DVC 13 "The Devil's Due" by Bruce Foreman
 

Rick Lara starred in a previous UWOL entry of mine, "Vision Quest", and I liked his performance so well I was looking forward to handing him another role to do. DVC 13 gave me just that chance. And it gave me a chance to work with another strong performer, Mike Anderson is the director of Creative Services at one of our local TV stations.

Both liked the basic story premise immediately and I have to say we all seemed to have a lot of fun with this one.

Shot with Canon's new HF 100 which uses SDHC cards to record in AVCHD format, and edited in Pinnacle Studio 11.1.2 (which edits AVCHD natively with no transcoding).

Notice YouTube's new "Watch In High Quality" option just below the viewing window on the right. Makes a big difference on material uploaded in Hi Def.

Bruce:

Liked the music and darkness of this one. Though I have been involved in last one or two of these, it looks like you are pushing out there in your craf-- special effects, and all , wow...

I was rooting for the guy to somehow beat the devil out of his bargain.... guess we might see that in a sequel..... :)

Loved the lighting on the opening scene – you made the shadows fall off Rick’s face very nicely. All of the lighting is quite good, for that matter.

This movie grew on me with subsequent viewings. At first I was distracted by the “jump cuts” – even when I determined it was a creative choice. Then I watched it again and got into the story.

Your actors did nice work. I found the fellow in the Mickey Mouse shirt (which I loved) to be pretty believable—his more animated persona gave the right amount of energy to the scenes. Even though “hell” wasn’t quite as believable the first time through, as everyone knows I can’t do an effect to save my life so I think you did a good job!

For me, this is your most accomplished film to-date. The story contains a good measure of suspense that carries right through the ending, plus the production quality is high.

Well done, Bruce.

Great Job, Bruce!
 

My first thought: This is a fantastically moody piece reminding me of "Angel Heart". Images were rich, background and foreground light balanced well and Mr. DeVille was eerily realistic. Your music accompanyment tied it all together very well. I am glad you took the chance to not give us a happy, neatly wrapped ending. Oh, and I love the way you interpreted hell. Sporadic flames hissing upwards here and there hinted that he wasn't totally in hell, but, rather, still straddling earth and hell. Reminded me of a stylized broadway play stage in that some of the productions I had seen in the past had simple sets with just enough props to suggest mood and location. Your choice in interpreting hell was just right. And doesn't your story address the demons in all of us? Plenty of food for thought.

Cool, as Lorinda mentioned, I also felt attracted by the use of lighting in the opening shot. Gret play on the name DeVille, my favorite bit of your entry. Lots of editing and effects, nicely done Bruce!

Very, very interesting look you gave this film. It kinda looked like it was shot in front of a green screen. The lighting really brought out the actors and separated them from the background, giving it a very otherwordly effect, which definitely played into the film. I liked this one.

I really liked the sets you chose and created. They worked nicely together and you had a good sequence to get us through the years of luck. Very nicely woven together in a nice package that makes us want to know what happens next :)

Bruce,

The hi-def viewing makes a big difference. Rick has a great presence, believeable as Lucifer. I'd liked to have seen him playing a few licks on that guitar.

As Lorinda mentioned, the lighting was great, the mood nice.

Storyline, I'd liked to have seen a twist. And I would have added some major babes in there. You need temptation, to raise the stakes, men will make the deal with the devil, but not over a car or house. Lorinda will probably tell you to ignore me, as I just want to see flesh. She might be right...

Does the devil always offer a 10 year pact? Hummmm... both my marriages lasted 10 years.

Every now and then I agree with something Dick says. Like this:
;)

Actually, there is one thing: I hadn’t thought about it before, but it would have been kind of cool to see some action on that guitar. Probably no time, though.

I wanted to. Rick recorded that piece ("Diablo Suelto" or "The Devil Walks") in 1995 and it has not been a regular part of his sets his band plays. He wasn't sure he could play it right without holding us up on production.

Also we tried to keep things simple and didn't try to set up any band equipment, the club had their jukebox going and we were trying to interfere as little as possible.

So I ripped the music from his CD and laid parts of it down on the the music track and pulled it low so it wouldn't compete with the dialogue.

His band is super smooth, and there is one other number he has written and put vocals to it, when he gets it copyrighted I want to do a music video of it during one of his performances. The band is "The Concho Bandits".

For the "card table from Hell" sequence, I lucked out. Mike had access to a drama academy building in which the main room had black walls. I was able to work mainly with one broad flood (100watt eq CFL bright white) and keep 15' of separation between the table and any wall. That made everything I didn't light go pretty black.

The flame effects were on black so I used lumakey on black. If I had more time to allow a lot more rendering, I could have put more fire in the background, but in this case less was better.

For everyone I'm putting in my comments before I read anyone else's just so I remain unbiased. Sorry if it ends up being redundant.

The locations were great and I thought the lighting, especially in the bar, really worked well. I liked the music a lot too. It really set your mood.

Some of the setups around the table while Garret was still standing were a bit too similar for me. So that the cuts between them felt like jump cuts rather than cuts to new angles. A couple of times it felt like DeVille was reading, but no points off for that, we all do what we can with what we have available.

Smile,
Kris

Hey Bruce -- loved the opening with DeVille playing the guitar! You got some nice shallow depth of field there in those shots. At first, I thought, "Dang, how is he pulling that clean of a key?" Then I realized, "Nope, no key... just good lighting."

Very clever with the use of pulling a black key during the card scene. The fire effect is a nice touch. I've got an idea -- I wonder if color correcting the scene (the actors, not the fire) so it leans toward a slight reddish orange tint would enhance the scene any? I figure if they're in a room with fire, some of that light would reflect off of their faces, right?

Nicely done, and great pick of actors -- I certainly don't want to be playing cards with that guy!