Well I made some major advances in the movie I'm directing the last few months so here is some information about it.
Visit:[url]http://d308themovie.wordpress.com/[/url], for more.
[IMG]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/poster-2-copy3.jpg[/IMG]
Synopsis.
Burt (Rui Pinto), is a survivor. 308 days after the start of a major nuclear conflict, Burt finds himself exploring this post-apocaliptic world, fighting through disease and starvation. Burt starts questioning his own sanity when he finds a odd loking map, indicating that there is canned food somewhere near him…
Characters:
-Burt
[URL="http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-01.jpg"][IMG]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-01.jpg?w=300&h=240[/IMG][/URL]
Is the main character of this story, surviving, starving and going insane.
Burt can’t give the luxury to lose an oportunity to find canned goods and water.
-Chance
[URL="http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-09.jpg"][IMG]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-09.jpg?w=300&h=240[/IMG][/URL]
Had enough of her life in this world, she is saved by Pariah when she tries to commit suicide.
In payment to her savior, she becomes his aprentice.
-Pariah
[URL="http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/img_7469-copy4.jpg"][IMG]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/img_7469-copy4.jpg?w=300&h=199[/IMG][/URL]
No one knows who he is or what he does, omnipresent, he is seen travelling through this world with an unknown agenda.
[B]Test shots[/B] -[URL="http://vimeo.com/6463545"]D.308, teaser/test shot[/URL]
-[URL="http://vimeo.com/7017488"]It’s a good morning, test shot[/URL]
-[URL="http://vimeo.com/7268063"]The ditch, test shot[/URL]
-[URL="http://vimeo.com/8343525"]Scene 7 – Showdown, test shot[/URL]
-[URL="http://vimeo.com/9249224"]Scene 7 – Showdown, special efects test shot[/URL]
[URL="http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/img_7469-copy4.jpg"]
[/URL]
[URL="http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-09.jpg"]
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Some frames of the movie
[IMG]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-12.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-07.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sequence-04.jpg[/IMG]
Thank's for reading, tell me what you guys think.
I'm sorry, but I watched a few of the test footage videos, and it looks like a generic boring "oh look black and white, now isn't that artsy?" kind of video. Barely anything interesting happens.
[QUOTE=healthpoint;20267529]I'm sorry, but I watched a few of the test footage videos, and it looks like a generic boring "oh look black and white, now isn't that artsy?" kind of video. Barely anything interesting happens.[/QUOTE]
Agreed... those are just test shots to see if the idea worked, filming, image, editing etc...
The one that has more to do with the movie is the special effects test, Scene 7, wich is unfinished, I'm working more on the special effects.
Thanks for the opinion anyway
By giving every character gas masks you're cutting out a big chunk of the emotional feedback and sympathy we can feel for them
Let alone the characters sounding one dimensional
[QUOTE=DaveP;20272353]By giving every character gas masks you're cutting out a big chunk of the emotional feedback and sympathy we can feel for them
Let alone the characters sounding one dimensional[/QUOTE]
Well I am having some fun with this aspect of the movie.
Since I first started to write the argument for this, I have decided to keep all characters with a gas mask, to cut completly all emotional feedback from facial expression, and to make this emotional "cut off", even more violent, there are no dialogs at all, it's a very silent short movie.
That's why I recruted only actors that worked in theater, so the emotions are passed through by body language. I was able to bring out some situations that the actors are really able to send the emotional information to the viewer.
Well it's just a question of how this will work, for the best or the worst, but I'm doing my best that this aspect becomes one of the good sides of the movie.
In what way you mean that characters are one dimensional?
(Sorry if this text is bad writen, I'm not a native speaker.)
Sorry for double posting, but I would really like to know what you people think of this project.
All right, because I know what it's like to not get video work (which is incredibly labor-intensive) not looked at, I'm going to give you an extensive critique.
Your trailer doesn't really mean anything unfortunately, and doesn't tell us much about the story--it doesn't really infer anything about a nuclear war or apocalypse or anything of the sort--at most, it tells us that we've run out of clean air and that various U.S. presidents have been lying to us.
