"Iris" DVC-3 Feedback

[Nick Hiltgen]

This is the feedback section for Iris (not to be confused with Mr. Marlow's Iris the Killer) I hope you all enjoy it.

Production Notes.

Up until the wednesday before the challenge began i thought I was going to be out of town for work but whent hat got scrapped I figured it would be pretty fun to enter one of these things. I called my friend and he came up with this story. I liked it but felt like it might be alittle too much to try and do but oh well. So We set out to shoot it and realized we're the only two people in L.A. who don't know any actors, (or at least ones that would return our phone calls) So we ended up using him, his wife (she was Iris) and a couple of folks that had worked with us before.

I had been trying to get the viewfinder to look a little cooler but the guys that were going to do graphics for us got swamped so we played around with the FCP matte and it worked for the msot part.


I would've like to clean up the audio a little bit, And I wish i knew more about how to compress it better so you could see a larger movie but those always ended up like 70MB and I wanted everyone to be able to see it. I think maybe the ending doesn't seem quite as ambiguous as I had wanted but so it goes.

we used-
an XL1the on boad mic
Final Cut Pro suite
a couple of arri lights (in the warehouse scene)
and uh... yeah that's about it.

So let me know what you think

Here's a link if you don't have one.

http://homepage.mac.com/edgefox/iMovieTheater6.html

EDIT:

I'm one of those annoying guys with project embedded in the web page, if you happen to have trouble seeing it (should start almost automatically) try hitting refresh, that worked for me.

[Sean Buck]

Nice job Nick. Very ambitous. I liked a lot of your camera angles. Very cool. Good story and overall lighting. Your locations gave the short a high production value. Your friends are good actors. Better than most that I have read for some of our projects. Good luck!

[Nick Hiltgen]

Sean,

Thanks I aprreciate it. I just got a sample of what the new viewfinder eye perspective will look like which i'm pretty excited about. Hopefully it will be all ready by the time we put the stuff on DVD.

The locations were the easier things to obtain, the large room is where I work, the camera store is where the actor works, and the room, well that's where I pretend to do work.

[Hugo Pinto]

Nick,

You got me feeling moody and bittersweet at the end, which I believe was your intention. The garden scene that he recalls while dying is very powerful, and evocative of that "lost so many things" feeling that we get in life sometimes too often.

I liked it alot.

Hugo

[Mitchell Stookey]

Originally Posted by Hugo Pinto

Nick,

You got me feeling moody and bittersweet at the end, which I believe was your intention. The garden scene that he recalls while dying is very powerful, and evocative of that "lost so many things" feeling that we get in life sometimes too often.

I liked it alot.

Hugo

I agree, the ending really worked. The movie was pretty good, but the ending made it solid. I loved how it was always his point of view of her, but then as he died, he entered the picture too, like he was there now. I loved it. Good work!

[Nick Hiltgen]

Hugo, Yeah that was what we were going for, I was trying to be alittle more ambiguous with the ending (does he kill himself rather live without the memories of his wife, or does she kill him rather then lose the technology...) but I think I didn't do a great job of that.

Thanks for the kind words though I appreciate it.

[Nick Hiltgen]

Mitchell, yeah that's the big thing we wanted to convey, his entering into that time period, I do think there is some clean up to be done with the build up to that point but I'm very happy with the last shot.

[Bradley L Marlow]

Hey Nick!

Excellent work!

Of course when I saw "Iris" as the title, you scored points right away...lol. This was a great piece and I enjoyed the moody dark feel, especially the werehouse scenes. While you said you had an issue with the viewfinder, I thought it worked very well...for fox sake!

Being a believer that each of us is an eternal being, I especially enjoyed the possibilities with your ending.

Well done Nick

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

Nick, your short is awesome!

I just have time to see it one time at the lunch time today, but I will definitly watch it again soon. I really love sc-fic orriented stories. The pacing is really great, acting, editing and story wise... wow! The emotionnal part at the end worked really wll with me :)

One of my favorite for sure. Great work!

[Nick Hiltgen]

Bradly, I had a feeling you'd like the title...

