SHORT: Our latest short, Chasing Liberty
- Thread starter jhero
- Start date
You chaps are on a roll 
First off, I enjoyed it. There's a progression from your last piece. It’s a pleasure to watch something where I know the filmmaker is giving attention to framing and camera movement.
Here are some quick impressions as I watched it the third time. Keep in mind that I liked it, but want to give all my impressions (as your film rolls) - That opening logo for your company is stupendous. She's outta' there, good use of movement, perhaps some minor editing tweaks on the stairs (where we expect the viewer to be looking etc.). The colour palette is a nice choice, fresh, not cliche'. Your actress is beautiful, long lashes mystery, hint of vulnerability. This is thriller music ? She stops once to look at her phone, and then again to look at a picture soon thereafter; for me it was the same story beat. Maybe those beats are better served further apart ?
Exterior
This is now mystery music (laid back) Why the change ? We were told she's in jeopardy, and now she's not. Huh ? Maybe find something tonally that more closely matches – it can still be uptempo for the opening shots, but should be in the same family, unless what's visually on screen tells us different. When the camera is Els and pans/tilts following her, the unsure movement or hiccups implies someone is watching her. If that wasn't the intent, then maybe doing a reshoot etc. might have been in order ? (for future reference) The exterior wind noise is a bit distracting. Since there's no dialogue involved why not rerecord it ? Like your use of the graphic title as she walks off screen... As we follow her journey, she walks down the street and the woman in the red coat crosses. Due to the focus, the colour of coat, position, we’re sort of fighting to see the girl. It momentarily takes the viewer out of the reverie trying to be created. When she leaves the phone booth, for editing sake, cut from the phone booth (essentially an open frame) to her walking instead of the way you have it now. For example, from
to
(just a suggestion).
I still don't know why the mystery vibe is so prominent. A car pulls up. For someone so vehement, she gives up pretty easily. The interior car shot with the reflections of the windshield are well done...
And she hugs her dad.
The end credits/footage are nicely done.
To summarize, as aforementioned the direction showed a lot of thought, and the cinematography matched. The actress drew you in, but even though I enjoyed this for the filmmaking, there were still some questions of script, tone, payoff, and reversal of expectation in this piece. Case in point, your actress looked early-mid twenties which was intro'd by the first location you were at. It undercut the teenage angst angle. The tone (music, els') seemed more like misdirection which may have been unintended. And I would have liked to see a greater emotional arc from the character. A situation like that is higly charged emotionally, and I got some of that, but missed the emotional gradation. It's tough to play an almost silent picture (a la the Artist) and still get across a journey so I give props to your actress for going for it. She has something special.
I get what you're going for, but the script for me is paramount. Even with a French New wave picture, there's usually a great script. It doesn't have to be a traditional format, but the reversals of expectations, visual and audio cues have to payoff. Although there were some real positives to this piece, including your choice of subject matter, the parts didn't add up to the complete whole (for me). But I'm reviewing it as if it were a festival selection.
Btw, this frame was standout (caught the mood)
Ps - What are your plans with this work ? Any upcoming projects ?
Cheers, mate
First off, I enjoyed it. There's a progression from your last piece. It’s a pleasure to watch something where I know the filmmaker is giving attention to framing and camera movement.
Here are some quick impressions as I watched it the third time. Keep in mind that I liked it, but want to give all my impressions (as your film rolls) - That opening logo for your company is stupendous. She's outta' there, good use of movement, perhaps some minor editing tweaks on the stairs (where we expect the viewer to be looking etc.). The colour palette is a nice choice, fresh, not cliche'. Your actress is beautiful, long lashes mystery, hint of vulnerability. This is thriller music ? She stops once to look at her phone, and then again to look at a picture soon thereafter; for me it was the same story beat. Maybe those beats are better served further apart ?
Exterior
This is now mystery music (laid back) Why the change ? We were told she's in jeopardy, and now she's not. Huh ? Maybe find something tonally that more closely matches – it can still be uptempo for the opening shots, but should be in the same family, unless what's visually on screen tells us different. When the camera is Els and pans/tilts following her, the unsure movement or hiccups implies someone is watching her. If that wasn't the intent, then maybe doing a reshoot etc. might have been in order ? (for future reference) The exterior wind noise is a bit distracting. Since there's no dialogue involved why not rerecord it ? Like your use of the graphic title as she walks off screen... As we follow her journey, she walks down the street and the woman in the red coat crosses. Due to the focus, the colour of coat, position, we’re sort of fighting to see the girl. It momentarily takes the viewer out of the reverie trying to be created. When she leaves the phone booth, for editing sake, cut from the phone booth (essentially an open frame) to her walking instead of the way you have it now. For example, from
to
(just a suggestion).
