The Beautiful Lie

[Don Donatello]

other then production value = in production designer/art dept/ some lighting ..
as i said if it's the IDEA of the spots they work and if i need a IDEA team i'd give your team a call ... if i had not seen your trailers & short film i would not consider your team for production ... . IMO your trailers/short stand out because of creativeness and productions values and i would say they are very low budget but viewing them one is taken into the images ... bottom line is you are showing on the screen far more $$ VALUE then the actual cost.

IMO- if you do send out the spec spots INCLUDE a few trailers on the reel ...

[Jeff Cottrone]

Hi Josh, I watched your film and then went and watched most of your other stuff on your site and have some comments. First, let me say that I'm very impressed, but that only feels good, criticism is what helps:

--I agree with Don about the huge difference in production value between the commercials and your trailers, especially this short film. Is the only difference the mini35? Did you use the same lens and camera? Maybe it's b/c the sets are bland, but the commercial images just looks sharp and video-ish.

--Is some of your earlier work shot on a GL2? If so, could you list which ones? I'd like to upgrade to the XL2 soon and would like to see some examples of the difference.

--I was already sold on the mini35, but this short seals the deal: great work with it! It makes a huge difference in making it look closer to film (or non-amateurish).

--I love the use of color and lack of color throughout. The background walls always seem to reflect the mood. And the score really fit. Although, at times it seemed constant, or at least I noticed it too much, so maybe a few more silences or just environment sounds would help. IMHO the soundtrack should be like editing in that it should hardly be noticed, at least that's my preference anyway. (what program do you use?)

--My two biggest criticisms:
1. Are you hand holding the camera a lot? For example, in the kitchen scene over the frying eggs...there's a lot of subtle camera movement (it's in other parts as well). Is this intentional? Again, it made me notice. I think absolute stillness should prevail, unless you are clearly moving the camera for a reason.
2. About the story: IMHO (and I am torn about this), but I think you spend a little too much screen time expressing Claire's (protag?) inner turmoil. On the one hand, I'm like, okay, got the idea, she's bothered, too slow.... But on the other hand, if I shut that part of me up, it does create pacing and mood. But back to the first hand, I like more story to the story, meaning, not a lot happens, really. Great mood piece, but IMHO there's a fine line between mood and a progressing story. For example, the beginning, up to when captain-work-a-holic-don't-give-your-woman-a-little-loving shows up, is one image after the next of she's troubled about something. Even cutting one or two shots helps propel up forward to the next story beat. Back to hand two: yes, yes, hand one, that's true, but I'm establishing mood, pacing, character, please let me indulge...
Okay, enough, I guess my point is it's a fine line we all walk when telling a story with images and sound. How much mood and pace before we bog the story down? IMHO, I guess I think slightly too much here.
--I'll end with a positive, though...great job! You and your team do good work! Thanks for lying to me beautifully.

[Josh Caldwell]

--I’m not saying there isn’t a difference. There clearly is. First of all, I’m still a student, and I’m not a film student, I’m a regular liberal arts college student at Fordham University in New York. The commercials were some ideas that we came up with, as I wanted to start getting some experience shooting commercials. I also did not have the budget that I had on the short films. To rent the adapter, it costs about anywhere from $600-$1800 (depending on how the insurance is handled) and since I don’t got to film school, I don’t automatically get school’s insurance. What I really wanted to do with these was to put down some 30 second spots to gain a bit of experience doing so, as I have never done it before. The commercials you up on screen are the first spots I’ve ever shot. We did them with zero dollars in the budget, using an apartment that was available to us. These were really practice, but we got such a great response from people that we decided to throw them up on our site. We did not have the adapter, shot the apartment commercials in the middle of New York’s huge snowstorm in February, and did the best we could. Had we had the ability to shoot on 35mm or even a Mini-35, we probably would have, and are going to be doing this in the future. For now, we wanted to get something down and for the most part, people really enjoy them.

--If you look under the film section, what was shot with what, breaks down like this: American Tragedy (GL1), Summer’s End (GL1), Soldier’s Farewell (XL1), 12:01 (XL1s w/ Mini-35) and Beautiful Lie (XL2 24p w/ Mini-35).

--I saw this film as a melding of images and music and thus the score features very prominently in it. The score was created by a composer. I’m not sure what program he used but it was on a mac, and he’s a professional composer. He was an associate producer with Howard Shore on the first Lord of the Rings movie score.

