'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

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Hello all:

"In order to receive his inheritance, WILL must lose his virginity to BRENDA – his dead father's mistress." That's the synopsis for my new short film 'WILL', shot in 24PA on the DVX.

Any comments welcome. Thanks to all who view it.

http://www.blokland.com/mpgpages/playwillmpg.html

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Hi Jim

I saw this already and reviewed it at TS. Again; I love it! Great work! HEre is the review:

Wonderfully done; this is filmmaking.

Whats not to love about this piece? Shot on the beloved Pani-24p (I own one!) and presented in a 2:35 aspect ratio this film is first rate and oozes talent both in front of and behind the lens. The screenwriter knows how to do dialog and the actors know how to play it. This was a nice surprise considering the usual films that come down the pipe. I haven't really anything bad to say about this; maybe the audio hiss from time to time and a few ambient noises that were distracting. Other than that, filmmakers should take a look at this and pay attention to the talent and writing; nothing seemed contrived here and director J Blokland handles it all nicely. I cannot wait to see more films from him; I just hope he chosses the same people to work with because each of them shine in this nice little film. -- April 10, 2004 - 11:14 PM
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Hi John:

Small (internet) world, huh? Thought I'd post 'WILL' here – trying to get as much feedback as possible, en route to our next (feature) project. Thanks for your kind TriggerStreet review, and for re-posting it here.

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

:D NO worries on the kind words.  I watch TONS of short films and most of them are shite.  When I see something legitimate and well done i call it out.  Im getting ready to submit my first short here for 'April DVX FEST' (see contests thread) and I'll either fall into Great, good or the shite column!  :D
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Wow! Some of the best stuff I've seen yet. Great lighting. I don't know how you guys do all these low light shots with out grain. I always get grain on my DVX. Was the Death flick shot with DVX as well?

What Mic was used for the audio?
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Did you use the Panasonic 16:9 lense? What was your light set-up? Did you do any post trick/color correction to it?

Thanks
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Hi Mark:

Thanks for your quick and generous response. 'WILL' was shot right at the 'toe' of the DVX exposure with minimal light. The location walls were pretty much white, so we had to light hard to keep some contrast.

The audio was mostly from wireless packs (not sure which lav mic – but they were darn good), and we also boomed some stuff with the 'venerable' Sennheiser shotgun (model number escapes me...).

As for 'alt.rec.death', that was shot on 35mm with an Arri 3C and Zeiss primes. If the DVX was around when I made that film, I would've saved a lot of dough! (but 35mm was great to shoot, make no mistake...)

Thanks for checking out my stuff.

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

[quote author=recon007jf link=board=Clips;num=1081823804;start=0#5 date=04/12/04 at 20:24:24]Did you use the Panasonic 16:9 lense? What was your light set-up? Did you do any post trick/color correction to it?[/quote]

Hey recon...

This was shot full frame and 2.35:1 matted in post. There is a slight 'greenish' color correction added in FCP, but just to enhance what was already there. The film was lit primarily with one Arri 300W Fresnel, and another 300W through a small Chimera.

Thanks for checking it out.

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Jim...

Im Lovn'n that shot just before the "WILL" title appears...

nice work
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

[quote author=windsorguy link=board=Clips;num=1081823804;start=0#9 date=04/13/04 at 11:21:15]Well, does he get it on with the mistress or what? :D[/quote]
Hey windsorguy:

Left that up to you to decide for yourself.

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Awesome work, man. I agree with John, the only real drawbacks were the slight noises in the audio. The lighting was K.I.S.S. great! Good mix of the blues and oranges for just enough of a difference to be interesting. Great work in the low-light. Actors were pretty good for being amateurs. Interesting script, interesting dialog, great ending leaving us all hanging...er or not depending on how we view Brenda :o. All in all, Awesome work. Please give us more.

Also, if you wouldn't mind telling us more about the creative process. I feel a lot of times on these boards we get to talking about the how(technical: scene settings, letterboxed?) and not the how(story-telling:how did you come up with the story line? How did you translate that to scenes and dialog? How did you tie it all together before shooting? What guided your editing?).

Although those are probably the most difficult to answer, they separate the great work from the bad work.

PS - The sequence right before the title was brilliant.

Thanks,
Chico
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

[quote author=jaredalv link=board=Clips;num=1081823804;start=0#12 date=04/14/04 at 12:21:44]Also, if you wouldn't mind telling us more about the creative process...how did you come up with the story line?  How did you translate that to scenes and dialog? How did you tie it all together before shooting?  What guided your editing?[/quote]
Chico:

Thanks for your comments. Very encouraging when someone is interested in your work.

As for creative process: writer Ed McNamara pitched me 'teenage boy's father locks him in hotel room with prostitute on his 16th birthday – don't come out until you're a MAN'. I embellished the idea to include a) an inheritance at stake, b) his father is dead and this is his will, and c) the woman is/was his mistress. (in short, what could have come off as a light comedy met my tendency to overcomplicate...)

After my 'contribution', Ed wrote six drafts before we had a shooting script. I think he did a great job.

The script had an ending that gave you the answer to 'Did he sleep with her or not?', but as the shoot wore on, I realized we didn't need it. I felt the answer was clear much sooner – so we never shot the 'ending'. And in editing, we felt that we couldn't even use the ending we did shoot – because it was too big a turnaround for WILL, in just five real-time minutes.

Hope that provides some insight as to our process. Thanks for asking the 'tough' questions.

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

What are you doing with the Films now?
Who currently owns the rights to alt.rec ?
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

[quote author=nsfilms link=board=Clips;num=1081823804;start=0#14 date=04/15/04 at 14:49:09]What are you doing with the Films now?
Who currently owns the rights to alt.rec ?
[/quote]
'WILL' is making the festival/broadcaster rounds. 'alt.rec.death' aired on the CBC in Canada, and I own all rights. I'm currently prepping a low-budget debut feature with Ed McNamara (writer of 'WILL') for production this Fall.

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

I was just watching the alt.rec and the sound is busted. The scene where he puts up his "holey" socks it goes to severe distortion.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

[quote author=nsfilms link=board=Clips;num=1081823804;start=0#16 date=04/15/04 at 21:59:39]I was just watching the alt.rec and the sound is busted. The scene where he puts up his "holey" socks it goes to severe distortion.[/quote]
Hey nsfilms:

Welcome to the wonderful world of the internet! I checked out both the mpeg and the quicktime – both work fine on my machine. Try it again and see what happens.

Thanks for your interest in the film.

Best, JIM.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

I'm sorry Jim, it looks like it may have been a problem with my Quicktime software. I looked at it again in MPEG and it wokred much better.

Good work man. The film is pretty cool.
 
Re: 'WILL' NEW SHORT FILM

Jim,
Awesome-hate to ask the same old rudimentaries. Share some tweak settings,please; and most importantly, for my "theory", dvx100 or dvx100A ? Absolutely vital to my "theory". thanks.
 
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