The Plunge

[Andrew Lee Hendren]

just finished a new 48 hour festival, and wanted to see what you all thought. the main thing we had little time to fix was the audio in the scene with the car and the talking, but besides that.

please let me know what you think of this, i really appreciate your input.

http://www.fatkidstudios.com/video/p...lunge_high.htm

[Andrew Lee Hendren]

anyone give me any pointers, goods bads? understand it? any input whatsoever???

[Dylan Couper]

Weeeeeeell....

Overall, the thing I liked most about it is the photography. Some nice compositions. Except for the scene with the guy changing the tire. That was less well done, was blown out, and also seemed to be of a lower quality. There is a pan in the first sequence where the tripod jerks noticibly. That's bad.

Your dialogue is too quiet, it was lower than your foley. Also you need to invest in a windscreen for your mic if you are shooting outdoors.

The music was good and the editing was very smooth.

I didn't think too much of the story. There was barely any substance at all, and the characters were so thin, I really didn't care about any of them. I was a little interested in the Satan character, the best part of the story was his dialogue over the credits.

SPOILER
Also, Plunger guy getting his leg back, then getting killed was too predictable.

Good:
Cinematography
Editing
Music

Bad:
Audio in places
Story
-weak plot
-Lack of depth in characters

[Charles Papert]

First of all, congratulations for surviving and making the deadline. 48-hour filmmaking is not an easy task (I'm a 10-time survivor myself).

I would have to say that I agree with most of Dylan's points. For me, what stood out the most in a negative way was the acting, however. I see from the credits that it was basically "you guys" (i.e. the filmmakers) who appeared in the film, and it shows--not just that everyone is about the same age/gender etc., but that the spoken lines are pretty flat (I checked out the rules of the festival to make sure that you didn't have restrictions on only using students for actors before passing judgement on this, by the way!). I'd recommend digging into your local acting pool, getting to know some good "utility players".

The one shot that bothered me was the reveal of the devil character high up on the wall--camera movement is rough, and the framing a bit awkward. Might have been better to have the camera in with the action down below, on the ground looking up; then reveal the devil behind the foreground character's heads.

Another thing to point out is that you crossed eyelines a few times. If this was intentional, that's not the end of the world--it's sort of hip to cross the line these days--but it doesn't necessarily seem planned in this instance (am I wrong?)

I would also stress what Dylan pointed out about sound. It makes a huge difference to have clean dialogue tracks. A decent shotgun (yup, with appropriate windscreening) boomed in as close as possible will make a world of difference to the overall feel of a film. I'd rather see a shoddier looking film with clean audio than a pretty one without.

Loved the title sequence! Very early-Pixar-ish!

Best of luck with your future ventures. How often is the school mounting that 48-hour festival?

[Andrew Lee Hendren]

thanks for the thoughts!

yeah my biggest negative is the tire scene's audio and cinematography, i was editing at the time that was shot, so the secondary crew shot it, it was a long 48 hours, how would you guys have spiced up that scene?

as for the acting, my friend who is an actor was busy that weekend, and i really need to meet some more actors, that issue will hopefully be addressed soon.

as for the cinematography, yeah i dislike that shaky pan in the 1st scene, and the last scene with the reveal, we couldnt figure out how to do it right, it was late we had been shooting for almost 6 hours straight, and making up the shots on the spot, if we can't get something right we'll keep working on it next time.

this was our 3rd 48 hour film festival that we were involved with. well my third my other director's 4th, and various for the other crew.

as for the audio mix in the dialogue... yeah i need to get somthing better than production audio on the digital 8 camera to get audio in.

this is the 2nd 48 hour film fetival put on by the Full Sail Film Society, there has been 2 others put on by an outside project called PROJECT BLUELIGHT. their site is currently down.

as for good things to come from this:
1. got to see my short on the big screen at universal studios
2. had many people offer to work with me, or bring me in on other side projects of theirs
3. learned a lot about filmmaking, specially in a crunch
4. won an award at the film festival: BEST USE OF PROP (the plunger as a peg leg)
5. had a lot of fun

i guess thats all i have to say. any other ideas, or thoguhts on the project are much abliged, i'll check back later for more discussion on this thread.

[Dylan Couper]

I forgot to add, very good opening title, except that you should have let it linger on the name for one second longer.
Most of the changes I'd make would involve re-shooting. I'd just let it go and move on to the next one. Next time you won't make the same mistakes.

Sort of a counterpoint to Charles' point about the acting. I've seen a lot of short film contests (mostly 24 hour ones) and I've seen very few with good acting or real actors. Since I don't expect good acting, I usualy let bad acting slide without noticing it. You're right though. A good actor as Plunger could have made a huge difference.

[Andrew Lee Hendren]

yeah, thanks, i agree, i was just wondering on ideas for what you sould have suggested on the shoot to learn from.

thanks for the acting point.

yeah we ran out of time rendering the plungers title.

[Charles Papert]

Yes Dylan, I have to say that is one of the things that we pride ourselves on regarding Instant Films--by inviting the writers, directors and actors via a pre-screening process, we are able to maintain a higher than usual standard for those critical aspects vs. other similar short-time filmmaking festivals. There's always wild cards for good or bad in there (random casting works like that) but our festival in particular is oriented towards the viewers, not just the participants, which means hopefully less grimacing upon review of the final product...(accent on "less", as opposed to "no")

As far as I'm concerned, any festival that gets folks out and making movies is a good thing, regardless of the results. There's always room to learn.

[Andrew Lee Hendren]

agreed, like i said this is the 3rd 48 hour film festival i have been a part of down here at school, and i am so excited because it is the 3rd project i have worked on outside of school, it is very very cool that my friends and i are doing stuff. i have learned a lot since my first one, and feel that we have progressed very far, so it is a great thing to do these fests to learn, and do a project.

[Cliff Hepburn]

That was awesome and a great soundtrack you choose. I checked out your stills and didn't see a sound man. Did you only use the in-camera mic?

What's the deal with 48hrs? You have 48 hrs to complete a the project from script to "here's the dvd"?

[Andrew Lee Hendren]

all the audio was in camera, we got music from my roommate, he is a musician. there was the flame sound effect, i did that in a dead room with my camera as the audio capture device.

48 hour film festivals. - you are given guidelines, sometimes it is a prop and a genre, or a prop and a plot, or a line of dialogue, anything really. and you have 48 hours to do everything, write, shoot, and post. it is a crazy experience.

it really rushes you, but it gets things done.

=] yuh.