1) Anytime we’re in the present we’re on sticks or a dolly, and anytime we’re in the past we’re handheld. That’s the general scheme of things. However, as Claire’s past begins to invade her present, the styles beginning to mix. I agree the shots in the kitchen should have been a little more still (the camera was on a tripod, but we were moving the camera) but that’s something you see in hindsight. That’s the only scene where I feel there’s too much movement. However, any time we’re handheld or whatever, there’s a reason for it.
2) I agree there isn’t too much story here, but that wasn’t really my goal with the piece, and like you said, I indulged a little. This is not a plot based film, clearly, and I wanted to take the time to really examine the character. Plot is easy, character is hard, and I wanted an opportunity to really focus on character. All of the comments you guys are providing me is helping me see what worked, what didn’t, etc.

Thanks for watching the film and for your comments.

[Wade Spencer]

I may have missed it, but which mini-35 adapter did you use, and which lens?

Thanks.

[Josh Caldwell]

I believe the Mini-35 was the 400 version, or whatever version they made for the XL2. The lenses we used were Zeiss primes, and they consisted of a 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 135mm.

[Josh Caldwell]

Even though it's a student film fest, The Beautiful Lie won 1st Prize and the Audience Award at the Fordham C.I.T.Y. Student Film Festival.

I won a copy of Final Cut Pro Studio...not bad.

[Steve Madsen]

Josh, you've really made the xl2 sing on this short - it's some of the best footage I've seen on mini dv.

Besides good framing, would you attribute this quality to the mini 35? Shallow depth of field is one thing, but this seems to have something else going on. Your outdoor shots (both day and night) are stunning.

Good writing and direction too - I like the performance you got out of the female lead.

[Josh Caldwell]

Steve,

I'm glad you enjoyed the short and thanks for the feedback. I think that beyond the technology, mini-35, 24p, you can't dismiss talent. We had an amazing cinematographer work on this film and I think a large part of it is due to him. We really punched up colors, whereas a lot of mini-35 stuff seems to be flat in that regard.

In the end, being able to shoot at the same depth as 35mm, gives you the opportunity to utilize another tool, focus. A lot of people want the mini-35 because it's a smaller depth of field, but what we tried to do was really utilize that depth of field for our story's purposes. We really tried to use focus to enhance the story.

But really, all we did was shoot with some of the settings tweaked and we pretty much shot as neutral as possible, and I then I played with contrast and stuff in post.

Does that make any sense? I'm a bit frazzled today.

[Josh Caldwell]

Hey everyone,

I have some exciting news to share. I was told today that I am one of five nominees for mtvU's Best Student Filmmaker Award for the film The Beautiful Lie.

In addition to a shot at a development deal with mtvU, the winner of the award will be handed the first ever mtvU Student Filmmaker Award live onstage at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards!

The voting starts monday at www.mtvu.com. I'll provide a direct link to the voting when I know what it is.

I know a lot of you have seen the film here and would love your support.

Thanks,

Josh

[Steve Madsen]

Congrats Josh, that's huge news.

Your point makes sense. On a second view, the attention paid to composition, lighting and generally dealing with those things which dv usually struggles with (eg headlights at night) helps suspend disbelief and the feeling we're watching mini dv. Good sound certainly helps the effect too.

Good luck!

[Michael Claerbout]

Hi Josh,

first of all,

Wow! Really really good stuff, good lighting, good actors, nice music, and good editing!!!

I just had one question a little bit offtopic, i love those fade to blacks you did, they don't seem dropping capacity from 100 to 0 %. can you tell me how
you did that? Blacklevels perhaps ?

best regards

Michaël.

[Josh Caldwell]

Hey Michael,

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed the film. With regard to the fades, there's an effect in Avid Xpress Pro that's called a Film Fade which I used instead of a dissolve. I don't know if there's a comparable effect in Final Cut. But yea, it really looks like a film fade, where's it's not just going 0-100%.

Josh

[Michael Claerbout]

Hé Josh,

thanks for the reply !
and by the way im working in Premiere Pro and have found a similar fade with the magic bullet plug in, but its not as nice as your fades.

Maybe i should jump over to Avid :-)

Greets

Michaël.

[Josh Caldwell]

Hi Everyone,

I have some exciting news to share. I have been nominated for mtvU's Student Filmmaker Award for my film The Beautiful Lie.

In addition to a shot at a development deal with mtvU, the winner of the award will be handed the first ever mtvU Student Filmmaker Award live onstage at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards!

I would appreciate your support. Please click either of these links to go vote: http://www.mtvu.com/on_mtvu/movie_awards/2006/
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/ma06/

And pass it on to your friends and family!

Voting is unlimited! Vote as many times as you can!

Many thanks,

Josh

VOTE FOR THE BEAUTIFUL LIE.

[Josh Caldwell]

*Bump**Bump*