*FILM* AWAY

[Bill Edwards]

Thanks for the DVD. That was very impressive man.

!!SPOILERS!!




Nice set up and then a slow switcheroo. Liked the way the issue, what ever it was, was just hinted at. Leaving it all to the viewers' imagination. The young boy was very good but I thought the brief fight scene lacked energy. To me it didn't look like there was any hitting going on. That's my only criticism though. Great compositions and nice use of natural sounds and silence. The edits were really well timed too. There was a sense of rhythm in the cuts that always stayed subtle. Many film makers fear silence. It can be so powerful and you use it with great judgement.

Nice extras too. Was really interested in the storyboard. Seems you stayed very focussed.

I don't know much about how festivals work but I'd like to think you'd do well.

All the best with it!

[Ria]

Hey Ryd,

Thanks loads for the DVD, which was really well put together by the way.

Congratulations! I really liked the film a lot. It looked absolutely lovely, and the sound was wonderful too. It felt entirely coherent in style, tone and execution which is really an impressive achievement in itself.

Mainly I just wanted to say really well done for doing something so apparently 'simple', which of course is as far as you can get from easy!

Two very minor criticisms though. I also felt that the performances were not quite 100% in places, though a script such as this makes great demands on the actors, and i've seen infinitely worse many many times! Also, I personally think in a six minute film, opening titles are maybe just a wee bit indulgent...Mind you, that's just an entirely personal preference, so I don't think you need to take it too seriously ;D To be honest, I really just loved the opening shots, and wished they were incorpoarted into the body of the film.

Those (very minor) things aside;

I haven't seen a great deal of your stuff, but I think this shows a great deal of confidence and maturity. I hope your happy/proud of it, I really think you should be! Great script too Salv. Really liked that it didn't spell things out too much. As others have mentioned it proves less is always more.

All the very best with the festivals, I think you'll get some great responses.

[RydCook]

Just a quick one guys, to let you know i'm not dead. Just as you began to give feedback my internet died at home... should be getting a new modem soon to sort it out. Haven't time to read any of the feedback above.. (at work!) But a quick thanks for waztching asnd giving feedback, I will read all once I'm back online at home!!! Thanks again.

[RydCook]

Well what do you know! Got home after posting above... and my new modem had arrived! Have just read all of the feedback! Thanks all for taking time to give it a watch and give feedback ;D

Dazzab, thanks mate. Very encouraging comments. It is great to have a DOP on board, just freed me up to direct. I do feel I should have taken more advantage of this though. I'd like to know your interpretation if you wanna PM me?!


Hey bleahaa! Am honoured that your first post was in my film's thread!! ;D Good to hear from someone who's seen it screened! I havn't even seen it on the big screen yet! Ha ha. Thanks also for checking out my youtube stuff, don't often get a lot of views! This is the first film I've made that I feel worthy to submit to festivals. Can't wait to see where it goes!

Jill thanks, about the writing... we only did a couple of drafts, but the one used was pretty different to the original. Originally a lot more was explained, then me and Salv agreed to take a lot out. It certainly was a tough gig for the actors, Josh (jamie) is 13 and hasn't ever had a leading role in a film, although he's done a lot of stage work. I personally think, and others agree that he did very well indeed here. Shane (David) is better at aggressive roles, and this was hard for him. He hate's his real brother! Anyway, I think he's done well considering. He put a lot of effort in and I think there are some nice moments in there. I think I should have pushed them more, I have learnt about some faults in my directing, as said above, I should have taken more advantage of being director. I think I held back a little as I was so free if you know what I mean?!

Chromebaby - I also like how the issue is left to imagination, it is what I had intended and am glad that it works. Agreed about the fight... tried my hardest in the edit to get some more energy there, but I feel in the end it was a fault in my direction. You learn from it ay!? I see now how I should have done it... Thanks bout the edit, originally I did fear the silence! There was some in the original edit... but not enough, so not untill the second edit did more silence come in... it really works. Also a couple of lines were taken out. I did originally want silence.. was difficult on the shoot to get it from the actors... you ask for 5 seconds silence and you get 2!! Then in the edit I feared it because I felt like it'd look a bit amateur... anyway, learnt from it now! Glad you like that storyboard comparison. It's always good to do a storyboard I think. I hope it shows no-matter how bad your drawings are... they're worth doing. Thanks again mate.

