Forgive my misspelled word
 

Dear Fellow DVers:

In one of my earlier posts on this thread, I misspelled the word "phenomenal." Forgive me. I am a stickler for the Queen's English and proper spelling. I just noticed it and am embarrassed.

Now Bravo has to whack my bottom with the "Board of Education" followed by me screaming "THANK YOU SIR MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?"

i don't understand why this film/video is taking such a beating here. i've seen much worse work done on film than what was done in this video. furthermore, the DVD treats, which included the "making of" story were pretty interesting, especially for anyone interested in the possibilities of making films from video. i only wish they had done more of it. i can imagine that the blow-outs might have made it look not-so-good on the big screen of a film, but i watched it at home, on video, and it wasn't such a bad little dalliance. it is always interesting to me to observe the film v. video debates.

here's a sacred cow to gore, for example: citizen kane, great film but guess what? LOUSY VIDEO. on a 13'' tv screen, it flattens into sentimental gibberish.

on the other hand, open water was probably a junky film, but it looked pretty cool on my neighbor's 13'' screen. GOOD VIDEO. and blow-outs barely show in video format.

we're living in a world of multiple formats and multiple contexts. that's good news. there's plenty of room at the trough, oink oink.

I got it from NetFlix. It was just barely tolerable. The earlier description of 3 minutes of story and 96 minutes listening to an argument sounds about right. I was so unimpressed I didn't even care about the extras (if there even were any, I didn't even look). There wasn't much believable about it and I am thankful I could surf the internet while I watched it, that's probably the only reason I made it all the way thru the movie.

(I wondered how they could miss the "HOTTEST CHICK ON THE BOAT" myself, but when her mouth started, I decided it might have been intentional)

Open Water indie
 

Just saw the full version of Open Water yesterday... I was surprised how 'video' it looked. It seems like he didn't bother much in post to try give it a more filmic look. Also, the resolution isn't very good. It looked much more blurry than anything I saw shot with a DVX - The PD150 just doesn't seem to hold up.

I also felt the characters were totally under developed, and there aren't any key scenes to the film, something you usually bring out of most good suspense films. Lots of 'establishing shots' to extend the films length...

I'm just curious how this and Blair Witch managed to become so successful. It's not like there's something really special about them. They're not terrible either, but I've seen shorts better than both. Is it just because these are feature-length films? I really don't get it.

I'm just curious how this and Blair Witch managed to become so successful.

My two cents, they both have great and simple 'hooks.'
I don't know that I would go as far as to call them 'high concept'...but the hook is there none the less.

Blair Witch: Documentary crew goes out in search of a local legend and disapears, two years later their footage is found.

Open Water: Two divers are left behind in the middle of the ocean in shark infested waters.


Those ideas are easily 'pitchable'
They are easily advertised, marketed, and sold.

That's my guess.

There is a very annoying practice on the part of the studios to release vhs versions of "films" shot on video in their original video format. I first saw this in "Anniversary Party." The dvd version was struck from the film release, so you saw the film as the DP had intended. But if you rented the vhs version, you saw the uncorrected videotape output. Ugh. (However, good for comparison purposes.) I believe that sometimes the films are even released on dvd in the original video version, but none come to mind.

Is it possible you were viewing the videotape version of Open Water?

Luis is right. The marketing dept stepped in and said "we can sell the hell out of this" and they do.

On one hand, the "hellsell" makes them $$$$ and creates a whole new career for the filmmakers. The husband/wife team that made "Open Water" will be working with a MUCH bigger budget next time.

The other hand: The marketing dept overplays their hand and makes the movie seem like something it's not. I thought Open Water would have been a very nice low budget movie if my expectations hadn't been ramped up by the "Jaws Lite" campaign.

Same with Blair Witch, except that at least the last 10 minutes of Blair is actually frightening.

Wayne, I saw it on cable tv so I very much doubt it's a version different from the original. In fact it seems odd to me the director would supply the studio with the raw footage of the film. It's more likely they just take what's done and release it.

As to the films having great hooks, I agree, except wouldn't it be better if they just bought the film rights and reshot it for a low budget ($500k or $1m) and release that version? I mean, if they're forking out $2m to buy the film, they might as well do a good job out of it. Imrpove the story & production and keep the hooks.

