"This Is Death, Your Captain Speaking" a Horror entry by Phillip George/Shawn Chittle

ravinesedge said:
there were times where the audio was a bit touchy, but not too distracting for me...



I figured it may be too much for the squeemish on set... i wanted you guys in top form for my scenes :)

let me know when you get the other version of the film done, i'd like to check it out
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I'll send you a DVD, PM me your address.
 
Dude, You succeeded, as I understood he crashed, then was having a nightmare about it because of going back, then had death take him down. I thought you had said earlier in your posts that he never crashed in the first place and that it was just a dream, but I was mistaken. Cool, that means I did understand what was going on after all! Good work there! I think that ending with the announcer saying a pilot was found in a crashed empty plane would rock!
 
FlintMI said:
Darned internet! You did NOT annoy me! I'm the most laid back easy going guy ever. I was just explaining my reasons for stuff... :)

Everything I do had a specific reason.

Never thought the guy looked asleep on the opening shot! Haha! So I will lighten that up so he looks awake.

As for the TV newscast, catch anything with Bob Hager on NBC, he's always playing the NTSB recreation videos. Thankfully, these are rare. Aviation is very safe, unless you're number is up and Captain Death is flying your plane!

Ted you're my man! Great test audience. Almost 90% of what you've said here I'm taking to heart and fixing. Please tell me you'll come to our next NYC DVX/HVX user meeting! (TBA) :beer:
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Whoa! A NYC DVX/HVX user meeting??? Just what I am looking for!!!

PLEASE let me know it is. I'll be there!

Still trying to work on your premiere... This is my 10 year anniversary and I have neglected my wife enough over the past month of shooting and hanging on dvxuser!! HA HA.

Sorry, to mis-interpret the type. I am glad that I can be a bouncing board. Seriously, man. This is how we all get better!!!

I hope that I can see your film in NYC. I'm trying to get there on the 10th!

Let me know about the mtg.s!!!

Ted
 
The music was good and the cabin was pretty authentic.

One thing really stood out though.

"Mandatory one year hiatus that the FDA recommends"

I dunno....mandatory and recommends just don't seem to go well together. :D

But yeah, like I said I was impressed by the cockpit. Cinematography was a bit lacking, but I understand the restraints of shooting in such a small place.
 
Virum said:
The music was good and the cabin was pretty authentic. One thing really stood out though. "Mandatory one year hiatus that the FDA recommends" I dunno....mandatory and recommends just don't seem to go well together. :D

But yeah, like I said I was impressed by the cockpit. Cinematography was a bit lacking, but I understand the restraints of shooting in such a small place.
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Thanks Virum! Glad you enjoyed it.

It's "FAA", not "FDA" -- ROFL! No E.Coli on airplanes! ROFL :beer:Thanks that typo cracked me up. :)

More accuracy there, I went overboard on the accuracy. The NTSB does not actually do anything legal to the industries they "regulate" they only "recommend" and the FAA can take their advice, or leave it. So something mandatory to the NTSB or FAA internally is just a recommendation to the other party -- meaning "you should do this, it's mandatory in our neck of the woods."

You're right, it needs to be worded better though...

Shoot, I thought having 7 total camera angles in the flight deck was pretty good cinematography. Oh well. Next time: lipstick cams! :)
 
Hey Shawn, this might be a dumb question, but was there no way to get cameras OUTSIDE the simulator and shoot in through the windows? I guess the answer is no, since you didn't, but just wondering.
 
Acting: Very 70’s but I like that! Julie Harris was great as the newscaster,
Script: A little light.
Direction: Would have liked to see the Director stretched a little more.
Music: Good in places.
Editing: Standard.
Lighting: A little flat. This was my major drawback but hey I suppose your not getting a 5k Arri in that small space eh?
Loved: Intro and titles, the plane getting hit by lightning! (hehe), the city scape (nice shot), the news broadcast and plane crash (wow), shot of the tower, death pushing forward on the controls.
Hated: Death, but props for digging him up! J
Overall: Loved the fact you got into a cockpit and made the dials do that! A fun film that lived up to the fun poster/ title. Well done.
J.P.
 
desperatecomfort said:
Hey Shawn, this might be a dumb question, but was there no way to get cameras OUTSIDE the simulator and shoot in through the windows? I guess the answer is no, since you didn't, but just wondering.
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Hey Mark!

