"Stopgap" - An IENCE Production

Good film guys! I enjoyed watching. That said, I felt the story was a little weak....the idea was great & I loved the ending (didn't see it coming until I saw the white horse), just need some tweaking. Wan't totally believing the acting, if someone was shooting at me, right after I finished pissing myself, I'd run & never stop! I wanted to see the guy more frantic. I think you should take a closer look at your lighting too, a lot of improvement could be had there. The score IMO didn't set the proper mood either.

All in all...great job, you should all be proud of this film. I look forward to seeing more from this group.
 
ZazaCast said:
Good film guys! I enjoyed watching. That said, I felt the story was a little weak....the idea was great & I loved the ending (didn't see it coming until I saw the white horse), just need some tweaking. Wan't totally believing the acting, if someone was shooting at me, right after I finished pissing myself, I'd run & never stop! I wanted to see the guy more frantic. I think you should take a closer look at your lighting too, a lot of improvement could be had there. The score IMO didn't set the proper mood either.

All in all...great job, you should all be proud of this film. I look forward to seeing more from this group.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the feedback and for watching.

I think most of your criticism is valid (it's all valid, just saying valid in the sense that I agree with you), and I agree with your identification of weaknesses. I must defend my actors. The script allowed for a greater passage of time between the running and later scenes (I'm trying to remain ambiguous to avoid potential spoilers), but I had to cut pieces of that to fit within 6 minutes. Therefore, the actors believed the situation to be a bit safer than it may appear in this cut. This doesn't mean your criticism isn't correct, just that the fault lies mainly with me rather than my actors.

As far as lighting- due to the equipment that we had access too, we were dealing with ambient light. It's definitely a skill I need to improve on and learn.

We are quite proud of this movie. For an end of summer project, I'm so excited about how it turned out. I learned so much, and I cannot wait to get started on my next project.

Thanks again for the view!

JC
 
Wow I thought the first minute of your short was intense , very gripping, beautifully shot, and acted brilliantly. Probably the most powerful intro of the competition.

Great casting choice for your lead he did an amazing job. I like your use of symbolism with various objects in the film.

Some of the fading to black during the chase scene was a bit distracting.

Overall it was a great adaptation of a really powerful story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", you really made it your own story but it would have been nice for you to give some homage to the original.

Keep up the good work.
 
Great idea, loved the interaction between the leads ... theres a horse riding sequence, that has to be good for something haha :thumbsup:

Nice work, kudos!
 
Nice work. I appreciate your attention to detail and variety of shots. Your actors were great. Nice to see a young cast with that much talent and energy. The mom and sister seemed odd, but the ending brought everything into place. Didn't see it coming. Nice.

On an unrelated and personal note, as mom of a daughter born 3 1/2 months early, thanks for promoting March of Dimes in your sig!
 
Imaginate,
Thanks so much for the feedback and for watching Stopgap. I really appreciate your comment. We were wary of referencing "Owl Creek" in the thread or in the pre-roll credits (probably a little too wary), in case someone knew the story in advance, but in the longer-than-six-minute version that we'll post after the Fest, we will definitely give Mr. Bierce his credit. I love that TwilightZone episode.

JC
 
Hmm, I was a little disappointed with this, (just trying to be as honest as I can).

I mean, the image was great! The male lead did a good job acting, and the audio was there, the story just didn't work for me..

I was excited to see this.

Just an opinion thing, I guess.

Thanks for sharing! I loved the overall look you got for this film.

Robbie
 
Robbie,
Thanks for watching and commenting. Also, I realize I never thanked you for your very generous offer to grade the film for us. I'd just finished doing my best in Color when Joseph let me know about your offer.

Regarding Stopgap: I'm disappointed that you didn't enjoy it, but I also understand. It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, and there are definitely points we could've improved. I'm glad to hear what you think. Was there something specific about it that you didn't like or something you think we should have done differently? As to the story, it's very simple and very strange, so that may just not appeal to everyone.

Thanks again for commenting.

JC
 
Hey AmyO,
Thanks for commenting and watching. I really cannot say enough about our actors, they delivered on very short notice too.

JC
 
MrKilloran,
Thanks for the comment. Yeah, we had a nice little time getting Billy bareback onto that horse, it was no easy task! Thanks for watching.

JC
 
Maybe I should give it another watch, but it was simply the story that didn't work for me.

Any time you need a colorist, I'd be happy to help out! :)

Robbie
 
Thanks everyone for watching. Keep in mind that this went down in the matter of a week and a half in early August before we all went off to college. That was writing, shooting, and ingesting! In the editing room, Jarrard and myself both ran into lots of "man I wish we had gotten this" shots and what not. I cannot say enough about how great it was working with Amy, Billy, and the whole cast! Expect more from us in the future.
 
This story was a bit choppy but I like the concept. Given more time I think you guys would have been able to do more with it.

I look forward to checking out more of you stuff in the future.

:beer:
 
Hi

Sorry its taken me a while to get to this thread.

SPOILER :

I liked this, those final moment that go through your mind before, erm, the bullet does... lol
I piped up and guessed the ending a minute or so before it happened, but at the start I liked that the girl was completely unphased by the events and just walked away. That was when it went a bit creepy for me.

Ive read a bit on the thread so there is no point in telling you what stood out because you did well to put this together technically in the short space of time you had. it flowed well.

I'd maybe liked to have seen more story about the guy shooting him and the circumstances around that, why? because that could have taken the audiences attention away from guessing the ending if you had wrapped up his wandering around with an alt storyline. Perhaps the resolution could have been the moment the audience discovers 'why' he is getting shot, maybe he stole money or killed someone. In that way you could have his 'final glimpse' as him getting away with it, only to be brought crashing back to reality with the final gun shot in his head. - but thats just an idea and I guess it would have changed this a lot.

Things I liked, the pacing, shot choice and editing. I'd like to see what you guys do with a bit more time on your hands. Thanks for the entry.
 
Another surprise!

I won't go into what's been rehashed over and over again.
I really liked the opening shot. I also liked the shot when he came into the house, that was quite nice. I like what you did with this story wise.

SPOILERS:

Where our mind goes during those final moments.
That was really well done and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Get more coverage and you'll be fine.

Nice work.

Mike
 
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