Another Low-Budget feature film.

Post by **Astro** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:29 pm

Hi and a happy new year to all.
This feature film cost approx Ã‚Â£2800 and contains some B/W and Colour Super-8.

The trailer can be viewed from this link.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... 2016067212

I was very impressed by Driftwood and the resourceful nature of the Director
and on a personal note, I find the concept of making feature films on a low budget very exciting. But there have been many threads on various forums celebrating features films shot for as little as Ã‚Â£50 but on viewing the youtube results they resemble nothing more than long form video void of any cinematography. So my point is, a feature film is by its very name an event, that envelopes the audience in rich iconic imagery.
So let us celebrate low-budget filmmaking but not forget the power of the image that films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Easy Rider have in common...they have given cinema iconic images that will last for years to come, and as 21st Century Indie filmmakers we can do the same because the tools of the trade are now more available then ever before but we have a heritage to acknowledge.

Post by **StoneBuilder** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 8:00 pm

It's not easy to capture something entirely new, but it is just about possible. Which is what keeps it going ...

Post by **mattias** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:45 pm

looks very, very cool, but where in the low budget filmmaker's handbook does it say that voicover has to be recorded in a public toilet? in my book it said if you don't have a studio, do it in the car, and if you don't have a car do it under a thick blanket. and by do i mean whatever you want me to. ;-)

/matt

Post by **zantizoom8** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 1:51 am

erm, mattias, i dont think that was a voiceover, but dialogue spoken by a character in one of the cuts he is seen speaking it. a real voiceover might have been nice somewhere to give some idea of what the film is about. cant see from the trailer if there is any plot or story there. something about a girl, a gun and a teacup? if there are colour shots as mentioned, didnt see any. very dark film in every sense of the word. avant-garde pulp noir ? mysterious without explanation. looks well produced.

Post by **Astro** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:16 am

LOL :lol:
Yeah the dialogue is from a scene. The locations and sound were the most problematic of the shoot.
A brief synopsis of the film from the British Film catalogue:

Girl follows the dark journey of Christina in search of her identity & missing husband Kirk. This sc-fi road movie set in the last days of the human race looks through the eyes of a young girl in a male dominated world as she uncovers the true horror of her existence.

The film is 72mins shot with a 2x Anamorphic lens on DV & Super-8
The colour Super-8 isn't in the trailer (sorry) and I really need to re-cut the trailer now that the film is finished. I cut this trailer while we were still shooting.

Post by **mattias** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:09 pm

i would never release something with voice over (sic!) that sounded like that. whether it's spoken by a character in a scene or not is academic. it's used as a voice over. when you cut to the scene you can cut to the location sound again, it's a common device.

/matt

Post by **timdrage** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:59 pm

Looks great + sounds like an interesting premise!

Post by **reflex** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 4:26 pm

I watched the trailer without sound, so I can't comment on the toilet voiceover, apart from commenting that if you *knew* there was a problem with the location sound in that scene, you shouldn't have used it. It's like handing out coffee-stained business cards.

Other thoughts:

1. My 'silent' version of the trailer presents a series of shots of people creeping around corners, looking worried, and generally hanging around. There's one 'jogging' scene in which the girl seems to have missed her bus, one shot of a girl crawling up stairs. The framing's nice, but there's no change of pace. No building tension/excitement, no action.... even with a gun to the head and boogey-man mask.

2. Gun and boogey-man mask?? Cliche: "a vivid depiction of an abstract matter that works by means of analogy and/or exaggeration." You guys are better than that.

3. I make the image ratio 2.6555:1 - almost CinemaScope. The framing looks really nice but it looks like you shot handheld throughout, which destroys the illusion of grandeur. If you hadn't told me that it was shot with an anamorphic lens, I would have thought you shot wide and letterboxed 16:9 video. (what I'm avoiding saying is that this is a case of choosing a "cool" technical approach which adds little value to the end product).

4. Everybody seems to be around the same age, which I'm guessing is pretty close to yours. It's something that crops up again and again in low budget films. Not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation. It's definitely not a trend to continue as you age, unless you're planning a slasher remake of On Golden Pond as your swan song.

Post by **zantizoom8** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:22 pm

Yes mattias, you may be right, the dialogue is used as voiceover until you see it is a character speaking. The echo chamber effect lends nothing but a questionable sound technique as you pointed out. But isnt a voiceover for a trailer usually a deep voice announcer giving you the scene or premise of the film beginning with: "In A World....." :lol: most-used-trailer-cliche-ever

Post by **Termin8Anakin** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 4:34 pm

I too think the sound needs a lot of retooling.
I also agree with Reflex that the aspect ratio is way to wide. Unless you were were planning on and were able to make good use of all that space, I think it's a bit of a waste, really.

The trailer was a bit to ambiguous and vague to be able to get any proper details as to what the story is - I would never have been able to gather what was from that British Board synopsis from watching this trailer.
There were just too many close-ups of people with different expressions on their face, and not enough of their surroundings...or at least any indication about where they are and what's happening.

Lookin forward to the next cut of the trailer though, and the film itself of course!

Good luck! XD

Post by **Astro** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:35 pm

Thank you to everyone for viewing the trailer so far and the opinions of the members here are really useful. I will cut a new trailer soon as we are fine tuning everything.
The sound is being worked on as we speak.
As regards to the ratio, I really love the aspect ratio and I think we make really good use of it throughout the film with gorgeous shots of London & Cambridgeshire.
I Co-Directed/shot another feature film in DV last year in the same ratio and the judges of the 'New York International Independent Film & Video Festival' (that's a mouthful) loved the widescreen shots (as well as the content) and it will screen in New York in Feb 2008. But it is a matter of taste, but I adore the widescreen ratio and I can't visualize my ideas in anything else.

Post by **Termin8Anakin** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 12:32 am

Yeah I'm kinda the same way XD

I remember when I was a kid I was never able to get into widescreen viewing when renting videos (there were widescreen editions of films at the video store) because it seemed so small. 4:3 all the way!
Now I can't stand watching those old VHS tapes of mine because it always feels like there's something missing...XD

Post by **mattias** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 1:02 am

i love the aspect ratio as well, but i agree it doesn't work quite as well with handheld as it does with more composed framings. still great though, much better than the horrible 16:9 format people seem to like these days, presumably only because it's different from 4:3 which despite being a great format is considered stale by audiences. speaking of which, somebody should make a 4:3 black and white film, it's been a while.

/matt

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