DVC 6 Feedback - "Bent Rays"

[Dick Mays]

Sean,

This one reminded me of an old "Twilight Zone"episode. I used to climb on my parents bed, glued to the T.V. to watch horrible, horrible things. Like the pretty girl who thought she was ugly.

I noticed Portland and Seattle were spared, while my beloved Georgia was burned to cinders. I'm sure there is a message in there somewhere. You rather drink coffee than eat peanuts.

I'd like to have more of a sense of panic from the reporter. I mean the world is coming to an end and all that, just FYI! But nicely produced.

Dick

[Bruce Broussard]

Nice work Sean. You put it together really well. Good choice on the music.

Your reporter was really good. I thought she carried the dialog really well, and I don't think that it was too long, however, a little more and it might have been. So I think you made the cut just right.

It might have been nice to see her flame out (just kidding!)

[Sean McHenry]

I thought about blowing up the place but went without it. The signal fade was enough to transitions I think. Ever really try to record snow? With modern Televisions, it's dang near impossible. Most go blue screen when there is no signal present.

If I had more energy, I was going to run the news broadcast through several televisions in different houses and settings like they had been left on and the house abandoned. Then go to the live picture and then to the girl at the end. (Her name is Hannah). I still like that idea.

Sean

[Jay Silver]

I think it was a great payoff to the idea. The newsroom was a handy thing to have available - all the stuff in there looks great, although I agree that her eyeline also irked me (I also found it a bit wordy). The look of the outside stuff seems a bit wanting by comparison. Maybe a stronger hand with colour correction would make it match better. All in all, a nice short.


-j

[Sean McHenry]

Dick, and everyone else who might remember it,
There was a great episode I'll always remember where a lady was in a large city and there was something wrong with the earths orbit or something and the planet was getting burned up slowely. Everyone was going nuts, getting cranky (I understand that) and getting dangerous. People were flipping out.

In the end, after the morality part of the story finishes, we see her waking up one morning and the situation is completly opposite. She was having a fever induced dream hence the world burning up but in reality, something happend and the earth was drifting away from the sun and the planet was freezing over. That's where they ended that one.

I remember the one about the girl. Liked the lighting as I recall.

Remember this show:
http://www.scifilm.org/tv/outerlimit...imits1-17.html

This Outer Limits episode still gives me the creeps.

Sean

[Justin Tomchuk]

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

I thought about blowing up the place but went without it. The signal fade was enough to transitions I think.

It made the transition for me, though it was subtle. Fantastic job Sean, nice wrap up, very unpredictable.

Justin

[Sean McHenry]

Bent Rays is now on google and looks pretty good. The wmv file is still better but the Falsh 8 version Google has plays nice.

You can get to it from my page at DeepBlueEdit.com (As soon as I add the link) or direct from google.

Sean

[Mike Horrigan]

I liked it, the set was amazing! I found the it a tad too long or wordy, but very good nonetheless. The only thing that distracted me was the reporter, she was almost always looking off to the side while reading the teleprompter. I found it distracting.

Loved the twist at the end.

Well done!

[Sean McHenry]

Hello Mike,
Thanks for stopping by. Covered the prompter issue earlier. See this link

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....9&postcount=15

I actually got to close and it looked like she should have been reading to my camera but the intent, like in the rest of the video was that my camera, the one you are watching through is an omnipotent viewer with infinite viewing angles available. We are not really watching the show through the studio cameras, we are viewing from in the studio space.

I just got too close to one of the studio cameras and it looks like she should be reading directly to the audience through my lens. I wanted to keep a distance and not have her speaking directly to us but I got to close to the line.

Sean

[Mike Horrigan]

That makes sense, thanks.

Mike

[Sean McHenry]

Yeah, it makes sense but I should have done that part better. Always learning.

Sean

[Mike Horrigan]

No harm in making us think outside the box. Hollywood often tries to spell things out for us, it's nice to have to pay attention again. ;)

Well done.

[Sean McHenry]

Should you be interested, that very sentiment is a huge part of David Mamets small but very packed book titled "On Directing Film". Not that I am a 100% follower of his ideas but he has some great points. He very much believes, as do I that letting your mind see things is quit often a richer experience than just letting your eyes see something.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014...lance&n=283155

I am quite often let down when I see the moster that has supposedly been terrorizing a town only to find it's made out of carpeting or seaweed or something. My mind had a mush scarier vision than that.