You need to get your camera guy to hold more still (but I looked over The Ditch, and the camera work there is better), or otherwise consider approaching the shots differently. You're going to need a steadycam or a steadyhand, because the following just isn't smooth enough. On top of that, the weird cut between stationary and following shots in "It's a good morning" is really jarring--and nothing happens. It doesn't matter if they're test shots, no matter what music you have, there's just nothing happening and then a trailer and a guy smoking at the end for no real reason. We didn't discover anything, aside from seeing some interesting-looking areas (the areas, not necessarily the cinematography).
I'm not going to say that you can't pull this off because they're all wearing gas-masks, because I don't believe that it can't be done. But you're going to need actors who can emote very powerfully with their physicality when they are behind the mask, and your music needs to be top-notch--speaking of which, the music seems generic and by The Ditch (I watched the test shots in order) I was annoyed by it. The shot of when he sees the ditch and gives an overdramatic start (overacting) was almost comical because of the music and the mixture of weird shots (like the pull back from the bottom of the ditch was really strange to me). When your character in The Ditch reacts to the siren, it seems inauthentic just because the siren didn't sound [i]real[/i], because there was no sound otherwise--it just seemed like he was reacting to what I thought was music, getting panicked and running from no threat that I, the viewer could see. There are random jump-shots too, that make no sense. You know what I'm talking about.
As for the showdown, you really need to work with your actors here. You do not hold a gun over your shoulder, it's couched [i]against[/i] your shoulder/armpit. Also, there needs to be recoil while they're shooting. That's a [i]major[/i] issue I'm having with it. Otherwise, this scene is actually pretty interesting, cinematically speaking. Try adjusting the pitch and volume of your gunshots slightly--get a database of about 10 versions of each gunshot and mix them up to make the firefights more convincing, in terms of audio.
Finally, I have to ask: why? I understand that these are [i]test shots[/i], but these are all you have to show. You don't really have a story, just a concept. While they're interesting, it doesn't seem like you're approaching this like an actual movie. What you have described as a story will need some very good story-telling to have depth, and at the very least a huge amount of psychological character development. While I'm not saying that I think you can't do it, from what you have now you still have a lot of work left.
[QUOTE=Scyze;20370257]All right, because I know what it's like to not get video work (which is incredibly labor-intensive) not looked at, I'm going to give you an extensive critique.
Your trailer doesn't really mean anything unfortunately, and doesn't tell us much about the story--it doesn't really infer anything about a nuclear war or apocalypse or anything of the sort--at most, it tells us that we've run out of clean air and that various U.S. presidents have been lying to us.
You need to get your camera guy to hold more still (but I looked over The Ditch, and the camera work there is better), or otherwise consider approaching the shots differently. You're going to need a steadycam or a steadyhand, because the following just isn't smooth enough. On top of that, the weird cut between stationary and following shots in "It's a good morning" is really jarring--and nothing happens. It doesn't matter if they're test shots, no matter what music you have, there's just nothing happening and then a trailer and a guy smoking at the end for no real reason. We didn't discover anything, aside from seeing some interesting-looking areas (the areas, not necessarily the cinematography).
I'm not going to say that you can't pull this off because they're all wearing gas-masks, because I don't believe that it can't be done. But you're going to need actors who can emote very powerfully with their physicality when they are behind the mask, and your music needs to be top-notch--speaking of which, the music seems generic and by The Ditch (I watched the test shots in order) I was annoyed by it. The shot of when he sees the ditch and gives an overdramatic start (overacting) was almost comical because of the music and the mixture of weird shots (like the pull back from the bottom of the ditch was really strange to me). When your character in The Ditch reacts to the siren, it seems inauthentic just because the siren didn't sound [I]real[/I], because there was no sound otherwise--it just seemed like he was reacting to what I thought was music, getting panicked and running from no threat that I, the viewer could see. There are random jump-shots too, that make no sense. You know what I'm talking about.
As for the showdown, you really need to work with your actors here. You do not hold a gun over your shoulder, it's couched [I]against[/I] your shoulder/armpit. Also, there needs to be recoil while they're shooting. That's a [I]major[/I] issue I'm having with it. Otherwise, this scene is actually pretty interesting, cinematically speaking. Try adjusting the pitch and volume of your gunshots slightly--get a database of about 10 versions of each gunshot and mix them up to make the firefights more convincing, in terms of audio.
