesnt present itself as being realistic. When I use flashlights at night I can pretty much go as fast as I would in daylight. But this guy stumbles around and inches through the hallway because the flashlight isnt providing enough light. Him walking slow would seem to add suspense to it which leads to nothing.

I do like the lightning effect though.
Brian
 
Well, I'd say it was interesting, in a way, because it was making me curious about where it was heading. The sound design had a lot to do with that, I think. (I'd give the film much higher marks for sound than for picture.) However, it was starting to lose me toward the end; it's leading up to the final image, but takes too long to get there (or at least doesn't have enough things--visual or aural--going on).

Here are some specific things I'd change:

1. Have a little more ambient light; OR, have a little more going on in the sound to compensate.

2. Provide more information on the problem with the lamp: have the lightning flashes synchronized more with the actor's business with the lamp, and/or include more sound (such as hearing the switch, the actor saying "Damn" or such, etc.).

3. The lightning flashes need MUCH more variety. I've never experienced a lightning storm with such a regular rhythm! Vary the timing, duration, and intensity.

4. Do a little more with synching up the sound of the storm and the lightning flashes.

5. The frames that are lit up by lightning show very good images; however, the color doesn't seem right. The color should be very subdued, rather bluish (like what one would see in a real lightning storm).

6. The flashlight should probably throw a little more light.

7. The final image seems to be what it's all leading up to, but it isn't emphasized enough. The camera should perhaps dolly (NOT zoom) in to the hand, with more intense lightning flashes to help the viewer see more clearly what is there. The scene just needs a lot more punch to it.

Overall, I think it was an interesting concept that got partway there, but in the end misses. However, I do think it shows some significant technical skills.

Kevin
 
This would make a great title sequence for a suspense flick. during the black sections, have the titles appear, then the lightning makes them go away, or something like that.

I liked it. Creepy mood. Could certainly use more plot, though. It would have been freaky as hell to have one of the lightning flashes reveal somebody standing right next to him with a hockey mask!
 
Ditto on others comments about there not being much of film here, more of a lighting experiment.

Some good shots and good mood however.

Thing to remember about NYFA, they don't have much of a selection criteteria. Pretty much based on available seats and can you pay. They may have excellent teachers but seems like quality will vary greatly student to student.

I've thought about going there. Where else can I go for a couple of weeks or a weekend or a summer and get some schoolin, as an alternative to a couple or three years of film school, for some down and dirtty technical es'plainin'.
 
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