In Mothman Prophecies or White Noise, you never clearly see the evil abd guys. That makes it so much better for me. I get to see the scariest visions in my own head that way. Much darker and more terrifying. Even in Hitchcock's Psycho, we really don't get a look at Norman as his mother until the very end.

We are all afraid of the unknown. That's what makes the dar so scary. We are deprived of our vision and can't see the fine details that might allow us to make it less scary.

Anyway, I love that idea.

Sean

[Robert Martens]

I think it could go both ways, Sean. I'm also a fan of not seeing the monster/murderer/other scary thing clearly, but there's another side to things that I can't help but consider.

As you point out, with the Psycho example, filmmakers have been using the technique of withholding the scary stuff for over forty years now; it's standard issue. Old hat. Hackneyed. Done to death. No one shows the monster, that's the accepted way to tell these stories. The "right" way, as far as most people are concerned. How effective can it be after so much exposure? I watch a scary movie, and somebody's about to get it, I know I won't see it. I'm anticipating the cut, the jump to another shot or scene, and when it arrives, right on schedule, it's boring. I expect it. It's the way things are done in the films I've grown up with. To actually see something, though? That's new, fresh, and exciting if only for the fact that it's different. And I think it can be an improvement.

Consider an example. You have a relative in the hospital, ready to die, and you've come to say your last farewell. The nature of their illness dictates a bloody, disgusting, messy, excruciatingly painful death, a truly horrific thing to watch. What's the more traumatic experience? To say goodbye, leave the room, wander around the waiting area for a while, and later on listen to a doctor explain "I'm sorry, he's passed on"? Or to have the room door get jammed shut while you're inside, leaving you to experience the relative screaming bloody murder, bleeding out of every hole in his body, vomiting uncontrollably, convulsing, tearing his own skin off in agony while you're trapped there, forced to watch the entire thing?

I say that sometimes, you should show everything. I think in certain cases, merely implying the horrific act/event is letting the audience off the hook; by visualizing the scene yourself, you are only as horrified as your imagination allows you to be. But to be stuck in your seat, faced with a forty foot image, an unblinking eye aimed right at the horror, made to confront the very thing you're so scared of? That strikes me as much more disturbing. You can't just picture something else, you can't just focus on the suggestive imagery until the scene is over, you can't get away. It's there, and you have to deal with it.

I present this more as a point to ponder, however, since as I said I do enjoy some good implication. On the one hand, I think Psycho would have been scarier if we'd seen Janet Leigh's death. To be made to witness the murder of a helpless woman? Her screams of pain, the knife sinking in to her flesh over and over, blood everywhere? That's a sight I'm not terribly interested in seeing, and burning a thing like that into my retinas is a sure way to disturb me. But on the other hand, I can respect the way Hitchcock handled himself; that's not the way he liked to tell his stories, and displaying such violence would not have improved his film as a whole. It may have been scarier in my view--at least that particular scene--but not "better".

[Sean McHenry]

I underrstand that perspective as well - if you can pull it off. Back in my early Sci-Fi / Horror days I got tired of seeing Godzilla as being something that's supposed to be scary. Any guy walking around in a rubber suit just makes me want to walk out of the room. Frankly, even though it's a great remake, Carpenters "The Thing" is like that too. It's predictable foam latex appliances, animatics, robotics, gallons of that slimy stuff and fake blood. I've seen all that in countless movies, including the Matrix.

The old cheesy Sinbad epics with the stop motion animated skeletons and stuff, can't watch those anymore either. Let's talk dinosaurs made from either rubber, guys in suits or god forbid, the actual lizzards in makeup, ala Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc. It's just that if you can't do it right, I would much rather concentrate on the story or making it so what I imagine is so much more powerful.

Take a look at some of the current popular horror favorites like the really well done "House of 1000 Corpses" or "Devils Rejects". Yeah, there is some makeup work in there but examine what is it that makes it so much better than anything comparable budget wise? A lot of it for me is that you never see a lot of the made up characters completly and never for a prolonged shot.

Probably the best of all the dark and creepy television shows ever made by a long long shot, Millinneum did very fast cuts of horrific stuff. Not on the screen long enough to get a good look at anything but incredibly effective. Much bettert than all the silly rip-offs that came after it.

Anyway, yeah sure, I like to see a good monster but these days, I'm hard to please when it comes to monsters. I just picked up "Silent Hill" Those things are right out of a nightmare so they are very effective for me. The movie is so-so but the makeup, costuming and effects are really good. Reminds me a bit of "The Cell".

Sean