Thanks for the input, I just got a glimpse of the new specked out "viewfinder" my friends who does graphics made and man, it looks cool, but I'm afraid it might look too cool, ya know? I'm glad that the viewfinder vision worked for you.

Fox Sake was a combo name me and Tyler (the actor, co-writer, editor, co-director,) came up with. (Truth be told he did more of the editing and writing and I did more of the shooting and directing but whatever) His films have always been "Landsake productions", mine "edgefox productions", we figured Fox Sake was a funnier name then Lands Edge...

Jean-Phillipe, it's funny because I felt like yours was super awesome as well. For the exact same reasons. I like that we didn't find out more info on why she had pictures of him. I was going for the more ambigous ending with this one (did he shoot himself did she shoot him) but I don't think it paid off the way I wanted it to. I will definitely share your comments with the actors and my co-writer/ co-editor. I'm really glad you dug the film.

Thanks everyone for the kind words, It's super appreciated, if anyone would like to comment on some fixes that would help to. Ones I know about are-

I think we can definitely tighten the story up a bit, maybe get it closer to 3 minutes- (and still have the same effect)

I would also like to really get the dialogue dialed in, we didn't have a boom mic- well to be more accurate we had a boom mic but we didn't have an XLR adapter... hmmm.... XLR adapter.... So anyhow there's a couple of lines I'd like to rerecord.

Also I'd love to work out a more permanent score, I'm a fan of soundtrack but I think loops can get a little too redundant if you're not careful.

I could kick myself for not shooting more closeups of the supporting actor and actress, but I guess learning is part of what the dvchallenge is all about.

thanks again everyone.
nick

[Dick Mays]

Nick,

I really lilked it. Maybe some closeups on the EYE too. I want to see him take out the EYE, kind of like in TERMINATOR, but then I don't do ANY special effects in my shorts! :)

Really nice PLOT. No one can watch it without wanting to get to the end.

Dick

[Nick Hiltgen]

Dick

Thanks man, I was trying to walk that fine line of hokey vs. cool and I was worried about concentrating too much on the eye, lest we lose the story. On the other hand I totally want to see him take out the eye to, or at the very least I want to see the old eye come out and the new one go in (in that montage sequence) Maybe that would enforce the physical pain as well as the emotional pain he'd have to go through. Thanks for the input, and the new "viewfinder vision" is totally a terminator esque point of view. I mena he works for some shadowy agency he might as well have cool looking assassin type eye effects. Also I don't know why i didn't get more close up's (rookie mistake) cause I think seeing that eye close up (maybe even have a small image projected during playback in the pupil or something, would be super cool.

But Yeah I've never done ANYTHING with special effects either, heck I've never done anything Sci-Fi but I really wanted to get into that genre, I think I'd like to try something horror next but it's so hard (for me) to write a horror short ya know? I think there were some good ones in this DVC (like there's a couple of awesome jump out of your seat moments in grim parrallax) and like the beginning of scream and the beginning of the ring, but still good scary horror shorts are tough, and I think that would be an awesome challenge.

[Dylan Couper]

Good work Nick
I like the pacing, editing, and camera work. The tone suits your story very well.
One might argue that your character spends a lot of time walking for a 3 minute film, but it does build up suspence. Some shots didn't quite match up in the last part, with the dialogue between your character and the female "boss".

So here is the problem, the story is one we've seen before, so although it looks great, it doesn't grab us as hard as something with a fresher story. If you had taken it a different route, it very well could have been top 3. At least you didn't have a soul stealing mystical camera. :)

[Nick Hiltgen]

Dylan, thank you for your feedback it's much appreciated. I'll take your it into consideration for the final cut. I really appreciate your input and I think you make valid points. I wasn't aware that the story was something we'd seen before but I'll keep it in mind for writing the next one.

[Dylan Couper]

Originally Posted by Nick Hiltgen

I wasn't aware that the story was something we'd seen before but I'll keep it in mind for writing the next one.

When I say we, I don't mean us as in DVC judges, I meant viewers as a whole. Johnny Mnemonic for example. If you had squeezed more story in there beyond: "Give us the camera back" "Screw you" (BANG) it would have brought it up a ton. Technically, you had everything there. With that in mind, you'd better score at least runner up in the next one. :)