Lost Souls: DV Challenge #2

[Stephen van Vuuren]

"Lost Souls" was shot with a DVX100a, edited in Vegas, FX in After Effects.

http://www.stephenv2.com/lost_souls

Let me know what you think.

[Sean McHenry]

Guys, I thought your's was the better piece (after mine of course).

She nailed the Gillian Anderson character.

Well done.

Sean McHenry
Fellow contestant

[Stephen van Vuuren]

thanx - Sheila Duell is a wonderful actress.

[Chris Thiele]

If there was a 'people's choice', this would get my vote. I thought the idea was really well executed, well filmed, great script, and loved the ending.

(now how much did you say you were going to pay me to say all that? LOL ;)

[Stephen van Vuuren]

your paypal is on it's way!

don't spend all 2 cents in one place!

seriously, glad you liked it and thanks for the compliments.

this challenge was perfectly timed as a testing ground for upcoming 48 Hour Film Project (next week!) and we wanted to test direct to disk recording and some story brainstorming techniques.

[Dylan Couper]

Stephen
In my humble opinion, you nailed this. This is the only film I watched without any critical feedback. I think the only thing that kept it from winning was that other shorts had better "secrets". I look forward to seeing your next one!

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Thanks.

What did you think our "secret was"?

[Dylan Couper]

The secret that alien abductions were based on what type of shoe you are wearing, right? It is a pretty good secret.

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Originally Posted by Dylan Couper

The secret that alien abductions were based on what type of shoe you are wearing, right? It is a pretty good secret.

Nope, the secret is that the codes found in shoes on the road, handing over powerlines etc. match the latitude and logitude of missing persons - the missing persons are actually aliens returning to their mothership that use the codes in their shoes to figure out where to be to (the alien mothership bus stop).

This ex-FBI missing persons agent figures this out and decides to be in the right spot based on the codes in a pair of shoes that match the formule. She changes shoes because she wants to keep her normal ballet slippers on.

I know we had to put the overlapping dialogue takes to get the above info in, which might make it hard to follow on just one viewing, but it's all there.

Of course, it does not help that I've been inspired by films and filmmakers that don't obviously explain everything, but that's what I enjoy. But I often get feedback from some people that don't quite understand what my films were about.

[Stephen van Vuuren]

PS. I'm going to look at a 4 minute or so version that makes our secret slightly more clear and maybe submit to festivals. I still don't want it to be "too clear" - I hate that (ask me how much I hated the Matrix sometime), but maybe a tad more clear might be better.

[Dylan Couper]

Partially what I meant, but I did miss part of it.

[Sean McHenry]

Me too but I still liked it for it's simple but effectiveness in it's photography. The overlapping dialog can work if you have time to not lay two voices where you need to hear one clearly. That may have been why I missed it.

I think if I hear one voice, and then another voice comes in, at least for me, I temporarily tune out the original voice to see what the new voice is saying as I now have to decide which conversation is more important. That could be tricky. Or maybe that's just the way my mind goes.

Sean

[Stephen van Vuuren]

If you have Windows, the 5.1 surround version takes care of the overlapping issue.

[Jeff Sayre]

Actually, I had no problem hearing the surround sound version on my Mac! Of course, I have my audio system set up for surround.

I was not bothered at all by the dueling dialog. In fact, I was very impressed that you added that level of detail. It makes me want to reedit the audio portion of my short to add a few elements of surround.

[Stephen van Vuuren]

That's good to know. I was not sure if the surround version codecs were Mac based.