Slimothy-Blaine-khmuse -Thou Shalt Not-

Hi Ted,

I don't think that I can recommend uprooting ones family to move to California, but it really is the place to be if this is something you want to seriously pursue. The great things about California are the weather, the scenery, the film industry presence and the cultural diversity (we have wonderful ethnic cuisine here). The down side is the traffic and the cost of living and the highly competitive work environment.

I suspect that a resourceful individual such as yourself (this is very obvious based upon what you have pulled off in I.D.) has a much better chance of accomplishing this sort of move than the average individual, but it is a big decision to make.

If you have the opportunity, perhaps you could plan a vacation with your wife to visit. I would be more than happy to make some introductions and show you around the maze that is our local film industry (or at least the little corner that I frequent). I have a 17 year old daughter who has a successful career as an actress and I know a lot of people who work in diverse aspects of the entertainment industry.

Kevin
 
TheatreGuy said:
I have been trying to find a way to convince my wife that we need to live in California. If any of you have any resources that you could direct me to for potential work out there (in this biz) I'd greatly appreciate it!

I am and have been an independent artist pretty much all of my life and would like to find that out there in good ol' CA. Might be a pipe-dream, but I miss it and have been trying to get back for some time now!!!

Thanks again for all!

Looking forward to the future!!!

Ted
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Hey Ted,

I believe that if you're passionate enough about something, are willing to work hard, and have talent (as you definitely do!), that things will work out just fine. If you want to move to LA, then seriously consider it. Consider what you'd be giving up and then decide if it's worth it or not. I'd say if you want to bad enough, then it's kinda something you have to do.

Look at me... a month ago, I was jealous over all these people doing a Horrorfest entry. Now, a month later, I'm doing my own short with all three of these guys - very talented individuals.

Also, if you do move out here, you've got a good friend right here man... :)
 
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Yeah, uprooting to move to California has been on my mind for a long time.

I was raised in Northern California and loved it! I loved the weather and the state parks.

Since that time, I've been in Oregon for 4 years, Texas for 1 (loved it!), North Carolina (okay, great BBQ!) and now New Hampshire for (gulp!) 16 years. (yikes!)

I was outta here 11 years ago but then met my wife. Couldn't leave then. And it is just beautiful up here and sparce in population in comparison. Much to be said. But the industry is not up here and the weather is WAY TOO COLD.

Now, we are both ready to move but she has NO ASPIRATIONS of going to CA. I've taken her to the Bay Area twice and she loved it. But the cost of living factor is SUCH A FACTOR for her.

I keep hoping that I can find a way to make a connection in California that will ease the immediate burden of the move. (She is a school teacher, but wants out to follow her own desires.) I know that I could support us on my desire/skills, if I had the opportunity. I don't know how tough those doors are to open. I would work on crews if it paid the bills!

Thanks for the scoop! I may have to take that trip and investigate. It would be very enlightening to see the industry up close and personal. I appreciate the invite!

And thanks Tommy for the encouragement. Good luck with your shoot. I am looking forward to progress reports!

Thanks all!

Ted
 
Acting: Lead was good, some other slightly more un-even.
Script: Interesting. Are you going to expand the two hunters story?
Direction: Wanted to see you throw in a few more interesting ideas but overall covered well, maybe a few more CU's.
Music: Audio was low for me man, compression?
Editing: Smooth enough.
Lighting: Wanted it pumped up a slightly more, some stuff looked ace, like the opening.
Loved: The location, the door slamming/ jump, the grab, the red lit shot, “First time I’ve been shot in a hundred years.” - :) Great line. The fact you have developed an interesting idea that can be taken further.
Hated: That first jerky pan, the four people watching ,(wide), didn’t like how the guys face was cropped, the gunshot Foley’s (wanted them sharper), the stabbing.
Overall: I think your covered a lot of things in this short, with a tighter script and a few new ideas throw-in you could do well with this idea in the future. It's not many people who create a film that they can expand upon. I look forward to seeing what happens with your future projects.:thumbup:

J.P.

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS ON BROKEN CIRCLE (WE NEED EM!)
 
khmuse, Blaine and Slimothy, Been a real pleasure.

Congratulations on your work and best to you all!

I have learned so much from this experience and look forward to more!!!

Thanks for sharing your work!

Ted
 
Thanks for the critique jbankesmercer,

I think that this could be a much longer story and a very interesting one at that. It was very difficult to convey all that was needed in the alloted running time, perhaps we were a bit over ambitious.

I agree about the pan at the head of the film, I had wanted this to be a dolly shot, but due to needing to get that talent off set (longer makeup time than estimated) and the very remote location, I settled for a pan. It does seemed to have suffered a bit due to the compression, it really looks much better uncompressed (but not an excuse, this should have been a dolly shot).

I really didn't want the overall illumination level any higher than it is presented here. The DOF that is necessary with an anamorphic adapter would have yielded way to much background in most of the scenes, so I choose to just deny a lot of the background much light (a lot of flagging off of parts) to keep the focus of the viewers eyes where the story dictated it should be. If you look at some of our BTS location stills, you will see how boring this would have been if more fully illuminated.

Better sound design and full ADR are also things that I would have liked to have, but again time and other constraints prevented this.

