Pics from my new movie! (New Pics May 6th!) + video!

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Lawriejaffa
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Pics from my new movie! (New Pics May 6th!) + video!

Post by Lawriejaffa »

Hello there! Righto well these are some pics from my latest film, which is a complete remake and rewrite of an older film I did called 'The Suicide Artist' I will post the script soon too.

It is a romantic tragedy set amidst the hungarian revolt against the ussr in the cold war. It follows an artist called Elise who has a relationship with a resistance fighter called 'Richard' who ends up being arrested, tortured and executed by the state.

You may wonder at the unusual colour style and palette of the film. This is supposed to be a reflection of the artistic mindset of our stories main character 'Elise'. Who as a nihilist who hates her own work, results in us avoiding the cliche of shots showing paintbrushes dabbing in jars of water, and instead lets us paint her artistic self in the cinematography and visual effects of the film - which are sometimes surreal.

Scene 1 - Roger enters building
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Scene 1 - Roger watches as the building is opened
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Scene 2 - Awaiting Roger is Elise
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Scene 2 - Tragedy ensures
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Scene 3 - Protest rally, Elise recants her romance with a young Richard
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Scene 3 - But trouble is brewing! My clones lol are still being worked on!
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Scene 3 - Our couple esacpes the riot, romance ensures
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Scene 4 - Later, Richard is captured during a military crackdown.
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Scene 4 - The prisoners are massacred.
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Scene 6 - However, Richard survives and is rescued but is disfigured.
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Scene 6 - Reunited the lovers are overjoyed
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Scene 6 - But there time together is short...
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Scene 7 - Richard (in a serious scene rewrite) is tortured and imprisoned)
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Scene 8 - Elise makes a compact to assist Richards suicide
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Scene 8 - Despite their tragic ends, they remain in love aweeeee
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Anyway, these pics give na idea, there is still some cleaning up to do here or there, but im sure u'll get the unusual colour and visual style we're going for. I will post more and i hope ive not infracted any image posting rules!
Last edited by Lawriejaffa on Sun May 06, 2007 12:42 am, edited 9 times in total.
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RE: Pics from my new movie!

Post by youngfilmmaker »

Interesting..
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Post by DEDFX »

It almost looks like film.
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Post by maj_barnes »

Looks really nice! Lighting looks fantastic! The only thing I dislike is the clone views, they both look too alike.
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Post by SgtPadrino »

I like it. Good shots, and well done color correction. Just not a big fan of the CGI - comes off looking more fake than surreal.
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Post by Lawriejaffa »

yep thanks for the comments guys, and yeah barnes ur right about the clones, i mean they'll do for this film but next time i'll totally make sure there more generic and ambiguis
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Post by MasterMike »

I'm liking the colour grading. I love films that have a certain "look" applied to them, and this is certainly very bleak.
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Post by Lawriejaffa »

Yep thats definately the idea with the film anyway, especially the bleak look for when things start to get worse and worse for the characters in the story. They are basically variations of the Berlin preset in magic bullet (though i combined them with no85 preset also.)

Thanks to my friend Solthar tho, iv'e learned a few extra tricks for the film including making artificial narrow DoF's on for example face close-ups and other things relating to special effects. Another useful thing, was when placing new graphics with the video (or matte layers) it was could to export them all combined (layers that is) and then placing filters on them all as one video.
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Post by Theshapecool »

I love it! looks fantastic!
Please tell me what camera did you use?

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Post by Lawriejaffa »

Thanx for the complement. The camrea i used was the Panasonic HVX200 in Standard Def, and to grade and colour i used premiere 2.0 and magic bullet. However in a bit of self-criticism, the scenes of diagloue (of talking heads etc) had a very simple and small number of shots. So while they look pretty i just wish i had - had more time to shoot more shots.

Later on tonight for a bit of a giggle (tee hee ooh er) ill post a trailer :)
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Post by angusware »

the photo of them kissing is exceptional, some look a bit over-done but looks awesome
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Post by AgentDick »

Well done! I like the film look, and you've done well to avoid centering them in almost all the screenshots. The composition of the shots does portray a lot of bleakness, but also, using the highlights set up as they are makes it really seem hopeful, the kind of hopeful you get when the only options are hope or despair. The CGI is very well done, but pushing it a little. I love the surreal quality. Something you might try is adding a small gaussian blur to the further away CGI. It makes it look more like real distance. Excellent choice in casting. I must say, you have accomplished something that is very difficult for a director. You told a story with pictures and not words! I must say I am looking forward to seeing it with nothing but high expectations.
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Post by MasterMike »

If I was being picky, I'd suggest masking and recolouring the floor of the first shot you posted. This will help gel your sky & background replacement much better with your live action. (PM me if you like, I'll help)

I don't have any problems believing the clones in scene 3. The background is, however, too blurred for your focal depth.
AgentDick wrote:The CGI is very well done, but pushing it a little. I love the surreal quality. Something you might try is adding a small gaussian blur to the further away CGI. It makes it look more like real distance.
I'd disagree with you there. An additional blur to the backdrop would make it look extremely unrealistic. For the focal depth and distance of these shots, any extra blur in the background would really kill the illusion. For a real-world example, look at any photography where the subject matter is at this distance. Focus blur simply doesn't occur in that situation.
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Post by AgentDick »

I'm just talking about the first shot, and just a factor of one or two. It's the most superimposed looking shot of the bunch. Camera's just can't focus on something that close in the foreground, with out unfocusing the background and the midground. We tried a shot just like this in my last film, at I got the same comment from everyone I asked.

