Lady X: Episodes 23 and 08 released!

[John Locke]

[PARENTAL ADVISORY: Extreme violence and strong language]

Lady X hires local bad-asses to retrieve a briefcase. Then bad turns to worse as one of the agents has to hold out long enough for the delivery to take place.

Watch Episodes 08 and 23 now! Go to http://www.ladyxfilms.com and click the "Current Episode" links. (HINT: Watch episode 23 first, THEN watch episode 08!)

The Lady X Crew

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Episode 08 and 23 Details:

Directed by: Ronnie Grahn
Produced by: [BSF] Productions
Director of Photography: Ronnie Grahn
Camera Assistance: Joakim Hammarström
Written by: Ronnie Grahn & Joakim Hammarström

Principal Cast: Sara Frisk(Lady X), Martin Navntoft (The Dane), Johan Hammer (Hammer), Joakim Hammarström (Bad Boss), Kenny Jäger (Kenny), Johan rehnvall (Torturer), Jeremia Hartvigson (Running Man)

Music: Composed by Mikael Kristiansen, Stefan A. Jarosch and Martin Navntoft

Still Photos: Johan Hammer & Mikael Kristiansen

Special thanks to: Moms and Dads, Brothers and Sisters

[Ronnie Grahn]

No comments?
Nobody even wants to complain about our sound or our foul language...?
Come on, give it to me!

Also, put up some production notes and stills on our webpage if someone's interested.

[Peter Sieben]

I've watched your two episodes and am not really sure what to think about them. That's mainly caused by the fact that I'm not into torture scenes, or those kind of scenes must have a specific function in way the story is build up. In your case, it almost felt you like to build up a movie/story around the idea of wanting to film such a torture sequence.

The lenght of the movie, spread over two episodes, could easily be compressed to one episode, which would have given more pacing to the movie.

I like the action/running sequences in the wood, great use of a steadicam and the nice sunlight. Also the Chinese kung fu-guy in the 2nd part was great fun (nice salto!).

In some way you could think that you wanted to make an American style action B-movie, including the rude language with it. There is some cynical humour in it which is needed (which is also a matter of taste), otherwise the movie would have taken itself too serious.

Anyway, it can be seen that you have had a lot of work to make these 2 episodes. Looking at your website you seem to have a group of friends who have a great time making short movies. The movie shows that.

Please see this reply just as a personal opinion of someone who also struggles with the discovering the art of making short movies.

Anyone else?....

Peter Sieben

[Ronnie Grahn]

Thank you for your comments, they were pretty well founded I think.

We had B-action movie very firmly in mind when we made it, especially the 80-ish kind.
We tried to make it so that it didn't take itself too serious. Although there could be a point in questioning if the torture scene fails at this.

I can certainly see that the torture scene may seem out of place and if we hadn't got two slots it would probably have been completely cut.
But still, it was a blast to film and I'm impressed with Hammers will to sit tied to a chair for four hours enduring alot of abuse. :)

BTW, our "steadicam" for the running scenes was a monopod with additional weights taped at the bottom for stability.
Very simple and it works like a charm (but if Santa delivers a GlideCam I wont return it. Honest.)

Ronnie Grahn

[Dylan Couper]

My mom told me if I didn't have anything nice to say, then I shouldn't say anything at all.... but she's not here.

I have nothing against a torture sequence and swearing if it strengthens the movies plot, but 08 was 6 minutes of eye candy for someone with a torture fetish. It did nothing for your movie, and made me wonder what kind of person the director is... I would recut yours down to one episode and drop 90% of the torture scene. Episode 08 is the only one I have nearly stopped watching, not due to the gore or foul language, but due to the pointlessness. The only reason I kept watching was to see if it was somehow crucial to the plot, but in the end it wasn't, so I wasted my time.

Apart from that, the direction, camerawork, and visual and sound effects for the torture sequence were very good. It didn't come off as cheese, and I did have some sympathy for the guy being tortured. But that's not the point, it ran way to long, and in the end had nothing to do with the rest of the movie except the guy got killed.

The martial art sequence was good, but the kung-fu guy should have had a stronger introduction in the first half. Some of your sound effects were very good, like the car tires, but I think you should have spent more time on your audio editing. Most of it seemed like raw audio from the camera with effects over it. You need to smooth our the background audio over much of the movie as well. When you go from hearing wind in one shot, to silence in the next, it's pretty distracting.

In many parts the steadicam work added to the chase sensation. There were some scenes that had too much of it, and reminded me that someone was actualy holding a camera.

Was the dialogue over "This is good shit" inspired by Pulp Fiction? That's the gist I got anyway. Nothing wrong with that.

The music should have started right at the beginning of your movie, not 30 seconds into it, it felt disjointed. If you plan on keeping this movie in your demo reel or something, you need to put alot more effort into the audio.

Thats it.

[Ronnie Grahn]

The kung-fu guy was supposed to be intruduced a bit better in the first part, but we had to drop it due to lack of time.

The car tire sound in the movie is actually real, all of it. Even when the Toyota goes 5 mph and stops. Freaky.
I should have spent more time with the sound (some of it was totally unusable) but I lost two days due to a computer crash. It's probably the worst crash I've ever had and it happend a week before I had to send in my Lady-X of course.

Yes, the music should have started in the beginning but our guy who made the primary music hadn't time to complete his music due to his work. We had to use what we could.

At least we learned alot and a good mic should be our next purchase.

[Aaron Koolen]

Ronnie, well done on getting something done and I know what it's like with sound problems. I had similar issues. I did have a good mic, but I was so busy doing so many things, floundering around as I tried to make a movie ;) that sound got compromised. This resulted in me having to foley or add in later, everything in the movie. I mean it, if you listen to our episode, I don't think there is one sound effect that was taken on the day apart from the 3 parts where actors speak (We didn't do ADR)

Footsteps on wood, water, gravel, grass, water, bathroom sounds, background birds, doors, rustling etc etc etc. I spent HOURS on it! If I had of paid more attention I would have been getting someone to do good sound as we went and that would have saved me lot of time I think. I wasted too much on foley given the fact that I would have liked more time to tweak the film.

Again, well done on doing something!

Aaron


BTW: I loved the ninja guy, but I also loved the guy he fought who couldn't get his jacket off..That was hilarious!