Part 1 of THE WARNING now online!
 

Hello everyone,

My latest award-winning short film entitled THE WARNING is now online. You can check it out at www.maptorch.com/the_warning.htm. I will be posting this film in three parts, one each Friday. The film stars some very talented young actors from central Ohio, Dan Kiely (Richard), Ria Filippakis (Pam), Jeff Smith (Mystery Man), Nichole Lavins (Kelly) and Elisabeth Wenzel (Marylin Monroe).

So go check out the movie, and while your there stay to watch my other short film entitled WHAT NOW? and the trailer for my feature film JACK'S HABIT recently released on video as part of a 4-movie set called Psychotic Tendencies (look for it wherever DVDs are sold online!).

Please feel free to discuss the film, and thanks for watching!

Alec Rossel
Writer/Director

Trailer
 

The trailer got my attention!!

will watch part one tomarrow night.




gus

Hi

How many cams did you use and what were they?

Thanks

Hey Jim,

I used the XL-1S. I only used one camera, but if I had two I would have used them both, just to make dialogue scenes more cohesive.

I also ran the whole movie through Magic Bullet in post. The program de-interlaces the video, ads a little motion blur and ads your choice of color palet to the final image. It takes a LONG time to render but I highly recommend it.

Alec

I noticed something in one of the shots that sort of puzzled me. The part where Richard is looking across the park at the lady on the bench - the shot with Richard in the foreground looked like a tripod shot, but the shot with the woman in the foreground zooming to Richard writing wildly in his notebook was shaky. Wondering if that was an effect or a hurried shot?

part 1
 

Alec,

While it was late I sat down and watched part one. You did a good job building suspense. I am already wondering about smoker. If I were to criticise anything at all, there was one overexposed clip and perhaps a few more subtle transitions sceenes. However, I thought you may have kept things rather sharp for effect to go along with richards character. That is pretty small overall, but it did not seem like a sceene that needed it for effect.
Give richard an A+ for his behavior. I have been an educator for 26 years and I have had two students that fit his bill, exactly!!!
I am looking forward to part 2 on Friday.

I am very curious if you built this with a real budget or you winged it any way you could? If you do not mind I would love to know what the budget was!! I ask as I will use the information and the film in one of my art classes!!


Gus

Hey Nick,

That shaky zoom was actually on a steadicam. The shot was executed as one long shot, starting with Pam walking toward the camera way back in the garden and ending with her sitting down and eating as the camera pans around to reveal Richard and zooms in on him. When I designed the shot I knew it would be long but I thought the effect would be nice (kind of Kubrickish) but in post it was just too long and I had to break it up. So that's why that zoom was not done on a tripod, and unfortunately that's as smoth as they could get it for me on the steadicam. I probably should have just cut it out.

Gus,

Thanks for watching and saying such nice things. I'm not sure which scene you're referring to that was overexposed, but it is easy to do with video that's for sure. I also told my DP that the story is told from Richard's point of view so a little dreaminess is fine since his reality is a little warped anyway. So I told him to err on the side of overexposure. (which normally you wouldn't do since it really can't be fixed in post, but I didn't want graininess from brightening a scene after the fact). As for the budget, it was in the hundreds of dollars and it came out of my pocket. To shoot a short film in Columbus, Ohio on miniDV is CHEAP. I have established myself here as someone who completes projects and gets them seen, so actors and crew will work for me because they know it will be worth it. So all I really had to pay for was tapes, gas for those who drove far and food (the biggest expense). Now for my next project, which is a feature, I'll need a budget in the couple hundreds of thousands but shooting that here in Ohio as well I can make it look like it cost a million.

Thanks again for watching guys and look for Part 2 the day after tomorrow!

Alec

So you actually hired a steadycam operator? How much did that cost, out of curiosity? I enjoyed your film, by the way...which I sort of neglected to say in the last post. ;D

Thanks Nick. The steadicam guy normally charges anywhere from $200 to $300 a day. I happened to get ahold of him when he was still trying to get his name out there, and he really liked the script so he did it for gas money (he drove about 1.5 hours for the shoot). Now that he has established himself here he charges his normal rate.

My opinion:

Pros:
- Acting.
- Locations.

Cons:
- Slooooow editing. I think you can tell the same with a 25% of time used.

Minor Cons:
- "In"s and "Out"s of audio ambience.
- Consecutive shots with diferent look in terms of light and/or tone.

Javier,

Thanks for your feedback. I never noticed the consecutive shots problems, but I will go back and take a look.

The slow pace is somehting that I struggle with using DV. I like a slow pace if it can be kept intense enough. It's just really hard with DV because you can't create those really beautiful shots with all the mood and intrigue like you can with film. As a matter of fact the scene where Pam is walking toward the camera in the park is a steadicam shot, and I originally shot it as one long shot from where she starts walking all the way to her sitting down and the camera zooming into Richard on the bench. My intention was to put it in the final movie that way but it was just too long.

I can't watch the video right now but I like the plot. It reminds me of 'The Following' by Christopher Nolan.