I still don't know why the mystery vibe is so prominent. A car pulls up. For someone so vehement, she gives up pretty easily. The interior car shot with the reflections of the windshield are well done...
And she hugs her dad.
The end credits/footage are nicely done.
To summarize, as aforementioned the direction showed a lot of thought, and the cinematography matched. The actress drew you in, but even though I enjoyed this for the filmmaking, there were still some questions of script, tone, payoff, and reversal of expectation in this piece. Case in point, your actress looked early-mid twenties which was intro'd by the first location you were at. It undercut the teenage angst angle. The tone (music, els') seemed more like misdirection which may have been unintended. And I would have liked to see a greater emotional arc from the character. A situation like that is higly charged emotionally, and I got some of that, but missed the emotional gradation. It's tough to play an almost silent picture (a la the Artist) and still get across a journey so I give props to your actress for going for it. She has something special.
I get what you're going for, but the script for me is paramount. Even with a French New wave picture, there's usually a great script. It doesn't have to be a traditional format, but the reversals of expectations, visual and audio cues have to payoff. Although there were some real positives to this piece, including your choice of subject matter, the parts didn't add up to the complete whole (for me). But I'm reviewing it as if it were a festival selection.
Btw, this frame was standout (caught the mood)
Ps - What are your plans with this work ? Any upcoming projects ?
Cheers, mate
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Pretty good, I liked it, although I must admit it seems to be more of a showcase of camera movement and cinematography than an interesting story for me. It seems like the same story coulda been told in 4 minutes since all she does is pout for several blocks and get picked up by her dad at the end. I'd be interested to know what it was shot on and what you used for the camera movements?
Good luck with it!
Good luck with it!
Thank you both for your comments!
My comments:
In general, we were going for a teenage-non-decisive type of vibe. Meaning, the lead character, in and of itself is not exactly sure of what she's doing. I do agree however, perhaps a greater emotional arc would have emphasized that !
From a storytelling standpoint, we wanted to try something different -- that is to say we wanted to start right from the climax. That was our intention with the opening musical piece. We wanted to show she was angry, hot headed, etc in the first 10 seconds. Once she reached the exterior however, it was time for the cold 'snap' of reality to hit her straight to her bones (literally the temperature change was jarring for her) and in terms of colour grading/music. Later, with grand wide shots to show how absurd her undertaking is, etc.
Eek! Those hiccups were not intended
A case of -10 weather with no evf/monitor got the better of us Something that I honestly regret but we only had one day with the actress I see your point though about cutting from phone booth to walking but we wanted to show the phone drop/dangle
Yes, indeed she gave up pretty easily, that was a mistake on the writing side. The day after shooting it we figured out a much better way to culminate that scene but alas no chance of reshoot
All in all, we were thrilled of what we got from our actors! They're both actually models that were charismatic enough to take a small leap to acting. In general, if we did have an extra day to properly review our footage we perhaps would have had a much better grasp of what to reshoot
Interesting tidbit, we are usually three crew members but for this short, one was on vacation in Asia. We filmed this in a day, two people, 2 60Ds with a tripod/glidecam.
Oh! D_and_G, you wouldn't believe how much my face lit up once I flipped open my screen to that shot!
All in all, you are both right - this piece was mostly a stepping stone to something greater that we have coming down hopefully by summer's time. With this piece, indeed it really does show a great culmination of our past work in terms of camera work/cinematography. But what we have in vision includes a story with dialogue, and multiple characters, so this piece compounded with our lessons from Residual should make for a very interesting third piece
My comments:
In general, we were going for a teenage-non-decisive type of vibe. Meaning, the lead character, in and of itself is not exactly sure of what she's doing. I do agree however, perhaps a greater emotional arc would have emphasized that !
From a storytelling standpoint, we wanted to try something different -- that is to say we wanted to start right from the climax. That was our intention with the opening musical piece. We wanted to show she was angry, hot headed, etc in the first 10 seconds. Once she reached the exterior however, it was time for the cold 'snap' of reality to hit her straight to her bones (literally the temperature change was jarring for her) and in terms of colour grading/music. Later, with grand wide shots to show how absurd her undertaking is, etc.
Eek! Those hiccups were not intended
A case of -10 weather with no evf/monitor got the better of us Something that I honestly regret but we only had one day with the actress I see your point though about cutting from phone booth to walking but we wanted to show the phone drop/dangleYes, indeed she gave up pretty easily, that was a mistake on the writing side. The day after shooting it we figured out a much better way to culminate that scene but alas no chance of reshoot
All in all, we were thrilled of what we got from our actors! They're both actually models that were charismatic enough to take a small leap to acting. In general, if we did have an extra day to properly review our footage we perhaps would have had a much better grasp of what to reshoot
Interesting tidbit, we are usually three crew members but for this short, one was on vacation in Asia. We filmed this in a day, two people, 2 60Ds with a tripod/glidecam.
