Whenever I come back to this forum after a hiatus, the Showcase Forum is almost always the first place I visit. Used to love posting levels on here and seeing the amazing work other people put up here too. Kinda sad there so few new threads on here now, some EPIC stuff went down back in the day.

Well, I thought I'd add another thread, since there seems to be plenty of space to go around. This is a short film I made with my best friend this summer (I'm the guy sitting at the table, he's the driver). The girl is a friend of his who, like me, is going to college for acting.

My friend and I filmed it ourselves over just 2 days, mostly all in one day (we shot the car scenes the 2nd day in just 40 mins, a lot of great unused footage sadly). Editing took forever, mainly because I made a cut to different music and neither of us cared for it. So we went for something a bit more "sophisticated" as opposed to tongue-in-cheek. I could ramble on about all kinds of behind the scenes stuff, but pretty pointless unless there is interest, so I'll just post the vid and if you guys have questions and comments, I will get back to you.

If you have suggestions for improvement, I also DEF want to hear those! This is no longer a WIP (30 hours is quite enough for a 3 min student film, lol), but I love both being behind and in front of the camera and would greatly value any reactions that can serve me well in making future projects.

Thanks guys! And here it is:



- Daft (aka Ross)

Anything?

It was kind of a slow burn, but I liked the payoff. I understand it was edited for the song, but you could have either thrown more story in, or edited the song down.

I liked the last shot, but I may have shot it both ways with the actor coming in from left in front of and behind the table, with you facing away and towards the camera. Both ways would work, and it'd give you more to edit with. I always like to shoot things more thna one way, tape is cheap.

However, the main final shot was so beautiful I would have almost thrown out the reverse c/u's (also because it broke 180° line) and gone for him shooting and killing him from the long shot and the song ending on an extreme c/u of the dead actors face. Again, stylistic choices, since you probably let it fall to the title in order for the epic double entandre to set-in.

I really liked it, but I agree with Kirbs it's a bit slow. I especially liked the shots when the field started to get foggy

Thanks Kirby, clearly took some time with that response and you bring up some VERY valid criticism.

"Slow burn" is a good term. One of my friends at college, who is a cinema major, also said that was his major criticism (the other being the fact that the modern nature of the car took him out of what he at first thought might be a period piece). One of the reasons I used so much of the cross-fades in the middle of takes was because it sped up boring or otherwise predictable footage, not only giving the illusion of time passing and (I hope) a somewhat dream-like world (that also accounts for the film's rather saturated look, which of course drains at the end, when my character's dreams are literally shot down), but these cross-fades also (rather poorly) disguised the fact that I simply did not have enough coverage. Consistency errors, and the potential for them, was a nightmare when shooting this, as you can imagine. Lots of props, very little change of location. The fact that we had to actually find a location at the LAST minute and shoot everything in one afternoon, with a mountain thunderstorm, also made things both complicated and exciting. I have to admit, I'm AMAZED the film turned out this well, but that is the power of editing. I also know, in an ideal world, there are many things I would have liked to have done differently. It is far from flawless.

I'm glad the pay-off was there for you. That's what others have told me too. My friend and I were both thrilled with the ending, but then, it is very had to look at footage you've been editing and re-editing for 20 hours and be objective about it. The was not the one we originally intended (there is an entirely different cut of this hiding on YouTube to the song "Patience" by Guns & Roses. I can send you the link, if you like. It is a much more fleshed out story (tons of development is in there that never made it in this version, mainly focusing on my friend's character), but I also think it is more tongue-in-cheek and not as darkly cold as I wanted the film to be. It also includes footage that is, quite frankly, very bad, so I decided to sacrifice plot for the sake of artistic meaning and (hopefully) aesthetically pleasing visuals.

And tape is indeed cheap. But shooting in HD, my little SDHC card could only hold 8 GB, which at 24MB per second, translated to about 40 minutes of footage. But my rather limited camcorder battery gave it before we quite reached 30 mins of footage, fortuantely we had enough at that point, but not enough coverage for my liking (as you can see). The actress couldn't film again, so that was it. Unfortunate, really, but makes me proud that we got this in spite of that. But yes, I would have liked more coverage of many scenes. More reaction shots. The slow motion was perhaps gratuitous, but masked the lack of footage fairly well, played along well with the atmosphere of the music, and (I hope) revealed some good acting from myself and my friends. Which, you haven't really addressed in your feedback, but I also understand you are looking at this more technically at the moment. If you have criticism for my acting, or anyone else, by all means go for it. I do not yet have a great deal of on-camera experience, and directing this too, I can imagine my performance may have suffered.


I'm sorry, but I don't know much terminology (never taken a class on this, all self-taught) - what are "c/u's"?