On the side of the audiences, why doesn't word of mouth work in this case? Or should I say, it works in favour of the films instead of against it. If a friend of mine asked what I thought of any of the two I definitely tell him not to bother. IMO there's a lot of luck involved here... Sure marketing, etc. helps a lot, but somehow people decided to go watch this films instead of a professional production (which isn't necessarily better, but at least it doesn't look cheap).

Are films shot in HD like Once upon a time in mexico, and Spy kids 2, transferred from film to DVD, or the DVD is the output from HD.
I ask this because the films look smooth and film like compared to TV HD, ie ER, which seems a sharp as the devil himself.

Moved the thread to the "Awake in the Dark" forum, which is about movies
you saw etc. DV for the Masses is to showcase work you've made.

Dave Ferdinand...

I have watched a lot of bad movies and almost always can find one or more redeeming qualities, even the worst of them, but...

I could not agree with you more. I was dumbfounded that it made it to Block Buster / Cable TV. The camera work, characters, and editing looked VERY rough in my opinion to have made it as far as it did. Intended as a rough gem or not... I still think - yuck. It's not that the story was so bad, but I absolutely hated the joggy camera motion and was never drawn into the characters enough to take it as serious as the situation would have been. I can honestly say it's THE worst movie I have seen in years. I watched the whole thing in total disbelief.

I hope I have not offended anyone involved with the picture (and I'm sure I have, my apologies extended), but how did this movie get funding for release?


EDITED:

I just noticed that another thread had gone through it's paces regarding this movie but didn't see it until after posting here, so sorry to beat a dead horse.

My .02

Blair Witch

Never got it; disliked it. Horrible. Completely in awe that it did what it did and a complete insult to Cinema. This film did not inspire except for one factor; If they can make this crap, I can make this crap and there is hope.

Open Water

As Luis mentions; great hook. I liked this for what it was. I knew about it before sundance and during and lauded the release. It most definately looked like video in all of it's bad video way's (Like Tad Pole for instance) and I only imagine if they shot this using the DVX or Cinealta or one of the coming HD-24p ameras. It would have been fine. The filmmakers knew how to tell a story and I think they suceeded. I felt the actors were first rate and it was a well done film with the only drawback being the limitations of the cameras used. This film inspired me in a way "That was really cool; and damn it. I can make something that cool too!"

They really didn't have much choice of cameras when shooting underwater.

Whos talking about the underwater shots? What about all of the non-underwater shooting? They DID have good cameras for that, in fact the ones used are not bad cameras by any means.


John Hudson
"I only imagine if they shot this using the DVX or Cinealta or one of the coming HD-24p ameras. It would have been fine."

You don't believe that do you? Don't blame the camera, that's just wrong, I can get better results from my mini-DV hand held. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash the efforst made to produce this movie, my hats off to them, but it is very "Indy". So how did this ever make it past that stage?

I guess I should produce one, if that movie can make it then so can mine.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash the efforst made to produce this movie, my hats off to them, but it is very "Indy". So how did this ever make it past that stage?

Content is king.
Apparently the story spoke to somone who had the power to get it distributed.

The same question you are asking in relation to 'Open Water' is the same question I ask myself about just about every movie that I see released....how did this get out there?? If it were up to me, no one would have ever seen "White Chicks," yet it was number one at the box office.

I found Open Water to be very enjoyable... you may not, and that's fine.
But apparently someone thought it was good, regardless of the cameras, regardless of the level of production.... content is what counts.

I'd rather watch Open Water again than have to watch a Deuce Bigalow sequel.

LOL

Exactly Luis; and White Chicks is a perfect example of "What and how in god's name did this happen?".

M Struthers:

They had a choice. They make water housings for all kinds of cameras including the big toys.