Anyway, he's alread blurred it, I just think a tiny blur or a tiny bit of brightness increase would help, that's all.
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Post by MasterMike »

AgentDick wrote: Anyway, he's alread blurred it, I just think a tiny blur or a tiny bit of brightness increase would help, that's all.
At that distance, you should only blur to match your camera's image sampling. Any lens blur is close to superficial. You're right, I think he has blurred it a little. Possibly slightly too much.

I can see a bunch of stuff I personally would do to that first shot, but hey, that's me.
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Post by AgentDick »

But you know what, It's good. That's what I like about this forum, it's okay to disagree, and, for me at least, it's interesting to see what people come up with or how they would do things. For instance, the guides on making dollies and steady cams and booms are invaluable, but, better yet, I can afford to make several of these rigs! I love this place.

I think we probably all have our own little things we'd tweak here and there in everyhing we see. It's helpful to hear them, sometimes they can really help.
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Post by MasterMike »

I'll agree to disagree with you there one the blur then :)

This forum did inspire me to go and make my own track dolly. It HAS been very useful.
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Post by Lawriejaffa »

Ah right yes thats a good point about the floor on shot 1 actually master mike, yeah ill do that, i suppose its just a cold colour that sticks out with the mostly warm palette of the whole image.

Righto ill check out the background blur thing, and try another pic export of it with some changes (and the colours) and we'll see if we can't improve that haha.

I basically have to get this whole film finished *gulp* for tuesday and theres still 1 more day to shoot, and a lot of ADR sound to record *gulp* that should be er ... fun.

Yes I am an absolute old fashion romantic at heart and i love the pic of them kissing too!
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Post by MasterMike »

Heh, sort of wish I had a deadline like that to answer to. Might push someone other than me to do some work.

I'd implore you not to add any more blur, and infact reduce it in places. Out-of-place focal blur will make your otherwise technically ver strong production look amateurish.
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Post by Lawriejaffa »

Well today i recorded a whole she-bang of sound effects and another scene. Tomorrow I have to shoot the last scene and on Monday (a day before my deadline) i have some pickups.

This is enough to make an old man implode with er ... terror!
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Post by Ornsack »

They do look a bit over-produced but it might work like it did with Sin City etc if you're looking for a stylised surreal look. They look great anyway!
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Post by Lawriejaffa »

Righto

Scene outside the ol' torture scary place (can you guess what kirkcaldy building this is tho)

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The pic below is some FX which was simply guys key'd out against a white wall (my living room) with some tanks (that blow up the building) - its not fancy and pretty crude way to key (i will use chroma) but cute enuf for fx in ur own living room!

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NOW THE BAD NEWS lol

Well the film is looking cute from the screens and the acting is decent too however the story cos of script changes during production has become entangled.

So, the film originally conceived as a 15min short, will now need to be about 18 mins to actually make sense most probably. Also for the film to 'work' a lot more fx work is gonna need to be done.

I showed the current work in production to the film students in my class, and they laughed (many did) when they saw their classmates - this is to be expected i suppose but honestly... then later criticised the film for its melodrama (with one saying that audiences didnt really want that nowadays.)

Part of the negative response i believe was because I had in my wip a 'realistic' sound-track, whcih as you can see from the colourful visuals and from what u know of the storyline, doesnt gel.

So it means im doing a major rethink of the edit plus the way I want to express the story!

What I am considering if you lads would like to participate, is to open the project up a little bit for any of you to contribute your ideas and comments on the new edits in progress of scenes and the film in general (which ill compress to upload) in the coming weeks?

Would you guys be up for that ;)
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Post by UFProductions »

Looks pretty slick there lawrie, I personaly love the style you're going for. I'm assuming (based on the size of the images you're posting) that you're shooting HD?
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Post by Lawriejaffa »

Nope on the contrary its SD at the moment (this is sadly because our HD cards got stolen en route to us and we're awaiting the insurance before re-purchasing the same set.)

However im going to horrify all of you by saying that the post ed team is deciding to soften and glossify the footage into monochrome!!!!

So all my bloody work on the colours for a comic book effect was for nothing!!! ARGHARGHSFS
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Post by britishbulldog »

looks very good, probably alot more interesting to me as i just learnt about the hungarian revolution in history the other day there better be some cool street fighting scenes where the hungarian resistance fighters are being massacred by the red army (dam them to hell the swines)
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