Sous Le Jour - A Canadian French Film

[Kevin Burnfield]

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert J. Payne :
Regarding the conversation on the bench, I think the pauses were meant to be semi-strong reactions from the actors, and if the acting from the Male was better, the pauses would've been more effective, but some pauses were, indeed, necessary. (like right before the female says, "I don't care.") Just my opinion.>>>

I take it that this was in response to my comment... what I meant was that there is not always a need to cut back to the person and that sometimes it's better to stay on the person receiving that line to get a bigger chunk of their reaction to the line. You already know who's talking.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

I feel there are sort of 2 separate points being discussed here. One are the pauses between character's lines while the other is which character is being shown while there is speaking.

Funny is the fact that it was a very cold day here in November last year when I shot the bench scene (coincidentally it was the first day they opened up public skating at the park) and the actors flew through their lines. I only realized it in editing how fast their dialog took place so I was able to extend the pauses which really weren't as long as they appeared in the final cut of the short.

I think with casual conversation pauses aren't necessary, but with confrontation or conflict they emphasis drama which is what I guess I was trying to do. The guy is weak and intimidated by his female character so he hesitates before speaking to her, he is unsure as to what to say next, perhaps he even feels torn. The woman's "silence" or brief moment of thought is reacting to what has been said to her, she then responds "I don't care".

As for which character is shown while speaking, I completely understand this idea but find it more appropriate in long converstations, interviews and simply when the topic of conversation is boring for the viewer so we switch angles around a little and perhaps even throw the odd wide shot in there. I worked as a switcher and eventually directed some live type TV shows and agree changing up what we see is definitely an option and needed in the right situation.

Again with the dialog being so short in my film and almost confrontational from the minute the guy sits down, I didn't feel there is not a lot of opportunity to show the opposite character of who's speaking. I watched it again just now and the only spot I would say I could have done it in is when he says "It's true". But now I also see some of the cuts could have come later than they were made.

Well either way I definitely like the critique and feedback. We could be talking about how crazy the story was or how the shots were poorly composed so I'll take critique on something that can still be changed as opposed to too late ;)

[Robert J. Payne]

Kevin: I absolutely agree with you. I usually don't prefer fast cuts at all, but sometimes they work for me.

Dennis: I understand what you were trying to do. The scene is still very well done. There's just so many different options while shooting a simple, short, conversation. Regardless, you handled it well.

- Robert

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Great news - I just found out this film was accepted to a local film festival here in Toronto. I will post the details when they become available.

One minor problem is they want a teaser or trailer for the short film. Anyone have any ideas considering the shortness of the short itself? I do have some other footage of wrought iron fences from the park, the guy walking and shots of the empty bench both static and tilting shots - none of which were used in the short.

Any guess at how long the teaser would be for my short ?

Thanks for any input.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Maybe you could use sequences of the woman and him walking, and let them dissolve into each other? or maybe mix it with that photo of he and his wife? I don't know really, it's really short to make a trailer of it :-:$

Maybe you could only show a black screen, and you can hear some dialogue of one of them, wich could evoke interest, and then you just see the title of the movie appear?
Then you don't have images, but maybe people will be very curious?

Or maybe a picture of the bench empty, and then some voices with dialogue that evokes curiosity? and then the title that appears above the bench?
I couldn't really say

Hope it helps

(btw: sorry for the possible bad englisch, it is not my native tongue)

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Actually you have given me some good ideas. I think I will dissolve between black and close up shots of their facial expressions. On the black parts I could use little pieces of the dialog, "Did you talk to her" and "I have decided not to leave my wife". The only problem then is how cheesy would a trailer appear with subtitles and would it be worse without them because not many would understand.

I don't think I could use the photo as that would then reveal the ending. I could however keep cutting back to the camera dolly in the bedroom but then never reveal the characters in the bed.

I can't see a trailer for this being more than 20 seconds based on what I have to work with.

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

Dennis, have you seen "The barbarians invasions"? You know, the Denis Arcan's movie that won the Oscar of best foreign film? The movies has been distributed worldwide with subtitles. I have seen the trailer Miramax does for the USA. Instead of putting shot with dialog, a voice over described the feel of the movie with strong images from the film where people exprimed emotions, laugh, etc. Perhaps something like that could be well suited for your film. You can in fact use some sequences of the ending, without revealing anything depending of how you edit it.

[Rob Lohman]

For your trailer I wouldn't give too much away like the sentence:
" I have decided to not leave my wife "

That says SO MUCH, too much in my opinion.

I really liked the idea of the empty bench with a couple of lines
that you hear them say and the title fading in or something.

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Well thanks to many suggestions by members on this site I have thrown together a trailer for a 5 minute short with only 2 locations which I thought would be impossible.

It is simple yet perhaps effective so thank you everyone for your ideas.

http://www.starcentral.ca/trailers/Sous-Trailer.wmv

The short should be screened at the Toronto Online Film Festival which begins this weekend, let's hope it is well received there.

Thanks again.

[Rob Lohman]

Dennis, I hope this approriate. I've been playing a bit with the
footage you've put up to make a totally different kind of trailer.
I had a bit of fun playing with it and this is what I ended up with:

www.visuar.com/DVi/RobSLJ.wmv
(right-click and save target to download, watch at 200% in WMP)

What do you think?

How did the screening go?

[Dennis Hingsberg]

Rob,

That is totally appropriate, it definitely gives me a different and unique idea of what can really be done with any footage. Thanks for your idea and I'm glad you had fun playing with it.

The screening hasn't happened yet, what this festival does is puts your trailer online and then asks for viewers to provide feedback on which films should actually screen later at a future date. My film/trailer for Sous Le Jour should be up next week along with another film called 'Pilgarlic' I did DOP on - it also was shot with the mini35 XL1 combo - check it out.

I'm still amazed that you would spend time playing around with the film to create your own version of the trailer, that is awesome thanks.

Dennis

[Rob Lohman]

All in the learning experience Dennis! This was done in a couple
of hours and I wanted to try the original idea someone else and
myself had posted. See how it would look like. It's just a rough
version, but it was fun to work with the limited footage I had.

Great that you liked it! <g>

Good luck on the voting. Where can I see this other film?

[Dennis Hingsberg]

This other film is 12 minutes long written and directed by Joseph De Leo here out of Toronto. You can see some pics on my web site www.starcentral.ca/pilgarlic.htm and www.starcentral.ca/pil.htm - most probably I will create a wmv version sometime soon and post it online. We just finished it a couple of months ago and getting ready for 2005 festivals.

I keep you posted on it.

[Jose di Cani]

HI

Watched the movie. The movie didn't do anything to me. I think the cutting of the scenes and the way the sotry is told is strange and well, you can see that something is lacking. It has a semi-profesional touch. In the beginning I think the acting of both persons sitting on the bench on the soft side. You can see it is acted. It doesn't looks real. First of all, when the girl was waiting, she looked to the right and suddenly you made this cut to the next scene and the guy was coming from the left. Strange. And the shot on the bed was strange too. I saw some minor camshakes there. It seems amateur. And then at the end a strange cold cut to a scene with a photograph. It doesn't seem right. You have a hard way of cutting from one scene to another. The sound was good and the girls were beautifull, especially the last one. The locations were ok. The acting a bit too soft and like they studied it from the papers. Good luck!

[Dave Stewart]

LOL. I liked it. Call it sous le sheets. Salut, mon ami. Need a cameraman avec le stuff?