As for the dead actor at the end, yes, very much a stylistic choice. MY friend wanted to do that too, and I said "no, that's how all these damn films end. I don't want to do that. I want there to be a glimmer of uncertainty about what happens next. I want to leave with opportunity, not utter finality. Chris Nolan does that sort of thing (although rather more artfully) in his films, and I really liked it. Plus, as you pointed out, I think the title says it all. It is darkly, ironically, funny (I think) and I love that ****. I prefer the power of suggestion to just showing a corpse.

Anything else jump out at you?

Oh, I got it - closeups (duh!) And what do you mean about breaking the 180 degree line? IF I think you're saying what you are, I didn't move from my position in the distance shot and neither did my friend (except to set up the tripod). No green screen or weird **** - the background you see behind me is the background that was behind me. It might have seemed like a consistency error (if I'm understanding you?) due to similarity of the terrain around there. In which case, I should have shot the reaction cut of my face differently, but we were at our last min of battery at that point, I believe, and I really like the angle (didn't want to have the table in there, obviously, as it was a c/u, as you type it).

Understood, and thanks! Yes, that fog was completely mother nature, no editing - it was gorgeous! That's what happens in the mountains after an epic thunderstorm!

Close ups. The 180 rule is that if one character is on the left, the other is on the right, they stay that way unless there's a significant tonal shift. At the end the main character is just right of center looking over his shoulder to the left and the attacker is looking "past" you, and it was a big jump cut for me. It would've been worse with the table in the background as you said. Which is why I suggested also filming it with you facing away from the camera when you get up from the table, allowing you to still be on the right of the close up shot that I didn't care for without a table behind you, and would've given you a different more dramatic lighting before the reaction.

I rather liked the quiet unknown tension built by the actor walking up from behind, so I wanted to see the reaction after you'd been shot, since the angle from in front of you provided that without looking back at the shooter. Of course, that is a bit more typical, but I think the minimalist in me prefers this kind of direct editing with less cuts. I like to put things out there as they happen, and I feel the cuts make it more "dramatic" and less tense in a real life way. Everyone's different, though.

Edit: After rewatching it, the 180 degree rule isn't really broken, but the turning around thing doesn't really work for me. I can't quite place it yet.

Yeah, dude, watching that ending again, I really agree about the reaction shots. Not quite happy with those (bad acting on our parts too, plus my friend is not an actor at all and constantly reminds me of that). I almost think just having that final shot and a slow desaturate is all I need, but at the same time, it just lacks a finality. I HAD to have the reaction shot of my face, in terms of my "vision" for the film, because it is the first time in the entire movie that my character loses control - he is completely "outgunned" so to speak. And that realization literally drains the color out of him. "Kiss the good life goodbye." The dream is over. I think, aesthetically, it would be better to just have that long shot be IT. Nothing more. But in terms of the theme in this movie (which I think was much more developed than the plot, or character development, which is hard for such a short film), I think my reaction shot was essential, for the reasons stated above.

So yeah, there is often a tradeoff, especially when I didn't QUITE have all the footage options I wanted. I chose theme over aesthetics at that point, but hopefully it was a valid choice, even if I gained something at the loss of something else.

I Know Im a little late with this, but Ive taken the time to watch this and Im deeply impressed. Im not a cinematographer, But I think this was ****ing awesome as hell! And the red head was acting very calm and controlled, but concerned for being your captive, and she was HOT! to :awesomelon:.

The music choice was perfect for the little sophisticated and relaxed murder scene, or after murder scene. It was almost humorous if I might say so. The forest and fog scenes remind me of the Countryside of Germany when I was over there for six years.

Again I am very impressed with your little movie production. I hope to meet you someday and get your autograph as well and tell all my family and friends and say to them that I knew Ross way back when he was an expert game editor from Massassi and the JKHub.net;)

Never too late for a comment (or a reply!) Really appreciate the rather glowing praise, haha, hope I'm well-regarded enough to give you an autograph one day.

Also, really glad you picked up on some of the humor. It is certainly quite dark, and a little obscure, but then it matches the film-maker in that regard, hah.

This was filmed on the top of a mountain near Asheville, North Carolina. I've never been to Germany, and would like to very much someday, but Asheville is certainly one of the most beautiful places on earth I have ever seen. I'm lucky to have grown up there.

It would be cool to meet you someday, Dan! If you're on FB, look me up (just put a message in the friend request so I know it's you). If you want to keep up with any of my acting stuff, here's my website (will probably make a proper one after graduation, but this should do for now): http://rossdenyer.tumblr.com/

Keep editing dude, I hope I can join you again someday in one of my favorite pastimes!

I didn't watch it.

Uhmm, thanks for the info?