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archived-vidoes Thriller-short, with horror twist!

J

Jardoss

Hey there!
After hard work, we’ve finally wrapped the production of our new short “RED WALKER”. And, of course, we’re crazy excited to hear some feedback from you guys :)

Nathan, a relentless cop married to his job, encounters an ethical problem when his past suddenly haunts him. He's forced to leave his job as police behind, or eliminate his personal agenda, as the whole world counts on his single evaluation in this thrilling situation.

The film is about 3 min long, featuring a Canadian actress, one from Norway, and another Norwegian with an acting background from New York. We shot it on Canon 7D with an Anamorphic adapter to get that cinematic analog vibe.If there’s any questions concerning the technical aspect of the film, feel free to comment and we’ll get back to you :)

Here’s the short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK2BuwH-4_M

We’ve made a couple of films before, including a sci-fi feature, so have a look if this was interesting: www.youtube.com/JARANDandJENS
We also have a facebook, if you’d like to get in touch or stay up to date with content: www.facebook.com/JARANDandJENS

Enjoy, and give us a little heads-up in the comments-section about what you think! We’re constantly looking for improvement, so a little input from you guys only makes good better :)

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Jarand & Jens
 
The cinematography is great, and I really like the look of it. The acting is good as well. But, I think the reveal of the zombie could have been scarier/quicker. It could have been paced better, and the writing was not that great. It wasn't much of a twist. A girl covered in blood, making weird noises, a guy not wanting to give up his gun, and a call saying "he is the-". I knew it from the beginning. But I think the good elements of the film triumph over the small flaws. 7/10
 
ChimpPhobiaFilms said:
The cinematography is great, and I really like the look of it. The acting is good as well. But, I think the reveal of the zombie could have been scarier/quicker. It could have been paced better, and the writing was not that great. It wasn't much of a twist. A girl covered in blood, making weird noises, a guy not wanting to give up his gun, and a call saying "he is the-". I knew it from the beginning. But I think the good elements of the film triumph over the small flaws. 7/10
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mcbrainlegend said:
Great looking film! Your cinematography looks almost like a video game cut scene but I mean that in a good way.
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Thank you for such detailed and nice feedback! Really helps ;) Ill keep this in mind.
-J
 
Haha, not at all sarcastic- love me some feedback. If you look at my previous films, I have (hopefully) evolved simply because of these forums! So thanks a bunch for taking the time to reply :)
 
Excellent and most of the time it felt real,

funny that sometimes the illusion broke, for instance with the silver Passat, I started to think that it does not look like police car at all :)

So I think it worked better when you used only close ups in the framing,

I would give this 4/5 :)
 
itarumaa said:
Excellent and most of the time it felt real,

funny that sometimes the illusion broke, for instance with the silver Passat, I started to think that it does not look like police car at all :)

So I think it worked better when you used only close ups in the framing,

I would give this 4/5 :)
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Hey!
Thank you so much, means a great deal :)
The silver Passat is actually a proper Norwegian civilian police car (which is why the cop wears jeans). But I see your point, we simply weren't able to get ahold of a normal one with big lights, so used what we had^^ The lights are awesome though, don't you agree? Adds to the atmosphere, I think.

Thanks though, can't complain if you think it deserves 4/5 ;)

Cheers,
Jarand
 
Jardoss said:
The lights are awesome though, don't you agree? Adds to the atmosphere, I think.
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Yes, but not by much. The real problem is that you don't have an atmosphere! As is common on indietalk, everyone on this thread so far is only focused on the visuals. The simple fact is that we perceive atmosphere mainly through our ears. You have spent quite a bit of effort on the look of your film and the lights, to improve the atmosphere by 5%-10% while completely ignoring the 70% or more side of film making which actually defines the atmosphere! Atmosphere/s are an important part of the film experience but for a thriller (or a horror) the atmosphere is absolutely vital but as your film doesn't have an atmosphere, this is far and away it's Achille's heel. As an analogy; spending the time and effort on the lighting to improve the atmosphere and ignoring the sound is a bit like adding great looking alloy rims to a car which doesn't have an engine!

Instead of sound, you've put music over the whole short and while music is better than no sound at all, it's not a good solution. Music is great at adding pace, energy, tension and other emotional responses to a film but incidental (non-diagetic) music always reduces realism and dissociates your audience. A director always has to consider this trade off when using music, particularly when using music instead of sound, the trade off is; potentially more emotional impact but usually at the cost of realism and therefore of dramatic impact. If your scene were set in a night club, the music (with a bit of additional processing) would have aided the atmosphere but what you have now is visuals which are contradicted by the sound and the result is an uninvolving short and, because it's uninvolving it's thriller and horror aspects are hugely reduced. The only horror is generated by the gunshot and the sound of the bone break but with no perspective, isolated and out of context, the effectiveness of these two sound effects is greatly diminished.

