PigLick on 18/5/2010 at 05:11
thats awesome
witherflower on 18/5/2010 at 07:17
Quote Posted by Muzman
Hooray, the opus is done. Not mine exactly, but some large involvement on my part I think I can say.
It looks like youtube has screwed the aspect ratio a bit, so maybe I should wait til it gets uploaded again. But whatever.
Also the footage might a be a little dark and DVD mix it has might be a little quiet, so amplify and black background if you're so inclined.
I promise it won't change your life, but it's amusingly flashy for a lo/no-budget effort.
Revel in the exploitation delights of (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqpdfwpyWok)
BlindThis is one of the best lo/no budget effort I've ever seen. Please say you have a "behind the scenes" reel at the ready... Amazing and congrats on finishing it.
Sulphur on 19/5/2010 at 19:44
Muz, that's awesome. Snappy editing and visually very fucking accomplished for a short movie on a low budget. There's a lot of style and panache to it. What duties did you take on during production?
A couple of minor things that stuck out for me: I thought the film grain/noise was a teensy bit overdone and distracting, and the shakycam worked fine mostly but for the struggle at the end; it came across as slightly disjointed, maybe also due in part to the editing. The desaturated/muted colour aesthetic works, but maybe it's a little too Hollywood in places as someone couldn't resist shifting the palette towards the orange/teal range at certain spots. :D
PigLick on 20/5/2010 at 00:03
I'm assuming Muz was director of photography and sound design?
Scots Taffer on 20/5/2010 at 01:42
I was sure he was involved in editing at least given our convos.
Muzman on 20/5/2010 at 05:22
Cheerfulness. Excellent.
I didn't do any editing on this one, or effects. That's all Stu's fault one way or the other I get DP credit and all the post audio, plus I did the music at the start. Photography credit's a weird one since a lot of it was available light and it wasn't just me operating a lot of the time. Points largely for getting things in frame and in focus, I guess. But when there was lighting to be done I did it (reeeely fast), so I guess there's that. I'll send you to Stu if you want to know why the colour is a bit all over the place sometimes and he'll send you back to me to explain why the exposure brought up the grain sometimes (although a lot of the grain is a style thing, for better or worse).
Interesting that the fight is a bit hard to follow. I'm too used to it. There were a couple of beats taken out, for time or because they didn't work all that well I think , so that might be part of it.
We haven't got any behind the scenes stuff prepared (although I have most of the footage right here). It would seem a bit like too much of pain in the neck to do it right now. Although some of the car stuff is pretty funny, with the vehicle guys (who are also the police, btw) having way too much fun.
Scots Taffer on 25/5/2010 at 11:40
Muz, sorry, only just got around to watching it. Really well done mate, something to be proud of. There's a couple of hallmarks of the amateur still, I guess, like overdone effects being used once or twice too often (the black and white slo-mo zoom, constant tyre smoke on the car) and scenes going a bit overlong (the chase especially), but generally the visuals, choreography and post work was all pretty damn good. The gunplay was especially well done except some of the post stuff was a bit telling at times, though the blood mists were a nice touch. How small was the budget etc? Would be interested in hearing a little about the genesis of the project. The casting was pretty damn good. Things got a bit kinky in the end too, always good for a laugh.
Shug on 25/5/2010 at 23:41
The only thing that jarred me is that the gunshots should have been about twice as loud, but the bloodwork, car chases etc were surprisingly awesome!
Muzman on 26/5/2010 at 08:33
Cheers lads. Curiously, the gunshots are the loudest things in the mix by some large margin. Louder than the ones in Heat or Die Hard. This isn't necessarily a good thing as I'm arguably peaking too high and those guys have obviously cracked the way to make things seem loud better than I have. I like to think I got close in some repects though.
It's cool that the chase worked alright for some. That's one of the weaker elements to us.
Stu doesn't really do sublety in effects, which takes a bit of getting used to. Although I'm pretty sure there wasn't any tyre smoke added outside of a few bits in the crash.
This was actually a sponsored production initially, but the money shrank and then disappeared altogether in true not-quite-hollywood style. The main gal and the evil dude are actually proper actors who were stiffed in the end, and a couple of beind the scenes people were supposed to get some money as well. (the director his co writer at the time ended up staking out the money guy's house after he refused to return their calls and claimed to be out of the country when he was known to be still here doing other stuff in Perth's incestuous little movie scene).
In terms of actual outlay, one of the cameras was a rental and there was some light gear etc. There was probably about two grand in general costs. The rest was donated. I have no idea how much it adds up to if you cost everything at standard rates though. Heaps, I'd guess. There's the cars, some of which are purpose made, the crash cars don't run so they've got to be transported etc etc.
It was mostly shot on one mad weekend that started on a Friday night and finished early Monday morning. There were assorted pickups at other times (the prison, the motel room, some driving stuff we did with my little camera) but most of what you see was done on those days. Speed keeps costs down but causes other problems, which you can see with some of the lighting being a bit all over the place.
I've done stuff with these guys before (some of which you can see on the youtube channel). Stu in particular is always making up these sort of crazy pastiches of old seventies movies, eighties Cannon films sorts of stuff, noir and whatever else. Pretty much the manliness canon. They're written as though they're ripped from some larger story that you don't see. Which doesn't always work, frankly. But I like the idea. I really don't like shorts very much as a form. The fact that you're expected to apprentice in them for ages in this biz grates if it's not what you want to do. So this way is actually pretty good for throwing all the proper movie junk on the cheap.
(I would write more, but some stupid phony virus checker has installed itself and i must go kill it.)
Muzman on 1/6/2010 at 06:36
Playing catch up again. After some spit shining I managed to get my old student film up on Vimeo. It's pretty shakey compared to the other one (and that's not without its 'shakes').
It's interesting, I hope, for its ludicrous ambition and the fact that I have to take the blame for pretty much every aspect. It's true what they say; dying is easy, comedy is hard.
Witness the supernatural-drama-horror-rental farce (
http://vimeo.com/12177003)
The Bond (if you want. I mean, it's 25 minutes long and takes a little while to get going. It doesn't spend any time explaining about rent inspections and property reports either, so hopefully you're up to speed there).