Finally, I have to ask: why? I understand that these are [I]test shots[/I], but these are all you have to show. You don't really have a story, just a concept. While they're interesting, it doesn't seem like you're approaching this like an actual movie. What you have described as a story will need some very good story-telling to have depth, and at the very least a huge amount of psychological character development. While I'm not saying that I think you can't do it, from what you have now you still have a lot of work left.[/QUOTE]
Long post, once again, I'm not a native speaker, so sorry for any mistake.
This is the best constructive criticism I have got for this project. Seriously, thank you Scyze.
To give you a little back story about this project. I'm a student of photography, and this project was originally going to be just photographs, but around the time I finished writing the background story for those images, I realized that this project should be in the form of a movie. So I got back to the working table, and started to write the script. I'm a huge fan of David Lynch, and Andrei Tarkovsky, so about most of the history in the script, is given by subjective themes, objects, and or situations. So I decided right away, that I was not going to be explicit about the story during the movie...
For example, In the end of "It's a good morning", by the way, that's actually a girl, she is smoking because she is trying to commit suicide the last cigarret before she dies, that's why she toke off her mask. The cigarret is the symbol, this is a good example of what I'm doing with this movie in story telling.
Well now, to answer some of your questions and/or statements.
I agree about the trailler/teaser. The teaser for me was the confirmation to start the project (it was done before any footage was seriously taken), and that this idea of "do not give the answers" would work, but I agree that it should contain more information.
The movie is being filmed with two different techniques when capturing the action.
First one is the camera acting like it's in the action, like the "It´s a good morning" test shot.
Second one is a camera out of the action, more stationary, omnipresent like in the "The Ditch"
This will all come togheder when combined with the actors, to aid in that emotional gap.
I am actually glad that someone spot the diference between the two different techniques.
Well about the music, yhea I really over used it in "The Ditch", and that showed me that it can't happen during the movie, So I went sound hunting to add more realistic noise effects.
(I'm actually still working with the "Showdown" scene ,in order to have better sound effects, but your advice is very usefull, thank you.)
Also, didn't it bugged you when the siren lead to nothing? Well that test shot was to be presented to my teacher in a auditorium, so I didn't want to give away the meaning of the siren just yet.
well about the actors in the "Showdown", scene, I went on research, and met a ex-military guy, I talked to him about this scene, and he told me that it was standard procedure to hold a long ranged weapon over the shoulder, wile firing in a close quarters combat situation (If the soldier did not have a close quarters weapon that is). So I added that to that scene.
About the recoil, well, it was difficult for me to keep them acting like there was a recoil, I tried to hide this little detail with the moving camera, but couldn't hide it in all shots.
Well I got the story, and the concept done, although I can uderstand why you think I might not, but it's there. I still have a lot of work to do, and I'm actually geting a bit stressed, since I'm directing, editing, and a huge number of other things, that are exhausting me, but still,l I love this project, and I can't wait to see it done.
Once again, thank you for your criticism Scyze.
I'm not sure if I like your black/white effect. I kind of see it as a detriment to the work, not so much it BEING black and white, but the lighting isn't right. Lighting is still incredibly important in black and white films, if not more so then regular films because generally you're going for more of an artistic take.
The whole "The Lies of the Past" "Come true today"... doesn't make much sense... But only the "Come true today" part. Think of something better, if you ever make a trailer.
The whole gas mask destroying emotion thing can be neglected. While it will make it harder to show emotion, with proper acting and directing you can still convey the emotions just fine.
Outfits, they need to be apocolyptic. I can't take it seriously when the clothes are perfectly fine, I do realize they're test shots though so I'm just saying for future reference.
Bad music in the ditch... and the lack of natural sound really brings me out of it. Like... big time, that's something you're going to need to figure out. I feel like you took the audio out and just shoved in generic suspense music.
The shot in The Ditch with him on the ridge is really awesome btw. There is a jump shot at some point in it though. You'll need better cuts, they just don't seem very natural to me.
Okay, in it's a good morning it almost pains me to see how little you did with her suicide. Here is what I would have done.
Medium Shot on her taking off her mask, there should be some sort of hesitation since she is commiting suicide.