Oh! D_and_G, you wouldn't believe how much my face lit up once I flipped open my screen to that shot!
All in all, you are both right - this piece was mostly a stepping stone to something greater that we have coming down hopefully by summer's time. With this piece, indeed it really does show a great culmination of our past work in terms of camera work/cinematography. But what we have in vision includes a story with dialogue, and multiple characters, so this piece compounded with our lessons from Residual should make for a very interesting third piece
For a one day shoot you covered a lot of ground ... also, great casting (over the last two pics I've seen)
Whatever you're planing to shoot in the Summer (no Toronto winter movie, haha), feature, short, whatever, I wish you a ton of luck, mate.
Nice! It shows you what you can do when you have a plan. I'd love to see more people emulate your strategy (goals per picture etc.) Imagine what you could do with a shooting schedule of a whole month
Whatever you're planing to shoot in the Summer (no Toronto winter movie, haha), feature, short, whatever, I wish you a ton of luck, mate.
I'd say see what agencies are local to your area and make some calls. We've been fortunate to have such a small town community in Ottawa that we have connections with the modeling agencies. We then build the story, and the characters, and try to see whom from the agencies would be best suited for the role (ie, personality, charisma, experience, looks, etc.) Actually, all of your shorts/videos really never had an actual actor (minus Residual) and we are lucky to have such a great director who knows how to really connect with the actors and get the right emotion out of them. I'd like to say that generally anyone could be an actor, it just takes the right direction and a mindset to listen
Thanks, the more casting tips for indies the better! It's important for us Canadians to share our methods, since it can vary from U.S paradigms.
Ottawa's small town community sounds interesting. I'm scouting Ford models T.O to find the next Rita Hayworth, haha. (put that on the list folks). She only wants a ticket from Milan, a Four Seasons suite, and a $1K per diem. Maybe I should move to Ottawa.
cheers
I'm going to give some comments on the sound... because everyone expect me to do 
It starts good, you use both music and other sounds (footsteps, direct sound, whatever...)
The message sound, it sounds to far away, probably someone had sent a real message to the cellphone ? Now it's like it's someone else cellphone, somewhere 78 feet away.
It also sounds to much right (like in "left" and "righ")
The door is nice, or the door is just like it sounds ?
You don't need to fade out music for 10 seconds... Sometimes it can be just "hard cut". Here it's a little to long fade out I think (the first piece of music to the 2nd)
Outside scene I hear some wind in the mic. You had a "softie" probably (mostly black foam), but not the "dead rabbit" ?
You keep the other sounds besides music, that's good.
I hear a dog
Do we need to know what she sais in the cellphone ? If not...ok. But if we do...then it's not understandable
And this is a good example of "mixing up stuff":
- dropping coins --> sounds good, doesn't sound like it's miles away, ok good.
- the tone, sounds like we're listening also...ok...good
- but then, when she talks then it's suddenly "far away"
So here you have to make choise, or we hear everything close or "far" (behind glass or so)
Did you write in your script: "A car slows down, we see in the eyes of the girl that it's her dead who's there to bring her home" ?
I'm just gessing...Because "newbees" tend to write those kind of things like: "we see in the eyes" and "the viewer feels that" or "the character looks surprised"
But here we don't know it's the father.....untill the end... Or it's ment to be ?
It starts good, you use both music and other sounds (footsteps, direct sound, whatever...)
The message sound, it sounds to far away, probably someone had sent a real message to the cellphone ? Now it's like it's someone else cellphone, somewhere 78 feet away.
It also sounds to much right (like in "left" and "righ")
The door is nice, or the door is just like it sounds ?
You don't need to fade out music for 10 seconds... Sometimes it can be just "hard cut". Here it's a little to long fade out I think (the first piece of music to the 2nd)
Outside scene I hear some wind in the mic. You had a "softie" probably (mostly black foam), but not the "dead rabbit" ?
You keep the other sounds besides music, that's good.
I hear a dog
Do we need to know what she sais in the cellphone ? If not...ok. But if we do...then it's not understandable
And this is a good example of "mixing up stuff":
- dropping coins --> sounds good, doesn't sound like it's miles away, ok good.
- the tone, sounds like we're listening also...ok...good
- but then, when she talks then it's suddenly "far away"
So here you have to make choise, or we hear everything close or "far" (behind glass or so)
Did you write in your script: "A car slows down, we see in the eyes of the girl that it's her dead who's there to bring her home" ?
I'm just gessing...Because "newbees" tend to write those kind of things like: "we see in the eyes" and "the viewer feels that" or "the character looks surprised"
But here we don't know it's the father.....untill the end... Or it's ment to be ?