Well, I am loading up today getting ready to begin principal photography on another project, so I want to thank everyone who posted their comments and suggestions. I really do appreciate the feedback.
 
just watched this ...really liked the story you did .
The only complaint I have is the scene in which the bad dude (sic) tells what he just saw at Paradise Motel. I felt this was a little too quick .
Nice short guys .

Ian
 
Thanks for the comment Ian. I agree, that did come a bit too quick, but we, like a number of films in this contest, could have used a little more running time to more fully tell our story. Perhaps we will cut a bit longer version after the contest closes and post a link (at a much higher resolution).

Glad you liked our little film and thanks again for the post.
 
khmuse said:
Perhaps we will cut a bit longer version after the contest closes and post a link (at a much higher resolution).
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I can think of a couple of things I'd like to see go back in that would help clarify things. But decisions had to be made and all things considered, I believe we made the right decisions for the 6 minute running time.
 
I think we made just about the only decisions that would have gotten us down to a 6 minute TRT, other than getting a really hot sh*t editor to cut it for us! Even then, I think we still would have been at or over the limit.

Editing seems to be something that is never really done, you just have to decide when its time to stop trying "just one more thing" which always leads to another, and another, and another...
 
Blaine said:
I can think of a couple of things I'd like to see go back in that would help clarify things. But decisions had to be made and all things considered, I believe we made the right decisions for the 6 minute running time.
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I think many of us think the same as you Blaine ,just only if we had a minute longer .

Good luck
Ian
 
Hello - nice work. Everything looked pretty nice. I think the acting took the cake here - it was very good, very believable. I liked it very much.

Some of your framing was questionable, I thought. Also, your angles, framing, etc. seem to jump all over the place, so it was dificult to get a sense for who is talking to whom, and where, at the beginning. It was hard to establish the context for the place they were in.

I also wish there was a greater allusion to the point of the story (they are killing for god, or whatever) through the first 5 minutes. I kind of felt like that was just sprung on us at ~5:15 - even after watching it a few times I always seem to miss that, and kind of go "huh?" when they start talking about it at the end.

Loved the acting in that last scene. Very funny.

Good work.
 
Another snuff film. There's been a lot in this fest. This one is a little different because I guess "morally", the bad guys are the good guys in the end. But I've seen more than my fare share of "antagonists kill protagonists--the end" type of films here and this is another. But enough of my rant...

The look of the film was superb. Another "felt like I was watching a movie" films here in the fest. Acting was top notch! A lot of great genre elements here and I like the way you pulled it all together. The ending went on a bit long and I think the expository dialogue at the end to "explain" everything could have been better weaved into the meat of the film.

Good job, overall.


John G.
 
Just finally getting the time to copy the notes I compiled in a Word doc while watching the shorts:

Overall cool idea, though I didn’t know if they were supposed to be angels or demons, since I think I heard one of them swear at the end about being shot. I was actually surprised, since I’ve heard great things about Kevin’s DP work, that it looked like we crossed the line several times. Normally it wouldn’t bother me, but when we’d cut to reverse angles of the couple at the bar, I’d get confused on where we were looking from, etc. Otherwise, pretty pro camera work, directing, and story. By far, however, the weakest thing in this was the sound by a long shot. The gunshots literally sounded like a pop gun (was it supposed to, since the one guy had called it that?), but even the knife stabs sounded weak & pathetic. Still an entertaining piece, and glad to have watched it.
 
Hi Norm,

Thanks for the comments on our little film. I wanted to address your question about "breaking the line" on this. To be absolutely correct, I really only bent it pretty hard, but perhaps due to the dark lighting tone I choose, I may have failed to establish the physical space well enough (during the first part where the room was illuminated to "normal" levels) to keep the position of the actors understood by the viewer. Our best laid plans of coverage were pretty much abandoned after our first night of shooting as it had become clear that we were not going to get all of our shots in time if we didn't kick up the pace. Our first AD, David Chien, came to our rescue with a nicely choreographed final "kill sequence" that really accelerated the pace.

Yeah, now for the sound, it really needed to be punched up and no, it wasn't really intended to play as a "pop gun" at all!

Thanks again for your comments and observations, greatly appreciated.

Kevin
 
Thanks alot for your comments guys. We really appreciate the feedback, good or bad. I will try and get to everyone else's films as well. We just got back from helping TommyinLA with his short Maliboo! so it was a bit of a reunion and we had alot of fun.

TIm.
 
Yeah, it really was a reunion for you guys! I left you all a thank you note in my thread. I really appreciate everything you guys did to make our project happen...
 
Fantastic work, guys. I loved it. I really like the concept. It's definitely something that could be made into a longer work, but I think it works really well here as a short.

The dialogue was well written and you can tell that by the great performances. If the dialogue isn't natural sounding, it'll be obvious by the delivery. That wasn't a problem here. I expected no less, Blaine.:beer:

Nice work with the lighting, Kevin. It was really well done and very natural looking. Lighting for darkness is a tough thing to pull off and have it look real. Well done, man.

This is a very good entry. You should all be proud.:beer:

Horse
 
Thanks for the kind words, Horse. I'm really glad you enjoyed it, knowing what an aficionado you are of the b-horror films. Quite an honor hearing those words from you.:beer: :beer:
 
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