archived-videos A Reap of Faith

G

Grand Upper

Hey guys.

First in a series of short films my production company have been working on. Absolutely no pre-production (as an experiment) and filmed in a day. 100% foley for the sound which was a nightmare.

We're really happy with how it came out and it would be nice if you guys enjoyed it also.

It works best when you don't really try to analyse the ending. There are quite a few possibilities.

Cheers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1MiH6tIBgA&list=UUfTK2LXiC4qw
 
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The music and the begining is very similar to Dexter the show. I like how you did that. Great job with with the intro. It reminded me so much of Dexter I had to go watch the intro to Dexter and compare. I thought you did an excellent job filming this. The visuals were real good. I liked the idea of it. A reaper living his life and thought it was good. The car scene in the begining was good too. Maybe a bit too long for him putting it in the car though. You should do a Reaper on a date theme next. Ha... Will the reaper talk next or not?
 
I loved it too !

There is some weird stuff though. If he's reaper, why is having so much trouble working out his own car ?

Some shots look very nice, especially the golfing part on which you had a nice photography. Some are less appealing. The inside view of him driving is out of focus and not large enough for me. What lens did you use for that ? Also, I felt that some shots were overexposed but I'm no pro. Some colors are not constant through the movie, it must be the white balance.


Oh and your sound is really good !
 
rockerrockstar said:
The music and the begining is very similar to Dexter the show. I like how you did that. Great job with with the intro. It reminded me so much of Dexter I had to go watch the intro to Dexter and compare. I thought you did an excellent job filming this. The visuals were real good. I liked the idea of it. A reaper living his life and thought it was good.
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rockerrockstar said:
The car scene in the begining was good too. Maybe a bit too long for him putting it in the car though. You should do a Reaper on a date theme next. Ha... Will the reaper talk next or not?
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Firstly, thanks a lot for the praise and I'm delighted you enjoyed it.

As for the car scene, we really didn't film enough cut-aways to shorten it as much as we'd like. Because people have enjoyed this, we're going to do proper pre-production on the next to ensure it's as tight as possible and have all the coverage we need.

As for the next, we have several fun ideas and scenarios for our Reaper. He'll never talk though.

TheArtist said:
I loved it too !
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Thankyou, sir!

TheArtist said:
There is some weird stuff though. If he's reaper, why is having so much trouble working out his own car ?
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We had weird in mind when we made it, haha. It's just for comedy purposes really, we wanted to make the most out of our awesome scythe that we managed to get hold of. It was actually really difficult to get in the car and that's where the idea of doing it came from.

TheArtist said:
Some shots look very nice, especially the golfing part on which you had a nice photography.
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Thanks, that's my favourite section also.

TheArtist said:
Some are less appealing. The inside view of him driving is out of focus and not large enough for me. What lens did you use for that ?
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You think? I can't see a problem with that part personally. We used a 1.8 50mm for all of it, which wasn't ideal and leads onto your next point..

TheArtist said:
Also, I felt that some shots were overexposed but I'm no pro. Some colors are not constant through the movie, it must be the white balance.
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Agreed. The lens we had and the MASSIVE changes in light throughout the day made it really difficult for us as we only had the day to shoot. We did our best to sort it a little in post but we're aware that there are a few areas of over exposure (although some are intentional; tea cup for example & the lighting bursts in the final scene).

TheArtist said:
Oh and your sound is really good !
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Delighted you said this, as we spend so long recording and syncing foley that our heads exploded towards the end. We wanted to make a special effort in this area.

Most of all I'm glad both of you liked the film. That's the main thing for us and as we improve our technical knowledge we should iron out some visual problems for the next instalment.

:)
 
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The shots of him getting ready were definitely too quick - I get that you were going for a Dexter-esque approach to seeing his morning routine, but lengthening each shot by about half a second (or there abouts) would make it a lot better.

As the others mentioned, it doesn't really make sense for him to have been struggling to put the scythe into his own car - surely he'd have used that car before? - and it did seem to go on for a bit too long.

It did seem a bit too improvised, the entire thing, which is reasonable seeing as you've said you did it with little to no pre-production. Certain things should have been lead up to a lot more though - for example, the golfing seemed just thrown in, because it occupied too little a space of time. The sudden change in tone to seriousness seemed very off, too, especially considering it goes straight back to comedic a few seconds later when he sees the guy behind the door. I'd suggest keeping the comedic tone throughout, for example showing a sigh of sadness when he's pulled out of his golf day to kill someone instead of deathly seriousness (no pun intended).

And you could tell you only have one suit for the grim reaper, by the way - those last few shots alternating between the door and the original reaper show quite a change in outfit. When he opens the door, the guy who knocked suddenly has a blue t-shirt on. Magic!

Saying that, it was a very nice ending, both in the way it's going to lead into another (hopefully) and that it was a perfect note to end on - the choice to carry on the sound of stirring tea was a particullarly nice one. The way he looked to his scythe and then to the new reaper was also probably my favourite part in the entire thing :)

There's definitely some potential here! It's a rather nice short film for one that had little to no pre-production, and with some proper planning I have no doubt you'll create something particularly hilarious!

It had a sort of Mr Bean vibe to it too, what with the silent characters and all that - you really don't see enough of that these days :)
 
"As the others mentioned, it doesn't really make sense for him to have been struggling to put the scythe into his own car - surely he'd have used that car before? - and it did seem to go on for a bit too long."

Maybe you could have him steal the car so that is the reason he has issues putting it in the car. Another idea is that his car broke down so he had to take another car. It could be a rental car maybe too.
 
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I like it but I have to be completely honest - from the title I thought it was a play on how oriental individuals speak English..
 
ROC said:
I like it but I have to be completely honest - from the title I thought it was a play on how oriental individuals speak English..
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I thought it was going to have something to do with the Springsteen song "Leap of faith." :D

nice work though. Enjoyed it.
 
it was really good! i enjoyed it all the camera shots were great, really liked the beginning, but the part with him trying to fit his sythe into the car dragged on a bit long it made me a little bit mad haha
 
We used a H4N & Rode NTG-2. We were aware that field recording would give us too much noise so we made the decision early do all the sound later. It's probably our proudest part of the film really; first time using the camera/sound/edit software etc. Next one we will do full pre-prod and take on board what people have said (although we're very happy with how positive it's been).

Note : the gravel footsteps sync was a NIGHTMARE.
 
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