MattHawkins Online - Film Making Forum

See, this might be me being odd, but i liked the blood and smoke fx. Granted, they didn't look realistic, but with the colour correction i thought it looked very sylistic.

Don't forget to watch some mordern day ganster films too. Films like "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking barrels" and "snatch" may be quite good for story ideas. I know that they aren't really about the the Mafia and are technically comic movies, but there should be some good stuff in t...

Rent some mafia movies, have a look at the storylines in them, then modernise it. Even if there aren't any stories which you like they may inspire you.

Vogler's idol is campbell, sometimes i wonder whether it would hvae been better to just get cambell's book. Although Vogler's writing style it quite simpistic and easy to read - which is a nice break from people like Leon Hunt and other media academics - so i'll stick to it, there is some good stuff...

Shamless advertising guys, don't forget to mention it's price.

This should really be called the bickering forum, grow up guys

I've always found that doing a big project rarly to be more effectivle than doing lots of little ones, you tend to take things more seriously when a lot of time is put in it.

I've found in my experience there is nothing as useful as experience, BUT i've also found learning by doing isn't always most practical. This is where studying comes handy. I know there is a lot of people who don't care for studying at all, and a lot who sware by it.

What is if for you? Study or do?

I just got a book called "The writer's Journey" by Christopher Vogler, it's basically charting the hero's journey, seemes pretty good so far but i've only just finished the preface to the second ed. I've heard very good things about Vogler's work (he profiles movies for hollywood) and deci...

Any one at all interested?

I've finished the first draft of my adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's The tell tale heart. I haven't gone for a faithful adaptation so any avid EA Poe fans on here do rip me to shreds because its nothing like the origional. Its a commentary of the origional i.e. location, characters are different but ...

When writing i've used Word (with my self-made templates) Final draft 7 and Celtx and i have to say, out of all of them i preferred Celtx. It's very easy to use and has some decent tools which come with it, and... oh yeah, it's free (and legal) too! Saying that Final Draft is a good peiece of softwa...

Nice find, i've read a lot on characters etc but so far no one has gone into the much detail about the hero's journey. Its a very interesting concept and is one that all writers really need to at least be aware of.

I liked it, the camera work really good. I found it difficult to keep track of who is who though.

Be very careful when dubbing, having tried it before i know how hard it can be to make it sound good. You need to mix the sound exactly right for you to believe its coming from the characters on screen.

I thought the best part was seeing someones hand pulling a snake along in one of the first shots, lol. But seriously your doing well keep it up. One thing tho, it seems that for the first half of it the whole thing has a blue tint to every thing which then changes back to normal. Does your camera ha...

My only critisms are the fact that you can barley hear either of your actors. You really need to try and get a shotgun (directional) mic instead of using the one which is built into the camera. They are two far away for the mic to pick the dialogue up with any clarity and because the setting is all ...

I've not read the origional of the Shinning, but watching the film i can see what you mean. Nicholson does play that part amazinly well, i'd probally go as far as saying he made the movie what it was (as well as Kubrick obviously). One thing i just thought was that movies are actually adaptations fr...

There goes your high frequency hearing

Yeah sorry, i typo just about anything and everything (the single greatest problem in any of my writing). I haven't yet seen either of the Animal Farm adaptations, but i really want to. It was an amazing book written by someone who was way ahead of his time. I've seen the 1984 adaptation but that ju...

write one then, lol

Have a bit of slapstick comedy, when i read the word frying pan i immediatly thought that you could have some people beating the cr** out of each other with them. Kinda like the Monty Python "Fish" sketch but in doors, with frying pans. That wouldn't take amazingly long to write and wouldn...

Thats alright, i was a little confused as to why there was a thompson, but i guessed it was a borrowed prop.

For a projet im doing at the moment i'm adapting "The Tell Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe (pretty grovy little story really). To do so i've been reading heavily into what goes into adaptations (and more importantly what doesn't) and i was wondering if any one else has taken to adapting any...

I really liked it. I'd be going a bit far if i said it didn't look amaturish; but the let down factors were the lack of money for props (and young actors driving cars) but thats really something which is out of your control. I liked the fact that you had a large(ish) cast, one big enough to show you...