"below" short film made in 72 Hours shot on DVX100 - Magic Bullet
 

We just posted our short film "below" that was entered into the 72 Hour Film Maker Contest 2005. We had 72 hours to write direct edit a film. This was one of our entires. It was filmed on Panasonic DVX100 edited on Final Cut Pro and color corrected in Magic Bullet.

http://www.foolmartyr.com/below.htm
http://www.foolmartyr.com

Looking forward to the input!

Thanks much!
Clark

I really liked the ending, although I thought it was a bit long. I loved the elevator shot. Overall, great job.

Yeah i didnt really notice a pacing difference until the end and then you totally ramped the pacing....maybe a more subtle increase would have built the tension even more...but damn i like this one a lot. 72 hours you cant beat that good job.

I love a good dance number. I've always wanted one with hundreds of Abraham Lincolns.

I liked it a lot the movie to me flowed smoothly and the ending was a really good twist dude. very good stuff - got any more?

Thanks everyone!
We have a couple more shorts going up soon...stuff we did in previous years contests. We also have a scene from our feature film "heads or tails" up now http://www.foolmartyr.com/20secondsb.htm and the trailers are at http://www.foolmartyr.com

This was filmed on the Panasonic, edited in Final Cut and color corrected with Magic Bullet as well.

Nice job. I liked all the shots of the various posts. Gives me the impression that she could be anywhere, or he could have done this any number of other times. Pretty cool.

I am surprised no one brought up the "David Lean" reveal. My only critique is I would have established that he was definitely a "bad guy" before because your reveal was fantastic (when the elevator door opens up) but it would have been a much more powerful moment if we were already aware of the possibility of danger. I understand why you didn't do it because that allowed the wide elevator shot to surprise you... perhaps that was my issue was that there were two suspenseful setups and only one payoff.

Overall... for 72 hours... developing a story with that kind of twist, with artistic flare... very impressive and...

I would like to know, out of curiosity, if the dance number is a symbol of how he sees his next "conquest" and that the other women, specifically in black, appear from nowhere dancing behind her as though being his former victims.

Was the elevator shot completely organic or was any compositing done?

Highest Regards,

Daniel Riser

Thanks for all the input. I can see what you mean about the "bad" guy aspect. We were a little constrained with the 7 minute length as the first cut was about 10. We had a few more hints as to his character but they had to go... for time.

It's hard to see on the small screen but The dancers are labelled "victims" in the opening credits. And the elevator shot was organic...it's a local parking garage elevator.

Ok. So I interpreted the dancers correctly. I was worried folks here would think I was a nut.

I really liked it and I just have to say again... I LOVED the David Lean reveal.

and let this be an encouragement to you, as a storyteller, that I didn't need to see the title "victims" to know that women were victims and he was on to his next conquest... that's something that is difficult to pull off.

High Regards,

Daniel Riser

thanks very much.

it feels good to put together something short after filming a feature for over a year and editing it for over a year after that. that long haul really can drain you dry.

"I love a good dance number. I've always wanted one with hundreds of Abraham Lincolns."

How about just four score?

I like the elevator scene, but it seemed in the last few frames that she was fighting him off. I was thrown for a second. In the end, I was thinkin that pipe would make a great didgeridoo. Just think, a whole city filled with the sounds of tortured souls playing the didgeridoo. Perhaps that is just my own psyche adding that bit...

lol...the guy that scored our feature film was all about the digeridoo, maybe i should get him to try something for it hehe.

Well, I'll be blunt.

I really didn't like the photography - it all looked so washed out and overexposed it gives the idea it was shot with a 1-ccd cheapo camera.

The camera work is quite poor - bad framing, shaky camera handling, bad flow overall.

However the idea was great and I loved the ending. Shame we aren't brought 'closer' to the characters.

In other words, technically it leaves a lot to be desired but creatively I found it very nice.

thanks for the input...being blunt is fine...we are always looking for constructive criticism. i'll pass it on.

the image was obviously intentionally degraded during color correction to achieve the overexposed look. unfortunately the mp4 codec drained even more color out of it.