archived-videos 2011 Midknightly Halloween Horror Competition

knightly

knightly

Scores
DreadyLocks - The Pumpkin Carver http://vimeo.com/31343582
- K - V:3 A:4 P:- C:3 S:7 T:17
- J - V:4 A:- P:4 C:2 S:8 T:18
- Total: 35

SuitablePlanet - Devil's Knight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ykn8s20c4E
- K - V:4 A:3 P:- C:4 S:8 T:19
- J - V:3 A:- P:2 C:3 S:7 T:15
- Total: (34 - 1) 33

FlickerPictures - The Scream of the Screaming Screamer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cedq1t52bA
- K - V:5 A:4 P:- C:3 S:7 T:19
- J - V:4 A:- P:5 C:3 S:8 T:19
- Total: (38 - 1) 37

Don Patterson - Le Mort http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgNbTc5nl2Q
- K - V:3 A:4 P:- C:3 S:5 T:15
- J - V:4 A:- P:2 C: 4 S:5 T:15
- Total: (30 - 1) 29

RayW - Destroyer http://vimeo.com/31471203 Password: destroyer
- K - V:4 A:3 P:- C:5 S:9 T:21
- J - V:5 A:- P:2 C:5 S:8 T:20
- Total: ( 41 - 1 ) 40

Dreadylocks: http://vimeo.com/31343582

SuitablePlanetFilms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ykn8s20c4E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ykn8s20c4E

[EDIT: Added by John]
Don Patterson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgNbTc5nl2Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgNbTc5nl2Q

[edit: added by Knightly]
Flicker pictures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cedq1t52bA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cedq1t52bA

[edit: added by Knightly]
RayW: http://vimeo.com/31471203
password: destroyer
(There will be a later version of this with the music composed by Harpsichord which will be posted as well, but not judged here)
 
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Upvote 0
Congratulations to everyone really. I think everyone did a fine job in their work. All the films were clever and entertaining. Also, thanks to the people who gave their honest opinion.
 
Liked the comments from knightly and John@Bophe. Think you guys were a bit too generous with points on my work. Looking at LeMort now, I am not impressed. Never had the chance to 'sit' on the footage or edit, which I always do. Never had time to do proper shoot. But, hey, dig it -- twas a 'challenge'...

Thought about doing the 'challenge' all last week, but pretty much cancelled shooting/editing anything, in my head due to a busy Saturday planned by wife and the OSU game (Saturday night) and Brown's game on Sunday (had to go to a bar, not on local TV).

Then I had this dream (stupid nightmare)... Friday night.

Kind of spur of the moment, waking up Saturday to flashes of my son playing violent, 3D 'shooter' video games on our 73".

"Hey, I can do this quickly! No script." I hate when I don't have a script in hand.

So, I did the AK47/shotgun/40 caliber handguns scene right after my first cup of coffee on Saturday the 29th. Really fumbled with the handguns. Just me in my basement. Boo!

Needed a haircut at 11 A.M. Played with the dog till 2 P.M.

Called Kelly and Neena (I know many haunted house owners -- they are great people and all are friends). Neena and Kelly's haunt attraction is about a 40 minute drive. Asked if I could shoot at their Scare-a-torium for half an hour before they opened for Saturday night. Kelly said "be here at 5 P.M."

Picked up tickets for a future Brown's game at a friend's house (my tickets -- he couldn't go) -- had a beer and talked about fantasy football till 4:30.

5:00 P.M. met Kelly and he gave me a quick tour of his newest haunted house layout (while the first arriving actors got into make-up). Nice. Explained to the actors interested in participating at 5:30, gonna shoot fast -- pretend it's like a 'video game', the challenge was "come out scaring, pause when you see that this camera is a gun, now YOU be afraid, VERY AFRAID..." No time for a rehearsal or multiple takes (the cast was great for just 'stepping in' as they did). Two takes each would have to do. No time for 'playing with camera angles' or fine tuning. Armed with 2 pocket LEDs -- I shoot from the hip as quick as possible with a 13 year old camera.

