The Mind

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 11:21 pm

Here's a short film that I shot on Thursday with my nephew. I just got it done late last night. Its a WMV file. You'll notice toward the end of the movie the video stutters a little bit. I have no idea why it does that. The original high quality video has no problems. Anyways, here is the link:

http://www.wsfilms.net/themind.wmv

It 5 minutes and 48 seconds. Enjoy

Bodysnatcher · Post by **Bodysnatcher** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 12:29 am

thats was outstanding! I loved it, and the shoot scene I thought was very good, I was expecting it to be a vehicle for an excuse to blow someone away (que blood splats etc) so I wqas very pleased with the result. my only major sad point was the camera shakes, it is only a minor point but making a steady cam rig would really help! 10/10 for that short, worth watching!

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 12:46 am

Thank you

I'm glad you liked it. And oh yeah, I'm definately making a steadycam rig. I too was disappointed by the camera shake especially when we was shooting outside. It was friggin cold!! lol I was a bit afraid that people wouldn't understand the story. I mean, I didn't even write it down. The day before we started shooting this I had gone through my head at least dozens of times on how I was gonna put this film together. And the soundtrack I went through just about all of my CDs to try and find the right music to establish the tone for the movie and I think it worked out pretty well.

Theshapecool · Post by **Theshapecool** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 1:36 am

I liked it! the voice was creepy! good shots, Great music, My only critisisms are: Take the orange cap off the gun
and keep it steadyer, thats something I wasnt to work on myself! All in all, a great film!.
Liked it alot and cant wait to see more soon!

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 7:00 am

I was almost gonna buy me a steadycam off of eBay. Those ones are kinda pricey. And I've got more short film projects and effects shots on my to do list so keep watching, your about to enter the "Storm Zone." lol

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 7:00 am

I was almost gonna buy me a steadycam off of eBay. Those ones are kinda pricey. And I've got more short film projects and effects shots on my to do list so keep watching, your about to enter the "Storm Zone." lol

Bodysnatcher · Post by **Bodysnatcher** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 7:22 am

Why buy a steady cam ? there are lots of good links where for a bit of time and effort you can make your own? I will post links for you ASAP. (still like the short loads though!)

DarkElastic · Post by **DarkElastic** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:42 am

Well done, nice short. It's amazing what you can do when you add a few nice effects, and music to a simple story. The shots where nice, the locations were good and it was edited well. Just the same criticisms as the others - steady shots, cap off gun.

I give it 9 out of 10. Well done mate.

maj_barnes · Post by **maj_barnes** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:03 pm

Everything in the beginning was really creepy. The effect when the guy got shot was simple, yet got the point across without graphicness.

The thing that bugged the cr** out of me was the muzzle flash; try brightening picture when it goes off. Because I didn't really feel an impact of the shots.

But when it got to the ending I was surprised. I wasn't sure if either the tape an out, or the person was imaging it (that's what I thought).

ipon70 · Post by **ipon70** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:40 pm

Very nice, liked it.

Very very moody in the begining which was cool.
The VO was good and very ominous.
I didn't really mind the shakey cam outside, excellent work.

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:05 pm

Thank you all for the positive feedback on my first short film. I also went ahead and submitted it to the cinema at www.fxhome.com and my film has placed 4th on "Todays Top 10."

britishbulldog · Post by **britishbulldog** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:05 pm

wow they must have alot submitted, yer i thought it was realy good i didnt realy notice any stuttering, one point though, if this guy was your average gun freak low life who was slightly disturbed and thought the only way he could make a name for himself was killing people wouldn't he take all those weapons and go on a huge killing spree?

Magic-Man · Post by **Magic-Man** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:14 pm

Steadycams go a long way, you will be astounded when you see the results. Anyways, i havn't been on matthawkins for some time now, and your film was the first one i watched, and i did enjoy it. I liked the camera movement, (even if it does need to be a little more steadier) and i enjoyed the simple but effective way the character got shot. It would be a little cooler if you added gun recoil

. The music fitted perfect and the fact that the film was rather vague is very interesting and very intriging. It sorta inspired me to make a short film as i havn't done for a fair amount of time. I mostly enjoyed the 'leader' on the television, rather eerie and a great idea. I also loved the slomotion parts because you picked carefully where to put the slo mo, so it looked very effective. Very good, keep it up.