Ria, some nice criticisms there. Thanks for mentioning the sound! Hate editing sound.... so glad it worked out well! Yeah... fair enough on the titles, I still like 'em! Suppose I would though! Thanks

Very happy with all this feedback guys! Me and Salv, (and all overs involved) are very proud of the film indeed! I'm not completely happy with it, but I still absolutely love it. Can't wait to get it into festivals!!!

Anyone else want a copy? ;D

Hey,

I'm glad that Ryd has now replied as I didn't want to wade in with my thoughts and speak over the top of the director. I'm very proud of the piece its liberating to see someone else shoot your script but saying that, this was Ryd's vision from the start, I just helped him realise it in script form. I'm glad some people feel they "know what it is about" etc, as the ambiguity is something I (we) carried over into the second draft and was influenced with the new direction Abbeyhill has taken me as a filmmaker.

I knew that Ryd had talent but I must admit that I was stunned at how the film turned out visually, considering he shot it in a few hours one day (that's right ain't it?). I'm happy for all involved and hope that others get to see it.

If anyone is interested in collaborating on a script, please get in touch.... I'm open to all ideas!

[Gareth]

thanks for the dvd mate

the fact the kids a stage actor explains a lot! I thought he must be,

the production value of this was really impressive and you've shown a big jump from your earlier stuff, the sound was superb (apart from the ADR at the end which needs to be quieter) and the cinematography was spot on (the picture on the DVD was really noisy though, looking at how blocky the titles were I think you could do a better job of encoding it to DVD, what software did you use??)

really really impressive though, this shows you can make professional looking and sounding films.

The big disappointment for me was the performances though, it was a tough job for the actors and for yourself directing. I'm just not sure you focused on the beats of the scene enough, the kid should have built his aggression up to the fight, instead he just shouted and over pronounced his lines from the off, it felt either over or under rehearsed and like they were focusing more on their lines than the emotions. I hate over pronounced dialogue more than anything but it could seem even worse for me being a northerner???

anyway I'm really impressed and its a really good effort, I just think you need to be AS exact about the emotions your building to and performance your trying to achieve as you obviously were with your shots

[RydCook]

Yes Salv, the shoot took 7 hours, in one day.

Thanks Gareth! What's ADR?! Ha ha. Audio dub? As for the DVD... yeah. I can't use DVD studio pro at the moment which is an absolute bugger. Basically it means, I have to import my film into iMovie (thus compressing it) and then share with media browser (compressing it again) to use in iDVD. It's the only way I can get the file to play on the DVD in widescreen. If I just drop the file in... on iDVD it'll play the film as 4:3 no matter what.

Performances... I put it down to my direction as said above. I think they both deserve credit, particularly Josh. I can see your point though.

[Gary]

Hey, looks really good, would love a copy. I'll pm you my details.

[Gareth]

haha automated dialogue replacement I think? just me trying to sound clever!

I just started to use compressor 3 to convert Z1 footage to DVD and it has a strange effect of smoothing things out a bit too much, making it look even more videoy, not so bad for music vids (especially live ones) but I'm hoping to make a short before xmas and it really wont suit that. When I used iDVD it seemed to loose alot of picture quality compared to when you convert it straight to mpeg3.

whats the plan for your next short???

[RydCook]

Oct 8, 2008 12:55:44 GMT Gareth said:

haha automated dialogue replacement I think? just me trying to sound clever!

I just started to use compressor 3 to convert Z1 footage to DVD and it has a strange effect of smoothing things out a bit too much, making it look even more videoy, not so bad for music vids (especially live ones) but I'm hoping to make a short before xmas and it really wont suit that. When I used iDVD it seemed to loose alot of picture quality compared to when you convert it straight to mpeg3.

whats the plan for your next short???