Daniel:

In this case, I'm putting a ton of the blame on the cameras used; like Tad Pole, like Pieces of April and like 28 Days Later it just looked horrible no matter the chosen comps and framing. Yes, I think with higher caliber cameras this film would have looked just fine and worked even more. Unfortunately it just looked and tasted like a reality program. Those cameras are great for weddingography but not a feature film and surely not a film shot on the ocean. The film looked everybit the VX-2000 and the PD150. I asked the filmmaker if they had used the DVX100 when Variety first reported it being 24-p and he said "He wished; but that camera had not come out yet."

It's a good piece if indiefilmmaking. Engaging storyline and well told. If you did not like it then it's really just subjective anyway which makes this kind of moot. Better results from your mini-DV? Yeah yeah. Give us a link when you do.

Like Luis, I'd rather watch this than Deep Blue Sea.

LOL... now we can disagree for sure! hehe... Deuce Bigalow was slapstick and I expected that "Simpsons" humor. For me Open Water simply missed it's mark.

And yes, I'll stand firm that the camera is not all that it takes to produce a good movie. Any single aspect of production can kill a movie even with a compelling story; like bad lighing, poor camera work, unconvincing acting, etc.. It's unfortunate that this movie had more than one rough wave to ride.

Would a better camera have helped? Likely. Would it have improved the lighting? I doubt it. Would it have helped the acting, not likely. I could go on but you know where I'm going with this. My only real point is: impressive as an indy, VERY impressed... but as a box office movie at $7.50+ a pop... Aw hell naw. It's okay that we disagree, I don't expect you like my movie list either. In fact, I like the fact that we can simply agree to disagree.

Peace!

Now that I will agree with.

The camera is very important in trying to make it as professional looking as possible... Sure, you'll need many other things, but if you just shoot video without any color correction it's a very bad start.

Placing 28 Days alongside with Open Water is just not fair. 28 Days looks a bit like video, but not 'holiday video with family on the beach' style video. It looks professional and worked really well, regardless of the acting and story. Open Water just looks like they didn't even make the effort. I'm making my own little first short at the moment with my GL2, and consider I achieve a much better look than this. I've also seen other stuff shot with the Optura, GS400, GL1, etc. that look way better than this.

As to 'content', I don't think Open Water had much of that either... The acting is fairly good most of the time, but there's no character development (we know almost nothing about the 2 leads), and there's no proper supporting roles. The other people there are just props, along with the boat and diving suits.

Maybe Lions Gate bought this exactly because of the video look; the 'reality show' style the film has... Just like Blair Witch. Strange, but it could be true.

A DVX would've been nice, but thought they did an outstanding job nonetheless and never seen a big problem with the image quality - I was shocked a PD150 could pull that off - haven't liked PDs for a while, but they pushed the cam to the limits for that - looked great.

Was Open Water shot on minidv?
 

IMDB says it was transfered from 24p to 35mm. I'm also curious what cameras they used in the film. Anybody have any guesses?

Well, here on IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374102/technical

it says they used a VX2000 and a PD150.

Thanks, Vito. I think I did not see that because I did not want to believe it. Thirty million from a budget of a 130k. Not bad. I wondered if it showed at sundance before it was blown up to 35mm.

Yeah, I remember when it came out that everyone was going nuts because it was shot on DV. Quite the sacriledge... A classic case of content making format irrelevant.

Please search first before posting new topics on DV Info Net... I've merged your post into our gigantic four-year-old Open Water discussion thread.

I just put it on my netflix. I'm purposefully giving myself low expectations so I can enjoy it. I confess I'd never heard of this film until a few days ago when I took my son diving and a couple people on the boat were raving about it. Someone mentioned that in real life they found a camera (waterproof housed) inside a mako shark and that was part of the movie's inspiration. Not a good day at the beach if you ask me.
Regardless, I should have known Open Water would have already been dissected here and that my ignorance is not everyone else's ignorance. I apologize. I promise to search from now on . . . no matter how ignorant I am.

Just watched Open Water. If you like diving and/or the ocean and you haven't already seen it I can't imagine you wouldn't enjoy it. DVD extras on shooting Indies was inspiring too.
I did notice the inexpensive cams at first but then the movie took off and I was completely in the moment. I can't believe they stormed Hollywood with an ME66, a beachtek, a VX2000 and a PD150. Thumbs up to Lionsgate for buying and promoting this film.