SHORT: This Little Piggy

A

AstroBranden

Member
Greetings,
Below you will find the poster and teaser for my first short film, This Little Piggy. This film was shot March-May 2011 in Omaha NE. It was self-financed and completed for a little under $500. I just finished editing the first cut of the film, and hope to have it out in 6-8 weeks. I will also include a director/cinematographer write up for the film once it is completed.

I would love feedback on the poster and teaser. As the runtime is only going to be around 15 minutes, I didn't want to cut a traditional trailer together for fear that it would give everything away. Because of this, I decided to go with something more abstract.

Jim (Chad Cunningham) is an entrepreneur in the sensual film business. When his profitable niche becomes more than just a job, the relationship with his girlfriend Kate (Nicole Harrington) begins to change. Written and directed by Branden Poe, this short film follows Jim's quest for digital satisfaction.

PiggyHeader.jpg

 
This Little Piggy was written after a trip to Kansas City that produced a conversation not so dissimilar from one in the film. “Have you heard of sloshing? I saw a special about it on HBO; apparently people rub food all over each other and have sex,” he told me. Incredulous yet intrigued, I listened on. “I’ve been thinking of ways to get rich quick…what if we started a website that did something similar, sensuous videos of hands and feet with food or something. I could organize it and you could film it. Would you be interested in something like that?” I wasn’t, but I wanted to make a film about it.

This is a film about passion/obsession. Making use of both black & white and color, I attempted to depict this visually by varying the levels of saturation in the picture. Only when Jim looks through his camera does he truly feel alive. All color effects were done in-camera (see settings) which I found invaluable for achieving the look that I wanted. I made the decision early on to film the picture in B&W, and I felt confident enough in the decision that I filmed in B&W as opposed to desaturation in post production. This allowed me to better monitor the shadows and light the scenes appropriately, as I wanted a fairly dark and high contrast image. Many of the locations fall quickly into shadow around the action, an effect that gives us a sense of Jim’s isolation. All scenes were lit with a Lowel Omni, Pro, and various floods, all with enough diffusion to avoid looking harsh.

I also wanted the picture to contain film grain. While some was added in post, I achieved some more natural grain by bumping up the ISO to 800 and shooting with ND filters to compensate. When rendered in B&W (along with high sharpness and low noise reduction) I achieved an organic grain that I found similar to 16mm film.

The primary lenses used on this film were an old Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 and a Lumix 20mm f/1.7. Despite the crop factor on the camera, I used the 50mm for close-ups, shooting farther away from my subjects than I generally would to compensate. The 20mm was used primarily for wide and medium shots, though I used it for close-ups in a few of the final scenes to achieve a slightly distorted look. Additional lenses used were a Lumix 7-14 f/4 for the church scenes and a Canon FD 200mm f/4 for all macro shots.

Camera: Panasonic GH1
B&W Settings: [Dynamic B&W] Contrast +1, Sharpness +2, Noise Reduction -2
Color Settings: [Smooth] Contrast +1, Sharpness +1, Saturation +1, Noise Reduction 0
 
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The scene in the bar/restaurant is ADR ?

It's not 100% lypsinc, and it's sounds "close mic", and also there's some "reverb" missing.
 
Yeah, the sound for both restaurant scenes was recorded in post. I matched it up the best I could, but it isn't perfect. Sound was the element of this film that I struggled the most with; having no background in recording or editing audio, I definitely learned a lot through trial and error.
 
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