archived-videos Short Film - Wednesday

I liked the narration of the opening. I liked that bit about
the killers not seeing themselves in the mirror
. I think that's pretty smart and thoughtful writing. There's not much for a no-little like myself to comment on the technical prowess of your filmmaking...and I think it is prowess. One little thing that might have been a bit of a negative for me was the casting of the fellow who gets out of prison(?). I'm sorry, I would try to name the character or the actor, but I didn't hear his name spoken or see a breakdown in the credits. I'm sure he's a fine actor. But I was thinking the whole time how young he looks, hardly more than a boy. I was wondering, did he get out of prison or out of juvy hall? I don't mean to be naive. I'm sure the ex-cons of juvy hall can come out of their confinement and have made contacts for new jobs and be eager to get up to more dangerous criminal activity. My gut feeling, though, was a not insignificant (for me) incredulity about a boy in that role. Again, he did a fine job of acting. I'm just wondering if an actor who looked and conveyed a greater sense of dangerousness and badassness would have been better...or maybe, simply with a little more age.

Very nice work.
 
Thanks so much for watching. To be honest we didnt really have any casting calls or anything. Let me tell you the entire story of why we are doing this.

I wanted to shoot an action scene. So me and my friends went out and did alittle three minute action spot, called "Monday" It was just me and a few of my friends. I never thought about making anything else in group with "Monday" but alot of people liked it and wanted to see what happened after the scene was done. So I decided to develope a "web-series" off the action scene. So we decided to make a 7 episode webseries. I wanted to use the same people because they seemed to be clicking. I do agree, the actors name is Alex. He is a great actor in my opinion, but i totally agree he looks young. Im hoping in the series people will be able to forgive that and just accept his character for what he. I do share your concern though. Again thanks so much for watching. And really thanks for the feedback.

Sean
 
I quite liked the narration, as the others have said. Overall, it's a very fine short film - the acting was fine, the script was up to scratch and the casting wasn't bad, though, as the above guy said, you might have possibly been able to get someone else than Alex to play the prison guy, but he still does a pretty damn good job at it anyway. People who get out of prison, especially drug addicts, just look less... clean than Alex, which may actually be a fault in the make-up department rather than the casting. Doing something like messing up his hair and giving him bags under his eyes, whilst telling him to act slightly more tired could probably help eliminate any faults in his performance.

The weakest part of the entire piece though, I would say, was the camera work - not the composition, but simply how steady the shots were. It was extremely obvious what shots were done with a tripod/surface and which were done by holding the camera - for one, the café scene was just terrible to watch because of how unsteady those shots were. I'd seriously invest in a steady cam, or perhaps steady out the shots in post-production (something that can be done in Adobe After Effects with relative ease, but I'm not sure about other programs).

If for some reason that was intentional, then it was wrong - the shakiness seemed appropriate for one scene out of all of them, which was the one where Alex was taking the drugs towards the ends. At most other points (which was basically after the narration and before the drugs) it was just inappropriate.

Steadycam on a budget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT72hoYxESI
Steadycam on no budget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW6AWmqa8ZM

Overall though, I liked it, and I'm looking forward to the next part :)
 
Guy, I kind of agree with you on the camera work. I wanted it to have the rough camera feel. but talking specifically about the diner scene we kind of had to do it that way.

We did it completely guerrilla styler. We shot it in a Jasons Deli around 3pm so they wouldnt be that busy. We went and sat at a booth and I shot the tight medium and wide. I knew the medium was going to be really unsteady. I really wanted to do that scene with a tripod but for how we were shooting it I didnt want to risk it and not be able to get the scene.

When I started editing it I thought it looked horrible, I was going to motion track it in after effect, but then I thought the whole series is going to be unsteady. So I decided to leave it in. I just want to be clear that none of the shots were on a tripod. I made the decision on "Monday" that I wouldnt use any tripods for this. I dont want you to think Im cheap or anythng, I have a couple of tripods and a jib arm, but for the feel of the whole series I want a rough gritty feel to the episodes. Hopefully it wont take away from the story but I could be wrong, and I will keep your words in mind when we are shooting the rest of the episodes.

Thanks so much for the comments.

Sean
 
ThatGuyFromThatPlace said:
The weakest part of the entire piece though, I would say, was the camera work - not the composition, but simply how steady the shots were. It was extremely obvious what shots were done with a tripod/surface and which were done by holding the camera - for one, the café scene was just terrible to watch because of how unsteady those shots were. I'd seriously invest in a steady cam, or perhaps steady out the shots in post-production (something that can be done in Adobe After Effects with relative ease, but I'm not sure about other programs).

If for some reason that was intentional, then it was wrong - the shakiness seemed appropriate for one scene out of all of them, which was the one where Alex was taking the drugs towards the ends. At most other points (which was basically after the narration and before the drugs) it was just inappropriate.
Click to expand...

This. Otherwise it was nice. Actors could have look a little more rough around the edges.
 
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