Not saying

Safe to say, the next thing you see from me will be very different to this.

[Gareth]

alright well when you planning on shooting it?

[RydCook]

Oct 8, 2008 15:50:28 GMT Gareth said:

alright well when you planning on shooting it?

Well... who says I haven't already shot it?

[Gareth]

cool well look forward to seeing it

[Dave]

A DVD in the post that isn't from Love Film? What's this?

**SPOILERS**
I liked this. The story was interesting, although I didn't come to any conclusion as to what was actually the problem at home.
The twist at the end was good, although without knowing what the issue at home was, it seemed quite an easy move.
There was no clever element to the twist as the film didn't have a detailed set-up which could then later be twisted. With it all being vague, it was kind of an empty twist.
It felt like an ending, but in retrospect, it left me feeling a bit conned.

Most of the acting was a bit 'big', but as has been mentioned, the stage acting style would explain that.

Once again, Ryd puts in a flawless edit! I would say that Ryd is the best editor to have shown his work on this forum by a mile!

Also on a technical note, I get the feeling that this obsession with depth-of-field that has been heavily discussed on this forum is causing some damaging results.
There were a couple of times in this film where the whole depth-of-field thing looked really over done.
There's a bit where the older brother is talking in close-up and the background is so out of focus it distracted me! Looked really un-natural. I've think I have only ever seen depth-of-field that extreme in shots that actually contain some focus-pulling to move between background and foreground or vice versa.

[RydCook]

Oct 13, 2008 17:10:31 GMT Dave said:

A DVD in the post that isn't from Love Film? What's this?

**SPOILERS**
I liked this. The story was interesting, although I didn't come to any conclusion as to what was actually the problem at home.
The twist at the end was good, although without knowing what the issue at home was, it seemed quite an easy move.
There was no clever element to the twist as the film didn't have a detailed set-up which could then later be twisted. With it all being vague, it was kind of an empty twist.
It felt like an ending, but in retrospect, it left me feeling a bit conned.

Most of the acting was a bit 'big', but as has been mentioned, the stage acting style would explain that.

Once again, Ryd puts in a flawless edit! I would say that Ryd is the best editor to have shown his work on this forum by a mile!

Also on a technical note, I get the feeling that this obsession with depth-of-field that has been heavily discussed on this forum is causing some damaging results.
There were a couple of times in this film where the whole depth-of-field thing looked really over done.
There's a bit where the older brother is talking in close-up and the background is so out of focus it distracted me! Looked really un-natural. I've think I have only ever seen depth-of-field that extreme in shots that actually contain some focus-pulling to move between background and foreground or vice versa.

Hey Dave, thanks for the feedback!

Now... could you explain what the Twist was? I'm gonna have to admit that, neither I nor Salv had intended a twist of any kind. Infact, I admire the film for not having a twist. Nearly all short films have twists and that bores me. I also like it so no one knows what the issue at home is. Imaginers can imagine one, or relate to it by their own. And people expecting detail, which most films give, I suppose are going to be disappointed.

I had noticed in the edit that there was a possible interpretation there for a twist. I'm not gonna say where. I'll leave you to tell me. I'm glad that you have this interpretation of the film. Its amazing how many different reactions different people can have to the same film.

Thanks about the edit Dave! Bit of a boost of confidence there. I am considering not editing my next film. But perhaps I should. I don't mind editing... its kinda frustrating sometimes. I think it'd be really nice to leave it to someone else. But thats hard, cos once you've shot something you feel like its your baby as such. I much prefer being on the shoot, it's my favourite bit.

The depth of field, thanks to a £4000 pound adapter. The shot you mentioned... I remember Pete the cinematographer using a specific lens for those close ups. I assumed most films used this for close ups... looked pretty natural to me. I'll get Pete on here to look at this thread see what he says!

Thanks for the feedback Dave. Apologies for ranting.