The haunt's doors opened at 6:00. Interior lights out. Stayed around and talked with Neena till 7:00 as the crowds of want-to-be-scared patrons waltzed by.

Drove home, just in time to open a Pumpkin Ale and watch a great OSU game.

Next morning, 10:00 A.M. edited what was shot and credits. Started watching NFL football at 1 P.M. Went to a bar to watch Browns at 3 P.M. After 5 large ales, (wife drove) got home at 7:30, (my Brownies lost to 49ers). Heartbroken, I finished up editing around 10:30 P.M.

DSL (@ 1.5 Mbps) was out. Then IMovie wouldn't allow me to upload to YouTube. 2:00 A.M. Eastern Standard time I was finally (after much cussing and screaming) able to get the LeMort stuff up.

Audio was off. Image sucked. Oh well. I did do something! LOL I went to bed.

Think you guys were a bit too generous with points on my work. Next year, I will give myself (and a cast) more time, (hopefully with better equipment). Dreadylocks, Suitable Planet and Flicker Pictures are just too good at what they do to take this competition lightly... Those filmmakers kicked my butt bad... They did great work! Nice competition. Hope more Indietalk.com members will enter something next year? Like to see more such challenges...
 
What a romp. I'll definitely have to remember to allow myself some time for next year. This kind of thing is Indietalk at its best, I think. And I love it.

Awesome work, all. And a dick-o-lantern...incredible.
 
SuitablePlanetFilms said:
Congratulations to everyone really. I think everyone did a fine job in their work. All the films were clever and entertaining. Also, thanks to the people who gave their honest opinion.
Click to expand...

This site's members really excel at sharing information and helping others get better at what they do. You did some great work with your movie. Most importantly, you moved past dreaming about it and made it reality. That's perhaps the biggest accomplishment. For that ... congratulations!
 
I appreciate that. I am just trying to find out what areas worked and what areas didn't. The thing that got me was that all the reviews I got were either really really good or not spoken of at all. So for the quiet ones, I was trying to dig a little deeper and find out what their opinion was on it. To be very honest, we had several problems on the set. That morning the cop actor was upset with me because I was late to the set. (Had to check out a hotel room that I gave to my friend but last minute he decided to go home). Some instructions weren't followed. Tension was building with another cop actor. I couldn't send my special effects guy or audio guy the footage which left me doing it all by myself. One guy's Mac couldn't take my PC stuff and the other guy had computer issues and couldn't find time to come over. Things kinda fell apart but I did my best to put it back together.

Also, what issues did you have with the story?
 
knightly said:
1 - It felt a bit too bright to me (but that may just be an aesthetic that I like).

2 - The shutter speed seemed a bit fast making all the motion choppy like the gladiatorial scenes in "gladiator", it was slightly odd, but may have lent to the overall effect.

3 - I can see why this took a while… although the shooting wouldn't necessarily have taken all that long, there was a lot of care taken in the edit.

4 - A longer loop of the baby cries would have been less noticeable and helped sell the viewers connection to the doll as a representative. There were a coupled of hard cuts in the audio track as well as the music that can be messaged to disappear (look to the waveforms).

5 - Creepiness (5) - Does this dial go to 11? I had already marked this as creepy until the statistics started rolling at the end! It actually went right past creepy after the first shot and skyrocketed into disturbing once we got to the woods. You should seek professional help
Click to expand...

1 - Yeah, I'm really fascinated by daytime horror stories.
I am "just so over" everything obsessing over primitive monkey-man fear of the dark.
There ain't sh!t in the dark that ain't there in the day except scared little animals trying not to be eaten.
I like my scary sh!t brave enough to go hunting in daylight.

2 - Yeah, the shutter speed was wide open to accommodate that f1.8 aperture for the limiting DoF, thus giving rise to the GLADIATOR/28 DAYS & WEEKS/SAVING RYAN'S PRIVATES effect.
Sorry.
Eventually I'll get a ND filter set and address that issue.
Until then "its an artistic expression", <wink! wink!>

3 - Yeah, shooting only took about three hours. Video editing took about six hours. Audio creation, doctoring & editing another four.
The audio is a [expletive] train wreck. Sh!t's all over the place.
I had a sick kid at home yesterday and couldn't very well discretely audio edit this with speakers on, so I did it with just headphones.
It sounds completely different with speakers. Poor/sloppy, really.