So, while the cinematography of your film may be worthy of a 4/5, overall as a thriller/horror it's about a 2.5/5.

G
 
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Hey AudioPostExpert,
Thank you for such a detailed description of what you feel needs to be worked on when it comes to this short. I do agree with you on a lot of terms, but I also must disagree on a few of them.

I see what you mean about tension created by no music vs. with music. However, I don't think either are wrong. I think this is solely up to how you want a story told, and what sort of tension you want to create.

However, what would help me in this situation is to point out what I could have done, rather than pointing out that I didn't do it "good enough". Sound design isn't my strongest side, so I take absolutely all suggestions with an open heart.

You seem to be pretty confident and strong with sound, is there something here that you saw was immediately missing? That I can bring with me for my next short :) ? The main point of this is for all of us to learn as much as we can :)

-Jarand
 
Congrats on finishing the short! Here are some of my thoughts:

-Really good visuals and great acting! Solid writing too (believable dialogue).
-What is it? Just give it to me? What is WHAT and what is IT?
-I sighed when he turns off his radio as soon as the other officer was gonna reveal that he's the cure. That's a cop out for me (no pun intended).
-I praised the visuals but the shaky footage during the chase looked nasty.
-Regarding the end, I'm not sure if it's much of a twist though, sorry.

Again congrats for completing the short and best of luck with it! Thanks for sharing man. I subscribed for a good measure. :)
 
Jardoss said:
...what would help me in this situation is to point out what I could have done, rather than pointing out that I didn't do it "good enough".

You seem to be pretty confident and strong with sound, is there something here that you saw was immediately missing?
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I didn't point out that you didn't do sound design "good enough", I pointed out that you didn't do sound design at all, there is no sound design! So what was obviously and "immediately missing" was sound design. I only responded to this thread because you specifically mentioned trying to create atmosphere and the film making craft most responsible for atmosphere is sound design.

Jardoss said:
I see what you mean about tension created by no music vs. with music. However, I don't think either are wrong. I think this is solely up to how you want a story told, and what sort of tension you want to create.
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Tension is an emotion, not an atmosphere! By definition, incidental music is abstract, so while it can be very good at creating tension, it is very poor at creating a believable atmosphere and without a believable atmosphere your audience will never feel part of or involved in your film. There are countless examples of this in film, where music is used to create an emotional response and then dropped entirely in those scenes where where the film maker wants the audience to feel personally involved. By definition a thriller or a horror requires the audience to feel involved, so they can be made to experience thrills and horror. As a filmmaker you can choose to only use music, only use sound design or use music and sound design together but the first of these options is rarely used because it creates a surreal and unbelievable feel.

In this particular case, it's obvious from the acting and the visuals that you were trying to create a level of realism to involve your audience but your use of incidental music without sound and no coherent sound design has hugely reduced the realism and audience involvement and is why in this particular case your use of sound and music is "wrong".

Can I suggest you read the Principles of Sound Design thread which provides an example and gives a better explanation of what I'm trying to explain.

G
 
jils johny said:
Cinematography is nice and acting as well but take care of the lighting.
Overall-6.5/10
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Thank you! :) What do you mean about the ligting though? Too dark? Too light? Explain!^^ I'd love to hear your side of it.

justinisfilming said:
Congrats on finishing the short! Here are some of my thoughts:

-Really good visuals and great acting! Solid writing too (believable dialogue).
-What is it? Just give it to me? What is WHAT and what is IT?
-I sighed when he turns off his radio as soon as the other officer was gonna reveal that he's the cure. That's a cop out for me (no pun intended).
-I praised the visuals but the shaky footage during the chase looked nasty.
-Regarding the end, I'm not sure if it's much of a twist though, sorry.

Again congrats for completing the short and best of luck with it! Thanks for sharing man. I subscribed for a good measure. :)
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Thank you, means a lot :) Appreciate your comments on the cinematography and writing.
Yea, a little classic annoying movie thing there I guess. For the clever folks out there, you get it right away, but from some feedback among non-moviegeeks, it seemed to work.
Oh well, thanks a lot for you comments, I take them with me and remember them next time. Especially the ending ;) Oh and thanks for the sub, go ahead and check out what I've made before. You might like it if this felt interesting.

Thanks,
Jarand

AudioPostExpert said:
I didn't point out that you didn't do sound design "good enough", I pointed out that you didn't do sound design at all, there is no sound design! So what was obviously and "immediately missing" was sound design. I only responded to this thread because you specifically mentioned trying to create atmosphere and the film making craft most responsible for atmosphere is sound design.



