SHORT: The Journalist

[El Gato Negro]

Hey Guys. Wanted to share our newest project entitled - The Journalist.

Synopsis

The Journalist is about a retiring journalist who recalls a childhood incident that led him to cross paths with a wounded photographer. A man who would inspire him to seek truth or die trying.

Starring

Roland Uribe - No Country for Old Men
Nina Leon - Machete
James Gonzaba - The Walking Dead

We produced this short for Ridley Scott's Your Film Festival contest. We had only 7 days to produce, shoot and edit to meet the deadline. It was an amazing experience with a stunning cast and kickass crew.

The short was shot on the RED Epic. Attaching the short film and some screenshots. Add on Facebook.

Director - Daniel Maldonado
Producer - Jesus Sifuentes

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Journalist/351933781512070

 

[dre83]

It needs some tweaking in soundmixing,

The phone ringing is to low, compared with the ambience sound.

The voice of the male is to low, compared with the woman. (when calling)

The left-framing, right-framing is good, it looks like they're talking to each other... and they are... how coincident

The shots where he sends the e-mail...it's to "goody" I think.. can be faster. (in edit).

His chair is creaking first when leaning backwards, but not anymore when standing up....

When doing Foley, don't forget the "presences" sounds (sound of clothes, sound of "moving")

2nd phone call; phone ringing can be louder

And here is the dialogue lower then before, about 6dB or so

2:38, this is good, you don't reveille what he sees, and the music starts at the right point

"tjotas"

2 kids playing: I hear some wind in the mic. Did the "yellow shirted kid" had a wireless mic ?
He sounds to much "in front" compared with the "with shirted kid". And I also hear reflections, which is because the boom
was a bit to far...

So solution is: pull up the dialogue of white shirted kid a bit, and put some small "reverb" to make it sound "further" on the yellow shirted kid.
Something like "Forrest" (in the pre-reverb-stuff-menu), or short delay, and big size of room, short tail, and then mix 80% or so...

Ball going far away and touching ground = to loud (when comparing to the other sounds)

yellow kid walking towards the ball: footsteps are not sync, they're out of sync I think a few years or so

In the car the "falling down" when having shot is to late... for me at least

The camera and girl waiting to diner is nice, as those "extra elements"

I enjoyed watching it.

 

[El Gato Negro]

It needs some tweaking in soundmixing,

The phone ringing is to low, compared with the ambience sound.

The voice of the male is to low, compared with the woman. (when calling)

The left-framing, right-framing is good, it looks like they're talking to each other... and they are... how coincident

The shots where he sends the e-mail...it's to "goody" I think.. can be faster. (in edit).

His chair is creaking first when leaning backwards, but not anymore when standing up....

When doing Foley, don't forget the "presences" sounds (sound of clothes, sound of "moving")

2nd phone call; phone ringing can be louder

And here is the dialogue lower then before, about 6dB or so

2:38, this is good, you don't reveille what he sees, and the music starts at the right point

"tjotas"

2 kids playing: I hear some wind in the mic. Did the "yellow shirted kid" had a wireless mic ?
He sounds to much "in front" compared with the "with shirted kid". And I also hear reflections, which is because the boom
was a bit to far...

So solution is: pull up the dialogue of white shirted kid a bit, and put some small "reverb" to make it sound "further" on the yellow shirted kid.
Something like "Forrest" (in the pre-reverb-stuff-menu), or short delay, and big size of room, short tail, and then mix 80% or so...

Ball going far away and touching ground = to loud (when comparing to the other sounds)

yellow kid walking towards the ball: footsteps are not sync, they're out of sync I think a few years or so

In the car the "falling down" when having shot is to late... for me at least

The camera and girl waiting to diner is nice, as those "extra elements"

I enjoyed watching it.

Thanks for the feedback Philip. Appreciate the attention to detail. The first cut really came down from the simple fact that we only had 7 days to produce, shoot and edit the short, to meet the deadline. We literally got funded at the last minute. Our sound engineer only had 2 days to work with the sound. I emailed him your feedback and we are touching up the whole short for the final master. Even cutting down the film a few minutes. Thanks bro.

 

[dre83]

yes, but it's not "Philip"... it's André (or Andrew if that's more easy )

 

[El Gato Negro]

An article written on our short film! Should be up by Wednesday!

 

[maranfilms]

I thought the production value was really good. Lady and kids both were good actors, (guy, not so much, avg.). The epic has a great look to it. Plus the DP, did a nice job with the piece. My biggest complaint was that most of the scenes were very cliche, "Kids playing ball, find dead guy. or guy dying. dying guy gives kid a package to take some where, bad guys show up, kid runs off" you get the point. Even though this is a new film, it's damn near a carbon copy of 20 others I have watched over the years. It really didn't move me in anyway. Nothing sticks out, where I would say, " wow that was awesome, great ending, no twist, very predictable. I hate to be critical, But hey,, whats the point in giving feedback otherwise. I feel like there's so many filmmakers out there now, short films are a dime a dozen, so it better have an amazing original storyline. Heck I dont even need a pristine production value, I need a good story. If you can utilize that talent to do something original, Then I would say, your battle is half way over.

 

[El Gato Negro]

First off, thank you for taking the time to watch the short. Story is always an issue with a short film to some degree. You only have 8-15 minutes to grab the audience and have them emotionally attached to the characters. If anything I think we were most focus on the theme of the film. The only character who had real scene time was Young Julian and I feel he did an amazing job. He brought a sincere bravery to the character. He is also a first time actor. Very few people are test in that manner in real life and considering that our actor had never done any previous films just made the role stronger.

Thank you for taking to time to give us your review. We appreciate the feedback. Best.

 

[jghenderson]

There's the sound issues mentioned above.

A few editing issues here and there. Continuity error at 2:10 (the glasses)

When the bad guys come upon the wounded man, their dialogue doesn't make sense to me. They're yelling about "don't let him escape" and "grab him", but he's obviously not going anywhere. I don't understand what they were fretting about.

Even though it's very blunt, I like the image of his candle blowing out.


On the whole I think it's a good piece. Very nice production value overall. The cinematography was for the most part excellent. However, for me, the scenes in Mexico are by far the strongest in the film. I get why you need to see him much older, so as to show what he did with the "mission" that was bestowed upon him by the injured photographer. And I get the poetic nature of his life goal being set in motion by someone dying for the truth, and in the end he dies for the truth as well. Problem is, it's not very clear why he gets shot in the end. Because we dont' know the specifics of why he was shot, we don't care as much and it's not nearly as powerful. With the photographer in Mexico we at least semi understand what his death was for. Also the man committing suicide didn't seem to add anything to the piece. I wish more had been done to balance the "modern day" scenes, so as to balance their quality with the flashbacks.

Also, hate to be snarky, but saying you "only have 8-15 minutes" for a short film is a cop-out. The run-time should serve the story that needs to be told, not some made up convention of the length something should be.

 

[El Gato Negro]

Article on The Journalist by journalist Jackie Diaz.

http://voxxi.com/a-glimpse-into-the-life-of-the-journalist/

 

[El Gato Negro]

Working on the final sound mix and some color correction. Can't wait to start submitting it to film festivals.