5 1/2min short film

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

I understood what you meant, Rich.

[Neboysha Nenadich]

I am maybe a fan of strong plots and drama in movies, but you won five stars from me for the overall picture and look...

First thing I thought when I pressed play was "hey, wait a minute, this is DVcommunty, I didn't know that people submit movies shot on film here"... :) Then I noticed that the movie was shot with XL1s... really good job.

[Rich Lee]

:) Thanks Neboysha!

If anyone is interested I just put some stills up from Precursor. Some are stills from the movie, others are of shots i didnt use or from just messin around. Also a couple stills of the camera on the jib/dolly. None of them are in any sort of order.


http://www.rich-lee.com/shortfilms.htm

click Precursor stills.

[Rob Lohman]

You say you did color correction in AE. Was it a lot? Perhaps you
can put up a before and after shot? I've been working myself
on changing the way the XL1S looks with varying degrees of
succes. So any extra information you can shed on that would
be nice.

Thanks!

[Rich Lee]

Hey Rob, Yes i did alot of messin around in after effects. I forgot to mention all the things i did. Unfortunatly i dont have any of the source material loaded up, i will have to dig around for it and capture a few frames, im in a bit of a crunch right now starting a new project so i wont be able to get to it for a while. anyway, i can give you the lowdown on how i did it.

magic bullet was a starting point for me, i downloaded the demo version and messed around with some looks, and figured out a way using standard after effects tools to mimic the way they get their looks. which wasnt to far from what i had been doing anyway, which was just a desaturation of color, increase contrast, warm it up by taking away some blue, and diffusing the image by overlaying a blured copy of the same image over itself and adjusting the opacity. i think i may have used the soften interlaced effect to make it diffused, i cant remember...i used an nd grad and a polarizer to help darken the sky, so to increase that i made a grad in photoshop and overlayed it over all the footage. i did all this using an adjustment layer, that was above the footage and grad. this way it helped blend the grad into the footage as well as the overlayed blured image. Hope that helps. Oh, by the way, i have all softness in the camera set to low. and saturation turned down a bit.

[Rob Lohman]

Thanks! I started with a lot of similar things myself as well, but
need to do some more experimenting for future work. Thank
you very much for your explenation! Good luck on your next
project.

[Trevor Trombley]

Great work, visually it kicks ass, save for some of the dodgy effects, but for the most part it's stupendous.

Just a quick critique on the plot.

I felt disconnected from the main character, mainly because she leads a really boring life, and maybe you intended to show a very realistic situation, but i think it would be more appealing to have this woman a single mother, she's got kids to care for, and she lives in a small shit hole trailer. But the love she has for her children far outweighs her poverty.

Then when the bombs drop we feel a real sense of loss because this woman, and her young children were wiped out, much like the rest of The states.

Just an opinion.

Trevor

[Rich Lee]

Thanks Rob! Good luck on your future projects as well. I just started a new gig that danny boyle is directing, should be interesting!

Trevor, In the beginning i had thought of a situation where maybe she had a kid and a husband, and maybe the kid grew up and went away, and the husband died. i was going to put a little dream image outside her window of a young boy and a man doing some yard work in the desert and have them both look at her, could have been a bit chilling. but in the end i decided to have it just be a person with a boring life, who sits in her house, and pretty much just lets time pass over her. kids would have been interesting, but, i wanted to make it more simple. also, just a note about the title, precursor wave is what they call the first wave from a nuclear explosion. i also like that the precursor to death is life, and she doesnt have much of one. Thanks for your critique Trevor.

Actually, way in the begining, i was going to do this thing where the tv goes out, so she turns out the raido, which is just static as well, then she does some laundry, or dishes, whatever. comes back in, and tries the tv again, nothing, then tries the radio, nothing, then the phone, nothing. she then starts to mess with the radio again and flips on the shortwave. and tunes into a news report from the city close by, something like people fleaing from a devastating nuclear attack, and getting reports from other cities. she is in shock, and she then hears a loud deep thump, that rattles the trailer. and she runs outside just in time get incinerated by the aporaching precursor wave of the explosion. but, i thought it was way to involved for what it was. so i did it more simply. However, i was thinking it would be cool to do a series of these momments from other peoples prespective.

