watch First in-house project

[Akka]

Here's the first episode of our first in house project, Action series "Katana" Filmed by a DOP friend of mine, written directed and edited by myself, all firsts so please be kind i normally only deal with things that go bang
Filmed on £0 unless you count making sure everyone got properly fed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlPxXzDAkt0

 

[cheeseandachallenge]

The Bad:
I'd lose the credits at the start. None of these people are names who will draw and audience, and the credit sequence isn't impressive enough to justify being there, or to hook me - so it just gives me 15-20 seconds to decide I don't have the patience to watch your episode.

Did you use denoiser? The skin in the first shot looks noticable plasticky and overly smooth - enough to be jarring and to draw my attention to it. Maybe you meant for that.

I realise you're going for a slow pace, but I didn't like the fades to black in the starting sequence. I'd prefer a straight cut.

The killing of the guard surprised me, in a not so good way. You seem to be trying to build tension with the slowness of the scene till that point. This could be solved by editing - cross cut between the girl getting ready and him standing there, perhaps. Or find another way to make his danger more obvious. On my third watch through I noticed the girl in the background, so I think you've tried to do this, but it wasn't apparent to me at first. You're also in no-mans land with your sound mix here. You have too much sound to be doing an eerily and unnaturally silent killing (see the end of Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus) but not enough to sell the scene as natural. It felt like an underdone sound mix, as opposed to anything particularly intentional, and took me out of the scene.

-In general the sound is poor. I don't like how hollywood overdoes gun sounds, but these sounded like paintball guns at best?

-Actress wasn't amazing. It's nice to see a female, but get her some lessons in holding a gun, for example. Her throwing of the grenade, and dropping of the smoke bomb/grenade/whatever you call it were similarly unconvincing. Similarly, what's with the guy skipping when she shoots at him? Were you using actual pellets? It was unconvincing running, and his little skip (when get was shot?) made it feel like a paintball game.

The good
-The cinematography is really nice in some places. Feels a bit like dslr filmmaking at points, but shots like that at 0.41 (though I'd frame it so the wall only took up 1/3rd instead of 2/3rds of the shot) and 1.53 are nice.

-Some nice stuff tone wise. Liked how you were trying to build tension, even though it didn't quite work at some points. You seem to have an idea of what you're doing and will get better.

-Female protag is nice in this kind of thing. Try not to sexualise her too much in the way action films with female leads tend to tho

 

[sfoster]

The gunfight wasn't very exciting to me.
I could only speculate as to why.. but taking turns shooting at bricks might have been the downfall. If it were me I would have stayed aimed and ready until they poked their head out and then shot them before they had time to orient themselves. Not waste all my ammo shooting rocks

 

[Akka]

Denoiser? no idea what that is, it was originally supposed to be edited professionally but literally ended up with me attempting it in my spare time so its probably something ive ended up with whilst fiddling, i can defiantly see what your saying with the sound on the guard scene and good idea with having him cut in to the gearing up, i actually thought the sound for that bit was too much,
gunshots wise we used the actual sounds of those particular weapons recorded on a live range (surpressed ppk in .22lr/surpressed 5.56 ar15) im not keen on Hollywood weapon sounds but unfortunately they are now movie convention.
The actress is holding the pistol correctly shes had hours of training although it was her first time throwing a grenade of any sort saying that ive seen trained soldiers do far worse, could have definately done with more than one take of that though,
oddly enough the enemy isent holding the AR correctly in a few clips ill hold my hand up to that one i didnt watch him closely enough (gave him the benefit of the doubt being an ex squaddy)
the skipping is actualy him being hit by a fragment of the sweeney ball in the back of the knee when it hit the wall, it got left in as it was the best take of him running and could realistically been a stone fragment from the bullet strike,
ill pass on the cinematography feedback to Dave he's always asking for critique, and my opinions a little limited
thanks for the feedback both of you its nice to get info off people who arnt involved in a project, hopefully ill have a little more help when we film the next one so im not a one man crew again
really enjoyed putting this together though
thanks again
Ben

 

[Alcove Audio]

gunshots wise we used the actual sounds of those particular weapons recorded on a live range (surpressed ppk in .22lr/surpressed 5.56 ar15) im not keen on Hollywood weapon sounds but unfortunately they are now movie convention.

Although in a number of ways I agree with you, filmmaking is a language, and all of those visual and sonic conventions (clichés?) make up much of the language that the audience understands. Remember, you are not trying to reproduce the real world, you're creating a believable artificial construct with sound and visuals that will engage an audience.

First, you need A LOT more Foley and sound effects work, there were many missed opportunities to create more tension and excitement with the sound design. Also, I found the sounds themselves to be rather thin; they lack "body," which would make them more exciting.

 

[RyiGarry]

The Bad:
I'd lose the credits at the start. None of these people are names who will draw and audience, and the credit sequence isn't impressive enough to justify being there, or to hook me - so it just gives me 15-20 seconds to decide I don't have the patience to watch your episode.

Did you use denoiser? The skin in the first shot looks noticable plasticky and overly smooth - enough to be jarring and to draw my attention to it. Maybe you meant for that.

I realise you're going for a slow pace, but I didn't like the fades to black in the starting sequence. I'd prefer a straight cut.

The killing of the guard surprised me, in a not so good way. You seem to be trying to build tension with the slowness of the scene till that point. This could be solved by editing - cross cut between the girl getting ready and him standing there, perhaps. Or find another way to make his danger more obvious. On my third watch through I noticed the girl in the background, so I think you've tried to do this, but it wasn't apparent to me at first. You're also in no-mans land with your sound mix here. You have too much sound to be doing an eerily and unnaturally silent killing (see the end of Ralph Fiennes' Coriolanus) but not enough to sell the scene as natural. It felt like an underdone sound mix, as opposed to anything particularly intentional, and took me out of the scene.