Tension is an emotion, not an atmosphere! By definition, incidental music is abstract, so while it can be very good at creating tension, it is very poor at creating a believable atmosphere and without a believable atmosphere your audience will never feel part of or involved in your film. There are countless examples of this in film, where music is used to create an emotional response and then dropped entirely in those scenes where where the film maker wants the audience to feel personally involved. By definition a thriller or a horror requires the audience to feel involved, so they can be made to experience thrills and horror. As a filmmaker you can choose to only use music, only use sound design or use music and sound design together but the first of these options is rarely used because it creates a surreal and unbelievable feel.

In this particular case, it's obvious from the acting and the visuals that you were trying to create a level of realism to involve your audience but your use of incidental music without sound and no coherent sound design has hugely reduced the realism and audience involvement and is why in this particular case your use of sound and music is "wrong".

Can I suggest you read the Principles of Sound Design thread which provides an example and gives a better explanation of what I'm trying to explain.

G
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Look, I'm not trying to offend you, I'm simply asking for a little advice. Sorry if I sent the wrong signals there, was not my intention.

But I see a lot of great points in what you're telling me, so I'll definitely look into it.
I'm aware that you're disagreeing with me on this, and that's fine. I have an audience however as proof, that this isn't "wrong", whereas I think nothing in filmmaking can be wrong- which is what makes it so "geniusly" fun. It could have been done differently though, to which I agree.

I'll look into it. I understand by all means what you mean about the realism, and this gave me a little heads-up on a subject I was not that much aware of. So thank you :)

Cheers, and thanks to all you guys- you've helped a bunch!
Jarand
 
Jardoss said:
...whereas I think nothing in filmmaking can be wrong- which is what makes it so "geniusly" fun. It could have been done differently though, to which I agree.
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My last post came across as harsher than I intended, it was written in a rush, so I apologise for the harshness.

However, I think we'll have to agree to disagree with the sentence I've quoted because I believe a great deal can be "wrong" in filmmaking. If you are trying to involve your audience and/or are trying to create a particular feel or emotion and the way you have executed your film fails to involve your audience and/or create that particular feel, then something is "wrong" with your execution. In film it's rare to completely fail to create what you are trying to achieve, it's usually a matter of degree, you don't elicit as much of the emotional impact/involvement as intended. Your film doesn't completely fail to create an atmosphere or involve the audience but it does largely fail to create an atmosphere and therefore creates the experience of thrills/horror and audience involvement far less well than it could with a different execution. Logically, this means there is something "wrong" with your execution.

I agree with you in the sense that what might be wrong in one scene/film maybe right in another and therefore nothing (or very little) can ever be said to always be wrong. But, there are general principles which are often referred to as "the language of film" and incidental music reducing realism is part of this film language which isn't in dispute. In this thread though we are not talking about what is always right or wrong, just what is wrong in this particular film.

From your short and what you have posted here, I believe you don't really know what sound design is, what it's capable of achieving or how it is employed in modern films. For this reason, I advise you again to work your way through the thread I linked to previously.

G
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
My last post came across as harsher than I intended, it was written in a rush, so I apologise for the harshness.

However, I think we'll have to agree to disagree with the sentence I've quoted because I believe a great deal can be "wrong" in filmmaking. If you are trying to involve your audience and/or are trying to create a particular feel or emotion and the way you have executed your film fails to involve your audience and/or create that particular feel or emotion, then something is "wrong" with your execution. In film it's rare to completely fail to create what you are trying to achieve, it's usually a matter of degree, you don't elicit as much of the emotional impact/involvement as intended.

I agree with you in the sense that what might be wrong in one scene/film maybe right in another and therefore nothing (or very little) can ever be said to always be wrong. But, there are general principles which are often referred to as "the language of film" and the fact that incidental music reduces realism is part of this film language and isn't in dispute. In this thread though we are not talking about what is always right or wrong, just what is wrong in this particular film.

From your short and what you have posted here, I believe you don't really know what sound design is, what it's capable of achieving or how it is employed in modern films. For this reason I advise again that you work your way through the thread I linked to previously.

G
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Thanks for this though. Sorry if I seem impatient or stubborn, it's probably because you're right ;)
Just read through the first couple of pages of the thread, and really digging it. You're right, I didn't know much about Sound- but feeling I'm finally starting to learn it at least. I focus a lot of attention on the visuals. So i'm looking forward to more time within the sound scape of film!

Thanks for your effort!
Jarand
 
You might find this short documentary useful as it discusses specifically the issues I've raised in this thread about realism, music, sound and audience involvement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2164O_TeQIg
 
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