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 12:00 am

wow they must have alot submitted, yer i thought it was realy good i didnt realy notice any stuttering, one point though, if this guy was your average gun freak low life who was slightly disturbed and thought the only way he could make a name for himself was killing people wouldn't he take all those weapons and go on a huge killing spree?

Thats the beauty of it. The character is disturbed so what he does is not supposed to make sense to anyone else. I could have gone that route to which you just described.

Steadycams go a long way, you will be astounded when you see the results. Anyways, i havn't been on matthawkins for some time now, and your film was the first one i watched, and i did enjoy it. I liked the camera movement, (even if it does need to be a little more steadier) and i enjoyed the simple but effective way the character got shot. It would be a little cooler if you added gun recoil . The music fitted perfect and the fact that the film was rather vague is very interesting and very intriging. It sorta inspired me to make a short film as i havn't done for a fair amount of time. I mostly enjoyed the 'leader' on the television, rather eerie and a great idea. I also loved the slomotion parts because you picked carefully where to put the slo mo, so it looked very effective. Very good, keep it up.

Thank you for that great feedback magic man. I am glad this short film has brought inspiration to you. I look forward to viewing you films

UFProductions · Post by **UFProductions** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 3:57 am

Well done, I liked it, but also had some gripes. Namely:

-Steady it out, even just using the folded tripod as a counter weight can help your shots a lot, and the numerous designs on the internet are a $10 investement towards perfection.
-Re-using movie soundtracks just makes me think of the movie it's from. I particularly felt this with "Bang Bang", it just didn't seem to fit.
-Looks like you've got quite the little armoury there, but paint the barrel black for gods sake! Yes "it's illegal" but you can't expect to be taken seriously when we know the gun is fake.
-I don't think the thud sound for the slow-mo footsteps was a good call. It was too jarring, and didn't really seem to match up right.
-Light it up, brighten up the scene a bunch, then mess around in post to get a feel for the video. Washed out blue just doesn't cut it for me when I'm looking at footage.
-I agree with barnes on the muzzle flash, no impact. The flash itself wasn't convincing, and coupled with the barrel being orange and in slow motion it just didn't work. If you're going to do a close-up on the gun firing, and particulairly if you're going to slow down the footage pull out all the stops in the effects department. I want to see the slide hammer back, the kick ripple through the actors arm and a tounge of flame lick out of the barrel as a smoking case arcs out of the gun.

Nice work, but lots of room to improve.

Kentertainment · Post by **Kentertainment** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:02 am

I enjoyed it but I think the story wasn't much original, it seemed like another, "They are making fun of you, kill them" story. Here are some things I found out of it:
-The shakiness has been stressed over but I'm going to have to agree with everyone on it.
-The kick of the gun when it was shot was pretty weak.
-The editing was fabulous! It worked perfectly with the style of the movie (the continuous fades and such).
-Dialoge was a definite plus, the voice and it's wordings were kind of relaxing and that's exactly the right way to send subliminal messages.
-The music at first (until, "Bang, Bang") was very well chosen and matched the style.

Keep it up!

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:23 am

I have to agree. After watching a few more times, I shouldn't have used the song Bang Bang towards the end. It sounded right when I first stuck it in there though. I just got done watching the movie Doom and actually took time to analyze the shooting footage on there. So the next time I film using guns it will be better.

And tomorrow I'm getting me some materials to build me a steadycam following the tutorial that is posted on this website so that will be great. And I'm going to start playing around with lighting. Lighting the set and actors so that my shots are a bit more clearer. I've learned many lessons from you guys who have posted here. I am very thankful for your suggestions on how to improve myself in the realm of film making. I thank you all again.

Bodysnatcher · Post by **Bodysnatcher** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:37 am

Always a pleasure, never a chore.

wildstorm · Post by **wildstorm** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 5:06 am

My short film is still listed on "Todays Top 10," on the FXhome website. Its been on there since the 19th of last month jumping from number 5 to 4 then to 3 then back to number 5 again in a course of 4 weeks. Now thats KOOL!!

MattHawkins Online - Film Making Forum

The Mind

The Mind

RE: The Mind