No, but we would have done that if possible. The "money" shot for airplane movies is the angle you're talking about. We could have even fogged the windows and had rain streaming down on them -- that would have been sweet. But no, we can't do any of that.

For the closeups of the pilots, I just put the camera and the battery powered flo lights on the dashboard, hit record, and called "action!" :)
 
Like 90% of the submissions, the poster is better than the film.

The pilot survives the crash because of an advanced airbag?!?

The sound was so bad in some places you couldn't even tell what the people were saying.

Then Death shows up looking like he came out of the Kroger Halloween aisle and grabs the joystick. At that point I wanted to blow my brains out.
 
Joystick, LOL, you must be 17 years old. In that case I'll see you working the cash register when I return my skeleton to Kroger. LOL!

:beer:
 
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this movie had a location and tried to play off of it but it was lacking in huge areas mostly sound design and fear elements. i didnt feel scared or really care by the time was over. but i did like that death was in the movie you should have played that element more.

lacking alot in story but could be tighten in editing.
 
Hello -

Good work. You win for best locations, I think. You should have hooked up with chow baby and runway, and you could have had a really awesome movie about snakes on planes. Wait...

Your dream/flashback sequence was kind of awkward. I would have cut out all the bed shots except for the first and last around the dream, and then just added some sound to make those shots seem dreamlike.

The movie drags a bit in the middle. I wonder if it's because of the extra long newscast explaining what happened last year, followed by a longish shot of a flight attendant talking to the captain. Do you think you could have explored the story from some different angles to cut down on those?

Sound definitely needs some work - it was hard to hear what some of your characters were saying - especially "death."

I would also like seeing this with a somewhat different ending, I think. It seemed to just lop it off - were you running low on time?

Overall, this was a very different concept. Good work on that. And everything about the story was very clear - so good presentation.
 
hvxabuser said:
this movie had a location and tried to play off of it but it was lacking in huge areas mostly sound design and fear elements. i didnt feel scared or really care by the time was over. but i did like that death was in the movie you should have played that element more.

lacking alot in story but could be tighten in editing.
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Thanks abuser! Love that username, BTW.
 
Lingothree said:
Hello - Good work. You win for best locations, I think. You should have hooked up with chow baby and runway, and you could have had a really awesome movie about snakes on planes. Wait... Your dream/flashback sequence was kind of awkward. I would have cut out all the bed shots except for the first and last around the dream, and then just added some sound to make those shots seem dreamlike. The movie drags a bit in the middle. I wonder if it's because of the extra long newscast explaining what happened last year, followed by a longish shot of a flight attendant talking to the captain. Do you think you could have explored the story from some different angles to cut down on those? Sound definitely needs some work - it was hard to hear what some of your characters were saying - especially "death." I would also like seeing this with a somewhat different ending, I think. It seemed to just lop it off - were you running low on time? Overall, this was a very different concept. Good work on that. And everything about the story was very clear - so good presentation.
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Thanks Lingothree! Great review.

Yah, cutting from falling asleep to a dream is tough because how can you tell its not the next day? If you don't show him sleeping, you think it's just the next morning and he's back at work or something. That's what the test audience thought, they were confused. So I had to cut him sleeping and having the nightmare to show you that what you saw was just a dream, but then the newscaster cements the fact that it did in fact happen, but he was being tortured by it.

Yah, the grim reaper guy - he's not there to negoitate, he's there to kill the guy, so I wanted that to be short and sweet. I didn't know what to do with his voice so I just recorded mine and slowed it down. Lots of people said they could hear it "loud and clear" so I'm sorry you couldn't!

The middle drags for you? What a drag? Sorry, sorry. Well, I wrote the script in less than 30 minutes, I guess it shows! LOL!

I had time for a greek chorus at the end that explained what happened (back to the newscaster again) but I left it out for you to wonder what happened.

Sound did suck because I ran out of time, but I fixed it for the final version. :)

I very much appreciate your comments and glad you at least enjoyed the concept!
 
Hey Shawn, nice work on compressed schedule. And what a screen presence you have! Congrats and good luck on Friday.
 
You should have hooked up with chow baby and runway, and you could have had a really awesome movie about snakes on planes. Wait...
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LOL. That's one of the most clever posts I've seen this week. Nice one Lingothree.
 
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