-In general the sound is poor. I don't like how hollywood overdoes gun sounds, but these sounded like paintball guns at best?

-Actress wasn't amazing. It's nice to see a female, but get her some lessons in holding a gun, for example. Her throwing of the grenade, and dropping of the smoke bomb/grenade/whatever you call it were similarly unconvincing. Similarly, what's with the guy skipping when she shoots at him? Were you using actual pellets? It was unconvincing running, and his little skip (when get was shot?) made it feel like a paintball game.

The good
-The cinematography is really nice in some places. Feels a bit like dslr filmmaking at points, but shots like that at 0.41 (though I'd frame it so the wall only took up 1/3rd instead of 2/3rds of the shot) and 1.53 are nice.

-Some nice stuff tone wise. Liked how you were trying to build tension, even though it didn't quite work at some points. You seem to have an idea of what you're doing and will get better.

-Female protag is nice in this kind of thing. Try not to sexualise her too much in the way action films with female leads tend to tho

I'd add to that that the gas grenade over the door seemed strange - what was the purpose of letting him run out and then shoot him? Why not just shoot him as soon as he enters the barn?

Also, the immediate cut to the enemy was jarring - possibly because the effects were too sequential: she shoots twice and then he does once. There should probably be something between.

 

[cheeseandachallenge]

Denoiser? no idea what that is, it was originally supposed to be edited professionally but literally ended up with me attempting it in my spare time so its probably something ive ended up with whilst fiddling

Denoiser is a tool that "gets rid of" digital noise. It does this by blending the pixels of an image, which , if pushed too far, can make someones skin look unnaturally smooth and plasticky. Maybe you didn't use it, but something about her skin felt a little weird in those opening shots.

i can defiantly see what your saying with the sound on the guard scene and good idea with having him cut in to the gearing up, i actually thought the sound for that bit was too much,
gunshots wise we used the actual sounds of those particular weapons recorded on a live range (surpressed ppk in .22lr/surpressed 5.56 ar15) im not keen on Hollywood weapon sounds but unfortunately they are now movie convention.

As Alcove said, a lot of work needs to be done here. It was definitely not overdone, you only had a handful of sound effects. Again, I'll point to the example of Coriolanus where Fiennes did this as a stylistic choice and it works well - but it didn't really do that here.
I'm pro realism, but I guess even I have been affected by hollywood expectations. I would compromise somewhat to make the guns sound at least a little *bigger*, because they really do sound like pellet or paintball guns to me.

The actress is holding the pistol correctly shes had hours of training although it was her first time throwing a grenade of any sort saying that ive seen trained soldiers do far worse, could have definately done with more than one take of that though,

Really? I don't have experience with hand guns, but she didn't appear to actually be aiming in some shots..

the skipping is actualy him being hit by a fragment of the sweeney ball in the back of the knee when it hit the wall, it got left in as it was the best take of him running and could realistically been a stone fragment from the bullet strike,

It seemed almost comical. Again, pro realism, but it didn't really fit the tone of what you were doing. From what you said about this, and the grenade stuff, you need to be getting more coverage and takes.

I'll also add the way the scene is put together is confusing. Often it's hard to tell who's point of view you're seeing the action from. Without rewatching it - did you use the 180 degree rule? Other than that, you may need to do something to try make this a little clearer. More apparently different uniforms, more close ups, etc.

 

[Will Vincent]

Really? I don't have experience with hand guns, but she didn't appear to actually be aiming in some shots..

Weapons handling is one of the few things done fairly well here. The rest just fell flat for me. I dunno off hand if that's from the edit, or thin sound, or a combination thereof.

But, there doesn't seem to be much other point than a couple people throwing bullets in the general direction of their opponents. Nothing drew me in, and it did nothing for me. But I've seen much worse weapons handling in films of all budget levels

 

[cheeseandachallenge]

Weapons handling is one of the few things done fairly well here. The rest just fell flat for me. I dunno off hand if that's from the edit, or thin sound, or a combination thereof.

But, there doesn't seem to be much other point than a couple people throwing bullets in the general direction of their opponents. Nothing drew me in, and it did nothing for me. But I've seen much worse weapons handling in films of all budget levels

Alright, point conceded - my experience is fairly limited (note, none with handguns) as guns aren't really a thing we have here. I'm still unconvinced by the grenade throwing and so on, though.

 

[rotwang]

What is this film about?

 

[WalterB]

The cut at 1:20 makes no sense.

I suggest to add 2 shots:
Man down.
She getting shot at by surprise.

Or better:
She holds the door.
The man inside yells.
She gets shot at by surprise and has to release the door.
The shooter fires again. (the first time we see him)
Man runs out of the barn.
She returns fire while running for cover.

The discription says it's a pilot and that's about a complicated conflict.
All I see is a woman killing soldiers one by one.
No motivation and not anything close to complex.

 

[Akka]

thanks again for the feedback guys i think a lot of the problems are down to me trying to do every job on set and in the edit , none of which i have any experience of doing , initialy we had a full crew, editor and composer but on the day only the DP, myself , the actress and one extra turned up, i supose thats one of the problems that can happen when people arn't getting paid, the script was ment to run for 8-10 minutes but we ended up just filming what we could get,
its been a good learning experience for me and im glad i went with what we had and put it out there ,
planning on re jigging the original script so it gives all the explanation etc that should have been there and using it as a basis for the next one

thanks again