4 - Agreed. I gotta knock down the loud crying, and chirpy crickets & birdies, then bring up the scissors and fading heartbeat.
The soundtrack could use some lovin', too.
Tell me about wavefrorms... Please.

5 - H3LL, YEAH!
This sh!t scares the... sh!t outta me.
Minding my own effing business, and some effing freak has gotta look at my kid like a hobo at a cheeseburger.
Umm... NO!

There's a gap between the civil sterile safety of data and the revolting actuality of what these little children endure.
This is less than ten minutes of experience compared to the collective thousands of hours of how too many little kids spend their last days on Earth.
It's revolting.
I want to jab this in the eye of predators into their skull.

"I had already marked this as creepy until the statistics started rolling at the end!"
Did the statistics take away from what I had created up until then or something else?
I'm not clear on the whole statement.
I wanted to just painfully drag this down from sicko "entertainment" to horrifying reality.

Thank you.


mad_hatter said:
Holy crap! Ray, that was truly horrifying... in a good way, of course. Well done.
Click to expand...
I was shooting for "Holy sh!t!", but "Holy cr@p!" will do quite fine.

When I read stories like these below I can't help but feel for the children.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43972067/ns/us_news-life/t/missing-new-hampshire-girl-found-dead-river/
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/13/thousands-turn-out-to-search-for-missing-brooklyn-boy/
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...-found-dead-in-backyard-microwave-1562330.php
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5671683-504083.html
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/13977306/missing-child-found-dead
http://www.cbs42.com/mostpopular/story/Missing-child-found-dead-in-lake/Z0FUkOhEmEqe_uyNU70Lqg.cspx

This isn't a way for children to die.

I understand darn good and well that when I see roadkill I think "Yick!" while a vulture thinks "Suppertime!".
I look at poop and think "Ugh!" while a dung beetle thinks "Fooooood!".
I look at little kids and think "Awwww" while these human monsters think "A f#ck and a plaything".

On the one hand I loathe them for what they are.
On the other hand I recognize and acknowledge they can't help it.
To expect them to be something different is just stupid on our behalf.
Can't blame dogs for doing "dog" things. Duh!


Thanks, guys.


Dreadylocks said:
ray, I think I'm too a-scared to watch your movie :(
Click to expand...
Sweetie, don't.

Honestly.


If it's not at least mildly upsetting then there's something broken inside.
This isn't a cute little Nickelodeon Halloween special.
One effed-up situation just leads to a worse one.
Just when you think it's going to end... No. It doesn't.
"Now, does it end?"
No. It gets worse.
"NOW, does it end?"
No.
Worse.
"NOW?!"
Sorry.

No harm.
No foul.


PaulGriffith said:
Dang ray... creepy wins it. man.
Like the stats at the end too. Creepy with a purpose.
Click to expand...
Thank you, sir.
I gotta kick up that music a few more dbs at the beginning of the burning sequence.
And I'm not impressed with my soundtrack transition from the previous sequence to that last one.
 
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rayw said:
"I had already marked this as creepy until the statistics started rolling at the end!"
Did the statistics take away from what I had created up until then or something else?
I'm not clear on the whole statement.
I wanted to just painfully drag this down from sicko "entertainment" to horrifying reality.
Click to expand...

