*FILM* My first 3 films

[stuartcondy]

Hi folks,

I'm new to the site but it looks like you're all honest, constructive people so I'd like to share my first 3 films with you.

www.myspace.com/stuartcondyfilm

Running Out was shot over 3 days in 2005 with only Myself and the star as "crew". (We slept overnight in a transit van in the highlands)

Loast was written and shot in 2 nights in February this year.

One More Minute was made in April this year.

All comments are welcome and I look forward to watching and commenting on some of your own films.

Cheers,

Stuart.

[salvador]

Hey guys,

Stuart is a mate of mines, I told him to post the films on here cos he would get some honest feedback cos you guys are great

Anyway, yeah, let the guy know what you think.

[RydCook]

Hey hey. I watched Loast but the other 2 didn't seem to work? Just came up with "error"

Anyway, Loast is great! Some nice shots, i liked that one through the window, and then it pulls back and he walks into the room.

Nice bit of editing where he pushes the frame as well, works superbly, and suits the film's quirkeyness.

I'd write more but i'm in a hurry ha ha, i'll watch it again soon.

[Dave]

I'm getting the error message too on the Running Out and One More Minute films.

*SPOILERS*
Loast was a nice little giggle. I loved the fact that by the end he's so happy with his soup and remote he's not all that bothered about the keys.

Was there any Black Books influence on the books in the fridge?
The choice of shots and the edit was all working nicely.

I liked the way that little effects were added which you weren't really expecting. The 'ting' noise and freeze-frame on each find... and then later, the bit where the main character pushes the split screen off. Worked well that, because even though people have seen that kind of thing many times, it was nice that it just suddenly happened as a kind unnecessary and throwaway moment.

[stuartcondy]

Salvador: Thanks for the shout mate! See, I told you some folk liked LOAST haha

RyD22: Thanks for the feedback. There seems to have been some problem with the myspace showing "error" when you try to watch the films. What I've done is put the Youtube links in the blog section to overcome such annoyances. If you get a chance to watch One More Minute and Running Out, it'd be great to hear what you think.... good or bad.

Dave Cheers man. D'you know I can honestly say I've never once seen an episode of black books so never got the influence from that. Don't know where it came from. Maybe the makers of Black Books saw LOAST

Cheers for the feedback guys!

[RydCook]

stuartcondy said:

Salvador: Thanks for the shout mate! See, I told you some folk liked LOAST haha

RyD22: Thanks for the feedback. There seems to have been some problem with the myspace showing "error" when you try to watch the films. What I've done is put the Youtube links in the blog section to overcome such annoyances. If you get a chance to watch One More Minute and Running Out, it'd be great to hear what you think.... good or bad.

Dave Cheers man. D'you know I can honestly say I've never once seen an episode of black books so never got the influence from that. Don't know where it came from. Maybe the makers of Black Books saw LOAST

Cheers for the feedback guys!

No worries mate, i'll check out the other 2 films soon. Might be an idea to embed the films onto your myspace? If you copy the "Embed code" thats beside the video on youtube, and then paste it in any of the sections on your myspace page, the "Movies: part for example. Also when you paste it, delete the "object" bits of the code, cos they seem to turn up on the page if you leave it there, and it looks messy.You wanna check out my Filmmaking myspace to see what it looks like here: www.myspace.com/caughtincrossfirevideo It'd be cool if you could check out vidceos too if you got time of course! But yeah i think the embedded videos look okay, they kinda change the shape of the page. Looks fine on my computer, but it is widecreen so yeah, let me know if it looks odd.

Oh and dude, watch Black Books! It's excellent.

[stuartcondy]

Genius mate.

I've embedded them with no detrimental affect to the page at all, quite the opposite.

I'll definately give your work a watch over the next day or so and tell you what I think.

Cheers,

Stuart.

[RydCook]

Glad you got it sorted mate, looks superb! I'll go watch the other two vids now.

[RydCook]

Hey, just watched "Running Out" It's pretty good. Nice simple story which is always good for a short, I couldn't understand why he was running though?! Am I an idiot, or is it not really made clear enough in the film?

