Sci-Fi drama shot on 5DmkIII edited in FCPX

My latest short film.

Ambitious short. It works on a lot of levels. Gotta say I'm reasonably impressed with the acting, direction & most of the writing. Acting is the hardest to fake in the minor leagues. Your two were fairly convincing. Your special FX really upped your value.

Some slight incongruity. This must be somewhat futuristic to accommodate the space travel distances, yet all the gear is surprisingly low tech. Old style guns & radios, & that transponder looks like an old 8 channel audio mixer. Speaking of which, when she tells him to get it there is a continuity break in your sound levels. As for weapons & coms, these guys have marginally realistic upgrades on a limited budget, but I find the acting weak.

But for me the biggest problem I had was a technical one that could be fixed in post, that being your color. We don't believe for one second that's some off-world planet, despite your graphic across the horizon. Why? Because it looks too much like earth in coloring. Watch the Mars movies, what do they do, they just tint the whole shot reddish orange. Give us a tint, some kind of an off world hue, that's all it needs. The sky looks way too blue, the vegetation, etc, I even think I can see buildings in the background.

There was a new show that started last week on Comedy Central called The Kroll Show. They're very good with their colorizing. They did a scene with guys leaving LA & going to Mexico (S01E02), sure we know it's only a few miles apart but they did a marvelous color treatment. Overcast blue-grey sky for LA, to reddish orange hue for Mexico. They probably filmed them in the same place, but the color sells the story.

Try a few different hues until you find one that supports the story. Give it a kind of overcast haze too, so we feel the atmosphere is maybe thicker with mist or something. You might even try adding some off worldly sounds, maybe there are strange insects or creatures in the foliage emitting strange noises, adding uncertainty. Experimenting creatively in these areas can greatly boost your value. With the calibre you've achieved already, it just needs a little push more to make it complete. If you really want to get obsessive, you could also tighten the scenes just a touch, quicken the pace, especially as the countdown approaches. We don't really feel an element of danger, even with the gun scenes, let alone the approaching ship we never see. Cut away shots & inserts in both those situations can amp tension.

Nice work, thanks for sharing.






J. Matthew
Global•Watch•Media•Consulting
www.GWM2.com

Twitter - @GlobalWatchM3

Well the original Star Wars pulled the trick without any fancy colouring.

Sure, & that was 35 years ago, while these days even a little weekly half hour skitcom has easy access to amazing coloring technology, & we've been spoiled since then.

So is your comment just to be contrarian or do you actually believe that some creative colorizing won't add any value to the film?

Considering when you pull a green screen key, you have to do "fancy coloring" to match the actors to the background, well...

Wow Matt, nice job, the actors were great. I have to admit I judged them before they spoke which was stupid. I'll check out some of your other work. You've inspired me to start filming again with my D800. I worked in TV for 20 years and in the end was using Sony Cams for location news, kids programs etc...no film except for 35mm still's before I moved into TV.

I don't care what cameras people shoot with but why is there so little info on here about Nikons? Am I looking in the wrong place because this site is great. I've been doing time lapse pieces but my cutting is RUSTY!! Nikons are awesome for timelapse and the D800 has 2 options for it.

Thanks for sharing