Clarifying: it went waaay past creepy. First shot was creepy, then it went to disturbing, then the end stats and it went horrifying. Had this been a different type of PSA, the stats would have had no meaning, no connection. The stats are the reason that Psycho, The Shining and Misery are scarier than the rest of them... the psychosis and disconnect are real things that can really happen. We as humans are much scarier than any monster. The stats made it real, the lack of a face or voice in the entire film made it much worse as it could have been anyone, my neighbor, postman, whatever.
 
knightly said:
Clarifying: it went waaay past creepy... The stats made it real, the lack of a face or voice in the entire film made it much worse as it could have been anyone, my neighbor, postman, whatever.
Click to expand...
Thank you.
Exactly what I was shooting for.



brianluce said:
I liked it Ray, very disturbing as everyone says. Weakest area for me was the stats, something about they way they were phrased and the graphics/background made it not as coherent as it could have been. Also, I think a single passage of stats would be better, it started to feel like too much reading.
my 2 centavos.
Click to expand...
Thank you.
Understood and can easily see your point, especially the "too much reading" aspect.
I'm a data freak. That doesn't mean everyone else is. Got it.

Actually, on the first edit the stats were on maroon backgrounds that played for five seconds each with three second intervals of the fire burning between.
However, for the rendering/saving those static pictures kept dropping out, so... hasty work around creating the distracting background.

I've since figured out a more effective workaround which is to simply record 30seconds with the lens cap on and save that as a permanent "black" background I can overlay "live" text over.
Obviously I could use colored card stock, as well.
 
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I liked it Ray, very disturbing as everyone says. Weakest area for me was the stats, something about they way they were phrased and the graphics/background made it not as coherent as it could have been. Also, I think a single passage of stats would be better, it started to feel like too much reading.
my 2 centavos.
 
Holy! Shit! rayw, that was incredibly effective. For much of the duration of the video, I was worried about the state-of-mind of the filmmaker. It wasn't until I realized that you were pushing the boundaries as a method of raising awareness that I finally got it -- you meant to shock the crap out of us, so that we'd listen to these harrowing statistics. I'll agree with a previous commenter, though -- the statistics should be more concise. And, actually, the entire video could be cut more tightly. But yikes, you scared the bejeesus out of me.
 
Cracker Funk said:
Holy! Shit! rayw, that was incredibly effective. For much of the duration of the video, I was worried about the state-of-mind of the filmmaker. It wasn't until I realized that you were pushing the boundaries as a method of raising awareness that I finally got it -- you meant to shock the crap out of us, so that we'd listen to these harrowing statistics. I'll agree with a previous commenter, though -- the statistics should be more concise. And, actually, the entire video could be cut more tightly. But yikes, you scared the bejeesus out of me.
Click to expand...

Honestly. No shit. - I felt rotten the whole rest of the day. As if I was guilty of actually hurting a kid.
It did have a very adverse effect on me just to... essentially document the faux incident.

Shorter stats. Got it.

Editing for time... see, this is where I had an issue.
In and out, short and sweet would kinda betray consideration that these children ACTUALLY experience this for hours and hours and hours on end with zero cognition of when it's actually going to end.

And it doesn't end when they die, either.

So, to let the audience off easy for a short would be a disrespect to the children.
It was a definite choice on my behalf.
The dissection shot actually goes on for over three minutes.
IRL, it would probably take an hour to dismantle a child with scissors, savoring all the moments.

Re. Bejeesus. Thank you.



JoshL said:
Checking out the statistics (looking at the same report you did), the 40% of stereotypical kidnappings where the child was killed (46 children) is not nearly as chilling as the 46% of children sexually abused in non-family abductions (26,772 children) of which 38% were family friends or long term acquaintances (48% by strangers, slight acquaintances or "someone else"). What a world. :-(
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I'm also looking forward to see what Harpsichord does, as well.

Yeah, what a world indeed.
The frequency of this stuff is just appalling.
What's worse is our society's approach to it of "Let's address it AFTER something happens".
I'm a proactive/preemptive sort of guy and would like to see "If you feel like doing something stupid come talk to us first" sort of commercials and billboards.
But somehow... I don't see that happening.
 
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Intense stuff ray! Really well done and very creepy. I agree the sound and music are the weakest links, can't wait to see what harp does with it!

Checking out the statistics (looking at the same report you did), the 40% of stereotypical kidnappings where the child was killed (46 children) is not nearly as chilling as the 46% of children sexually abused in non-family abductions (26,772 children) of which 38% were family friends or long term acquaintances (48% by strangers, slight acquaintances or "someone else"). What a world. :-(
 
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