Close up on her face taking in some fresh(ish) air
Medium shot of her taking out the cigarette
Close up of her shakily bringing it to her mouth
Medium of her lighting it
Close up of her taking a smoke
EDIT: Oh, and absolutely take out the slow-mo. It doesn't fit the style of the movie at all. Unless you want it to seem corny.
Either way, I hate to just spew out a bunch of negatives. While this is very much in a beginning stage the concept is cool, albeit there isn't a known conflict (other than there being no fresh air) The scenery is good so far. Just keep up with it, and act like a director, not a photographer.
[QUOTE=JimmeyTheSaint;20386486]I'm not sure if I like your black/white effect. I kind of see it as a detriment to the work, not so much it BEING black and white, but the lighting isn't right. Lighting is still incredibly important in black and white films, if not more so then regular films because generally you're going for more of an artistic take.
The whole "The Lies of the Past" "Come true today"... doesn't make much sense... But only the "Come true today" part. Think of something better, if you ever make a trailer.
The whole gas mask destroying emotion thing can be neglected. While it will make it harder to show emotion, with proper acting and directing you can still convey the emotions just fine.
Outfits, they need to be apocolyptic. I can't take it seriously when the clothes are perfectly fine, I do realize they're test shots though so I'm just saying for future reference.
Bad music in the ditch... and the lack of natural sound really brings me out of it. Like... big time, that's something you're going to need to figure out. I feel like you took the audio out and just shoved in generic suspense music.
The shot in The Ditch with him on the ridge is really awesome btw. There is a jump shot at some point in it though. You'll need better cuts, they just don't seem very natural to me.
Okay, in it's a good morning it almost pains me to see how little you did with her suicide. Here is what I would have done.
Medium Shot on her taking off her mask, there should be some sort of hesitation since she is commiting suicide.
Close up on her face taking in some fresh(ish) air
Medium shot of her taking out the cigarette
Close up of her shakily bringing it to her mouth
Medium of her lighting it
Close up of her taking a smoke
EDIT: Oh, and absolutely take out the slow-mo. It doesn't fit the style of the movie at all. Unless you want it to seem corny.
Either way, I hate to just spew out a bunch of negatives. While this is very much in a beginning stage the concept is cool, albeit there isn't a known conflict (other than there being no fresh air) The scenery is good so far. Just keep up with it, and act like a director, not a photographer.[/QUOTE]
Thank you JimmeyTheSaint, this is some positive feedback!
This project is being a bit of a learning process, but you guys have been really helpfull with your feedback.
I will try to be more like a director in the near future:D.
Thank you.
No problem, just keep building it up before you decide to actually shoot it. Be creative with the shots to make it an interesting watch for the viewers.
I think it looks pretty awesome. I like the concept of not showing the characters faces often. Makes the viewer think about what they are thinking emotionally instead of just showing it.
[QUOTE=JimmeyTheSaint;20392387]No problem, just keep building it up before you decide to actually shoot it. Be creative with the shots to make it an interesting watch for the viewers.[/QUOTE]
I am already in production, but I am still building it up, I'm filming it scene by scene, so it allows me to make a few changes whenever I need to, I only stop these changes when the story board of a scene is done.
I will try to be creative with the shots, but after a few ideas it becomes difficult to make even more creative shots, I have been seeing a lot of movies to see if I get a inspired...
Thanks for the advices.
Why do i get the feeling that this person is holding the gun wrong?
[url]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/untitled-2-copy.jpg?w=600&h=849[/url]
If I were you I'd keep it in colour but use more subtle colour correction, lowering the saturation to give it a gritty look without it looking too cheesy.
[QUOTE=krten_2x 4b;20416872]Why do i get the feeling that this person is holding the gun wrong?
[URL]http://d308themovie.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/untitled-2-copy.jpg?w=600&h=849[/URL][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=topic10;20373231]well about the actors in the "Showdown", scene, I went on research, and met a ex-military guy, I talked to him about this scene, and he told me that it was standard procedure to hold a long ranged weapon over the shoulder, wile firing in a close quarters combat situation (If the soldier did not have a close quarters weapon that is). So I added that to that scene.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=spengbob;20417374]If I were you I'd keep it in colour but use more subtle colour correction, lowering the saturation to give it a gritty look without it looking too cheesy.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for your opinion, there is a reason why I decided to use the grayscale,
But still there is a scene where the movie will be in color.
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