UWOL #11 : "The River" by Kevin J Railsback

[Mat Thompson]

Hi Cat

Yes my trip was pretty amazing but wasn't to do with UWOL. I was a finalist in a film comp at the Wildscreen festival in the UK. Had to shoot a film in 1 day / edit in 5 hours....crazy experience but amazing. The screening/premiere had 300 people and was hosted by Steve Leonard (BBC Presenter). Its been a great experience and I'm hopeful of other things un-folding because of it.

But nothing for uwol from me this time.

Looking forward to watching all the others though!

ps - sorry for yakking in your feedback thread fella

[Jeff Hendricks]

Kevin,

This was a true piece of art. I have always been a big fan of your stuff (I say that every time) and this stands out as one of my favorites of yours. It really had the feel of a big budget movie trailer especially at the beginning with the perfect music set to those UNBELIEVABLE images.

My only critique would be the "white noise" was a little distracting on the VO track. It seemed like it could have used a noise reduction or something and perhaps a slow gain in and out on each time he speaks so that it is not so abrupt because the sound sort of cuts in and out.

Otherwise very pro, rich and beautiful piece of art.

Thank you

Jeff

[Bob Safay]

Thanks to you all for your kind words about my VO. Working with someone as talanted as Kevin is an inspiration. His color, and camcorder movement was incredible. We would email clips and audio back and forth. Jeff, thanks for the feedback on the white noise. I went back and checked my original VO. It sounded great. I guess when I rendered it to .wav file and sent it to Kevin as an attachment something may have happened to it. I will email myself some audio clips and see if I can find the problem. Again, thanks to all. Bob

[Kevin Railsback]

Thanks for all the feedback.
I'll try to answer some of the questions when I have a bit more time.

Steven Dempsey was kind enough to do a audio mixdown for me and took out the white noise and sweetened up the audio in general.

I'm so used to just laying down a music track and editing that adding VO tracks and natural audio tracks is something I'm going to have to focus on in the future.

It was a lot of fun working with Bob.
Like he said, we'd send clips and test edits back and forth so he could see how it was coming together.

Pretty amazing when you think about it that two people, one in Iowa and the other in Georgia can work on a film together like we were sitting next to each other by the computer.

[Kevin Railsback]

Updated version with Steven Dempsey's audio mix.
The River By Kevin Railsback On ExposureRoom

[Kevin Railsback]

Never mind, I can't attach images here because the IMG code is off so it makes this post pointless.

[Kevin Railsback]

Well, I would have posted them but it seems the IMG code is turned off. What's up with that?

[Kevin Railsback]

Just got word late last night that "The River" is an official selection of the 2009 Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival!

Last year I took home the Silver Eddy for my UWOL film "Wild No More."

Hopefully they'll like this one enough to take home the gold! :)

[Chris Swanberg]

Congratulations Kevin. It is certainly a worthy piece and I'll wager you win something with it. When is the festival?

[Mat Thompson]

Well done fella! :-)

[Bob Safay]

Kevin, great news. What an honor. It was great working with you. Best of luck and please keep us all posted. Bob

[Bryce Comer]

Well done Kevin,
You deserve it! I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot more films from this community entered in film festivals, & i would expect them to do really well considering the quality that many here are producing. The best part about this group is that everyone's films just seem to be getting better & better each new round & i think it has a lot to do with the more experienced guys like yourself that freely give out your wisdom that makes that happen.
Congratulations,
Bryce

[Kevin Railsback]

First of all, I want to thank Meryem for putting this challenge together. Without it, there would be a lot of films that would have never been made.

Secondly, to all my UWOL family. Your feedback has helped me become a better filmmaker. I learn from you and hopefully you've picked up a thing or two from me as well.

Anyway, "The River" picked up the Gold Eddy award last night at the Cedar Rapids film festival.

It's the highest award the festival awards.

It's also one of the few festivals I enter because you get to meet with the judges afterwards and get a one on one critique of your film. The cool thing is that even if your film doesn't make the cut for the festival, you can schedule a critique of your film to find out why they didn't select it. Very, very cool festival.

Have to give a shout out to our Bob Safay. The judges made several comment son how pleased they were with the voice-over. The loved the tone, the pacing and thought his voice was perfect for the piece.

Another shout out to Steven Dempsey who did the final audio mix for me. You may remember him as one of our judges. The judges thought the mix was just right. Not overpowering but strong enough to make an impact.

Ok, here's my problem with all of this. Every year when I get my critique they always give me some tips on where they would like to see improvement.

Last year I won the Silver Eddy for "Wild No More" another UWOL film. So, I followed both yours and their advice and made "The River."

So, I sat in the room this morning to get some feedback on my film. Well, they said they had nothing for me on how to improve it. The thought it was the best cinematographically ( is that a word? ) shot film of the entire festival.

It was kind of awkward because they didn't have anything to say other than there's no way you could have made it any better.

So what the heck do I do for next year?

I usually set the bar very, very high on myself. While most people see the good, I see the "I could have done this much better."

So now I worry that anything I do for the festival will be downhill from here.

The long form challenge certainly is one thing. But I'm still struggling with figuring out how I want to do that. I also worry that I'm not going to be able to sustain the level of The River for twenty minutes.

So, I'm happy and then again I'm not. Just not sure where to go from here.

[Meryem Ersoz]

Originally Posted by Kevin Railsback

So now I worry that anything I do for the festival will be downhill from here.

Oh fer the love 'o....

Can't you just flat-out enjoy the sweet smell of success for a change??????

If I wasn't so happy for you, I'd be smackin you upside the head!

That's awesome, my friend. And well-deserved. I am so very happy for you.

[Kevin Railsback]

Nope. You're a glass is half full kind of gal and I'm a glass is half empty kind of guy. :)