Some lovely shots in there, and a good variety although it would have been nice to have more CUs especially with the running bits, because it seems to be just one long shot after the other which makes it a bit bland.

It did have a good style which kept it interesting though. Some of the cuts were a bit sketchy, and I thought it was odd how the music just stopped dead for some reason. The zooms also looked a bit Home video-ish they'd be better of they were smoother, and its also good to cut to movement if you get me, so you don't see it be still, and then begin to zoom in if you get me, it always looks like some kid playing around with a video camera if ya get me?

I'm mentioning a lot here really arn't I ha ha but i'm guessing you've allready learnt from it judging by "Loast" and to be fair, Running Out is superb for a first film, Trust me i have seen many!

Also i liked the crossfade of when he was thinking of what he left behind, It's a nice idea.

[RydCook]

Hey hey, just watched One More Minute. It's excellent! Very well composed shots, visual pleasure. I completely didn't understand what was going on though?! Ha ha, maybe i'm just dumb. I still loved it though, music suited perfectly, good acting, perfectly framed shots. Good stuff. I'd be interested to know whats its all about though?

[stuartcondy]

Understand what you mean competely.

Firstly, the reason he was running was because he had run out of cigarettes. I should have had a close up of the crumpled packet right at the start, just after he gets up, to demonstrate this. The whole idea was to make a comment on addiction and the lengths that people will go to feed them. Hence running from the city to the highlands for a packet of fags.

I cringe when I see the overuse of the zoom. It was the first time I'd EVER used a camera to produce anything so got a bit trigger happy. You live and learn though eh?

And I completely agree about the range of shots. The problem with that was it was made by a team of 2. The guy who was in it and me. Neither of us was taking it too seriously (this was just as the feeling I could make films was setting in) and got hammered the night before the first shooting day...... I only had the camera hired for 3 days. (Sony PD150)

Thats the reason it's all a bit jumpy, I just didn't have enough shots to fill the time. That's also why the music cuts off so suddenly. In that song, Freaking Out by Graham Coxon, there's a big guitar solo where I was gonna go mental on the edit. Because we'd got p*ssed in the back of the transit van (We slept in the back using only our coats as duvets in the highlands of Scotland) we were too hungover to work.

I'm surprised it came out half as coherent as it did. Luckily I'm a bit more serious about it now so stay off the juice during production.

Have a look at One More Minute and let me know how you think it compares to the first two.

Gonna go watch your films now.

[RydCook]

aah thats all fair enough dude, its all good though, making those mistakes has taught you to be a better film-maker, like you said, you live and you learn. Ahhh addiction! Ha ha, this makes the film so much better! Now i understand it that is ha ha, great idea for a film. I've commented on One More Minute above mate, probably posted it while you were typing your reply up!

[stuartcondy]

Haha,

Just watched Gangster Vs Cowboy. Very good first effort. Particularly liked the close to the ground shots. Very effective against the brown, furrowed field. Good close ups too and a quirky, unusual scenario. I like that.

I've never yet seen a film that makes bad use of Wagner's music

As for One More Minute. It was deliberately made to involve the audience in the "what does it mean?" question. There are links throughout the film that join the pieces and lead you to a conclusion. Have another crack before I reveal the intention.

[RydCook]

Cheers for the feedback! A lot of people seem to hate that film due to the lack of actual violence ha ha. We were meant to have guns, but the other guy forgot to bring them But i kinda like how the film doesn't have guns, may have worked in its favour. The film was made by just us 2 (the two in the film) in under an hour, also edited in just over 2 hours.

Ahh cool, it's a thinker! Well i will have a watch again sometime, at least to enjoy the beautiful shots! But not tonight, cos my mind is fried enough already.

[stuartcondy]

I think with zero - low budget productions you have to be clever with emulating things off camera in order to avoid them looking shit on camera.

You pulled it off perfectly. Who won the battle by the way? I was rooting for the cowboy.