Anyway, time to get back to work.

[Trevor Trombley]

Have you ever considered directing someone else's written work.

Because if you ever have the time, I'd love to write something for you. It's awesome seeing someone with such god given talent turning something you've written into a masterpiece.

And I think you're the man to do that. (I'll be the man to do that eventually, after I've got more work experience under my belt.)

Just an idea Rich, keep up the good work.

One shot which would have been nice to include is when the woman notices the Nuclear explosions you could have cut to a tight shot of her eyes, and the reflection of the desert in them as it is bombarded with nukes.

Ciao for now.

Trevor

[Rich Lee]

Yeah, i definitly am not a writer, and dont want to be one. would much rather work from some ones writen material and go from there. I dont think i am at a point yet where i feel comfortable doing that. i need to play more with the tools, i have some interesting projects coming up that i will direct, so i would like to get these things out of the way first. Thanks Trevor.

[Alfred Okocha]

Very nice work!
to work with Danny Boyle must be interesting! Cool. Does he continue using DV or is he back using film?
I love his work. (Do you need any help? ;-)

[Rich Lee]

Yeah, its definitly cool to be working on a project of his.
We have all the help we need on this one Alfred, thanks.

[Travis Cossel]

First of all, kick-ass. Second of all, kick-ass.

Now, to preface the rest of this, keep in mind that I am highly-critical when it comes to movies. I love being surprised, and I love seeing unique portrayals. I can't stand cliche, or stories that have been done a million times before. I hate catching mistakes that directors or producers or writers should have caught. Now, to continue . . . .

That was simply awesome. I loved it from start to finish. It was definately NOT too long. If people got bored watching her hang clothes or fiddle with the TV, then that's success. This woman obviously had a very boring life, and the pace of the movie captured that perfectly.

I thought the framing and the color were simply outstanding, and the filmic effect you got with DV is great. The story was perfect as well. No hitches or flaws that I noticed.

The clothesline scene makes me wish this were a feature film, because that would be a classic scene in film history in my mind. I'll still never forget it. The timing and the patience you showed were beautiful. I love it when a producer refuses to rush the story. And the end . . . wow . . . totally unexpected . . . .

My only complaint, and it is very VERY minor, is that I totally could have done without the special effect at the end with the bomb blast. Don't get me wrong, it was very cool, and I'm sure it was very difficult to do. But for me, the movie might have been more powerful if you had just let her walk away from the clothesline and go back in the trailer, unaware of what was happening in the world around her.

Anyways, just a thought of mine. Special effects, when they are blatantly noticeable as special effects, just tend to remove me from the mood an emotion of the movie.

Still, if had to rate this movie from 1-10 stars, you'd get a solid 10. Great, great job. Good luck with your future projects, and let me know when you're in the mood to produce someone else's script.

[Rich Lee]

Thanks Travis, glad u dug it! Thanks for your comments as well. The clothsline shot is one of my favorites, i like the look of it and the colors of the cloths. You know, others have said that i could lose the shot at the end, but i really like it, not the look of it, i hate how the bomb looks and the effect of her getting blown away. some day if i ever get access to ilm cg nukes maybe i will replace it, but i just dont have the skill for it. particle effects like nukes, tornados or dust are really hard. i thought it wouldnt be as hard as it was, but it is, same with tracking, its a pain. The vision in my head of her being killed is much different than whats in the movie. its frustrating.
it might be a bit to comical to have her just walk back into the house at the end, with all this choas around. i like seeing her get killed. i was thinking the concept would make a neat commercial, like for rayban, or for some sort of car. you know? like, she does her thing, looks out over the vista of nuclear bombs, reaches in her shirt pocket and pulls out a pair of raybans and puts them on. the blast consumes her, and we cut low on the ground as a pair of steaming raybans fall into the foreground. or for ford, you know? built ford tough, stuff like that....anway. thanks again!

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

The message being, when the apocalypse arrives, so long as you reach for your RayBans in time, you're still nuked anyway?

Tough sell. But you probably have a good agent...