BlackJack now online!!

[Moriarty]

Hey Everyone, just a quick note to say that our latest short film, "Black Jack", is on You Tube. I've had to split the film into two parts as it JUST ran over 10 minutes, so If you've got 12 minutes to spare, have a look and tell me what you think.

As always, I always post the new films I've either directed/edited up here as I think this website is a great way for people to creatively put things out there for criticism and improvement. Although there are some threads that generate a lot of flaming, I value your opinions.

The first part is located at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pEFNsxXx8Y

and the second part is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUg-7X7nxI4

The synopsis goes something like this:

Rocky has a plan - to get in, play a few rounds of blackjack and skip town with as much money as he can carry. The only problem is Freddy, the bar owner, wants nothing more than to take Rocky out once and for all.

It's got a 40's style film noir look about it, and although it's a duolgue driven piece, hopefully the 40's slang will get you through to the macabre ending.

At the time of filming, I had arranged to get SENNHESIER microphone but it turned up a day late, so we had to unfortunately go with the mic attachment on the camera. As a result, you can distinctly hear noise in the background. Through Adobe Encore, we've tried to eliminate as much noise as possible, but unfortunately there were too many harmonics going on at one partiular moment to rid of all noise. Hopefully this won't distract you too much from the main piece.

I am also aware that there are a few 'factual' inaccuracies with the fim - I won't list them here, as you'll just be keen to spot them out - you guys can do that for yourselves.

Hope you enjoy.

[UFProductions]

D*mn fine work, that was excellent. As a tribute to noir you had it just about perfect, special props to the actors and whoever wrote the dialogue. I do have a couple gripes though; the very opening scene (after the credits) was too bright, it should have been night, and it should have been foggy/raining. Some of the moving shots were way too unsteady, it distracted from the excellent framing and lighting. Lastly the audio was shite, I could harldly hear the actors in some places (a real shame). If I were you I'd get them to do the whole thing again in ADR, possibly re-shoot that first scene, then take it to the festivals and clean up! Excellent work, keep it up.

PS: I loved the location too, how'd you get hooked up with that?

[ipon70]

I liked it also. Basically the same comments. The dialogue was fun but very low which made it hard to hear. Great work on camera, and place setting, costumes were awesome also.

If you would like a place to host the whole movie instead of cut into pieces, let me know and I can help you out.

[Moriarty]

Yeah, I know that the sound is quite abysmal in this piece - but unfortunately I don't have the time to get the actors back for some ADR - once again It's another lesson learnt in the great field of film making...

Hopefully if things go according to plan, I'll be doing a zombie flick soon - might have to get a teaser trailer up in the upcoming months...

Same bat time...same bat channel...

[Ornsack]

Nice! Very nice!

Good to see props and locations being used on this forum!

Looks like you had a nice camera too! Was it anything fancy?

I have to say though, don't use auto-exposure and auto-focus. It just made something that could have looked amazingly professional look a bit home movie-ish

Just my two cents really. Very good!

And I presumed it was American until I just checked out the YouTube profile!

[Moriarty]

We used the Canon XM1 - which is a couple of years old now but still gives decnt sharp image -

I see what you mean, there's a few scenes where the focus jitters and when Rocky enters the club it does show, I was the camerman on that shoot so the blame rests entirely on my shoulders - I don't particularly like using the camera for said reasons; I'm usually looking at other things so don't usually see these until post production.

Yeah, we're all londoners - the two actors did a great job with the accents, in my opinion.

[DarkElastic]

First off, well done. I found this very easy to watch, where some amateur films are sometimes a chore to get through, this flowed by.

The Good:
This had a nice pace to it. So, nice editing.
It looked classy, from the props to the way it was shot really gave it a good feel, and an accurate feel. The accents put on by the two Londoners was very good. If I had a hat I would take it off to them.
Excellent Script.
Great Acting.
I like unhappy ever after endings.

The Bad:
I thought 'Scotch on the Rocks' was Scottish Whiskey with Ice?
Your actors 40s accent (Rocky's Accent) reminds me of Commander Data's voice in Star Trek TNG. As a Trekkie though that isn't a totally bad thing to me.
Obviously the sound has been noted. This does make this possibly excellent film only good, as you can't hear some of the excellent dialogue. Sound seems to be the Achilles heal of most Amateur filmmakers.


Overall, I really liked this film. You know yourself what the problems are, and hopefully you will correct them for your next production. Well done. I give it 8.5 out of 10.

[Moriarty]

Hey, thanks for the comments Dark - yeah, I think that we had so much going on at the time that someone forgot to actually put the ice in the drink! Looking back at it now, it's quite an obvious error, but just goes to show what planning, planning and more planning can do for ya in the long run...

I'm writing a script for our next poduction at the moment - hopefuly all the errors madein the past will be null and void when we do this - I'm hoping to get some money together before we shoot and invest in som good dollies/equipment that will give our camera movements a more fluid movement style. We'll see...

I laughed out loud (literally) when I read the Data from Star Trek comment - yeah, I can see that...I can almost picture Data sitting down at a poker table, and the two being clones!

I've got the Sennheiser Mic now, so issue shouldn't be a problem with future productions.

[Magic-Man]

Real nice film. Nice editing, nicely directed, very good acting, but please invest in an external mic, possibly a steadycam. Very sexy smooth intro. Oh and pretty cool lighting, especially with the smoke in the air, really gives it that nice look.

Edit: Is that music (when the guy is about to cut off his hand) from freeplay music? Because i have heard that before.

[Firestorm]

Very good. The actors were great. I liked the angles but I did feel like a few of the angles would've benefitted from sticking more closely to the rule of thirds. Also, the parts with the cameraman walking didn't seem to fit the style of the piece.
Also, you might try bumping up the contrast on most of the piece and seeing what it looks like (i.e. Sin City). Other than the sound, that's all I really noticed. Excellent piece.