[The Godtomato]

So, this is my junior narrative film. It took about a year of pain, suffering and mental torment in order to bring this to fruition. It's a psychological thriller with a sci-fi bent.


http://vimeo.com/45794464

Enjoy.

Bonus Feature: My 16mm freshman film. You might notice that one of the actors appears in Stolen Memories as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCJ7OfHfiVc

[Steveland. The Danger]

I'll have to wait until I get home from work, the internet connection here is teh sux.

[The Godtomato]

Bump 4 Sparta!!!

[Captain Dills]

I'll check it out after work.

[RememberTHISguy]

Bookmarked for later.

[paizlea]

Excellent.

A few things to pick at, but so much more to admire. This is a worthy addition to the collection of films influenced by Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

La jetee.

Thank you for sharing it.

[Monsieur Red]

Awesome. *saves for later*

[Movie Maniac!]

Here's a disorganized review:

Okay, your first one:

It felt like: "Christopher Nolan meets Stanley Kubrick." YES that is a compliment.

The entire mood made me feel like I was watching Inception (or at least I thought so), with of course, moments that made me feel as if I was watching The Shining. You know, the B&W parts where the main character stares at the masked people in shock and disbelief. As for the performances, I thought they were fine, but the one that stood out, of course, was that "judge" or whoever he was. Plus, the slow zoom during his speech was perfect. As for the rest of the cinematography I think I'd give it a near perfect score, only because I'm somewhat impartial towards that sepia coloring. But then again, that's just me nitpicking.

As for your second film...

I didn't like it as much as Stolen Memories, BUT it was interesting nonetheless. But I wonder about what the message or point of the film was supposed to be. I love how it was shot as well; nice to see a short film shot on... film, again for once! But I think my favorite thing about the film anyway, was the lack of dialogue. I also thought the pacing was decent, since I understand that it had to be slow, but if it was a little longer, I'd probably get bored.

So yeeeaah... for both.

[The Godtomato]

Originally Posted by Movie Maniac!

Here's a disorganized review:

Okay, your first one:

It felt like: "Christopher Nolan meets Stanley Kubrick." YES that is a compliment.

The entire mood made me feel like I was watching Inception (or at least I thought so), with of course, moments that made me feel as if I was watching The Shining. You know, the B&W parts where the main character stares at the masked people in shock and disbelief. As for the performances, I thought they were fine, but the one that stood out, of course, was that "judge" or whoever he was. Plus, the slow zoom during his speech was perfect. As for the rest of the cinematography I think I'd give it a near perfect score, only because I'm somewhat impartial towards that sepia coloring. But then again, that's just me nitpicking.

As for your second film...

I didn't like it as much as Stolen Memories, BUT it was interesting nonetheless. But I wonder about what the message or point of the film was supposed to be. I love how it was shot as well; nice to see a short film shot on... film, again for once! But I think my favorite thing about the film anyway, was the lack of dialogue. I also thought the pacing was decent, since I understand that it had to be slow, but if it was a little longer, I'd probably get bored.

So yeeeaah... for both.

You nailed my influences perfectly. In the early drafts, I had action happening on parallel streams, both in the real world and within memories. That sorta felt derivative of Inception for obvious reasons, so I pared it down until I had a simpler leaner story that I could shoot in as few locations as possible. And Kubrick has always influenced my work and the symmetrical compositions and slow zooms are my tip of the hat to him. I don't do it nearly as well as he does though. No one does.

That 16mm film is quickly receding into my memory by now. All I remember is that I wanted to do a cool, clean European-style film, kinda like Antonioni. 16mm film is fantastic. Wish I could afford to shoot on it more often.

[furious wanker]

I am a huge fan of Godtomato's first short. I believe it was dedicated to his grandparents. Some of the shots reminded me of one of Godtomato's influences, Tarkovsky, which I think is one of the highest compliments you can pay a first time director. The hallway shot with the candle is the one I'm talking about.

I'll get to this tonight when it's dark. I don't like watching stuff during the day with sun shining in my face.

PS - cowsfan/lovesexy if you didn't recognize.

[The Godtomato]

Originally Posted by furious wanker

I am a huge fan of Godtomato's first short. I believe it was dedicated to his grandparents. Some of the shots reminded me of one of Godtomato's influences, Tarkovsky, which I think is one of the highest compliments you can pay a first time director. The hallway shot with the candle is the one I'm talking about.

I'll get to this tonight when it's dark. I don't like watching stuff during the day with sun shining in my face.

PS - cowsfan/lovesexy if you didn't recognize.

Damn, I can't believe you still remember that shot.

[furious wanker]

Originally Posted by The Godtomato

Damn, I can't believe you still remember that shot.

Yeah and some people think pot smokers have bad memory.

[The Godtomato]

Watch my movie and you'll get free popcorn!

[Impavido]

Originally Posted by The Godtomato

Watch my movie and you'll get free popcorn!

Buffering now, I'll watch it soon!

[5EasyPeaches]

I was surprised by how non-ametuerish this was. Very well shot. I liked it alot.

[5EasyPeaches]

What kind of equipment did you use? Camera, editing software, etc?

[The Godtomato]

Originally Posted by 5EasyPeaches

What kind of equipment did you use? Camera, editing software, etc?

I used a range of Canon DSLRs with both Canon and Nikon lenses. All post production was done in Final Cut Pro.

[B A P S]

I watched half. I know, it's only 8 more minutes but I really need to get moving. Very well done so far.

[Trolloc]

Originally Posted by Captain Dills

I'll check it out after work.

This.

[Harry Caul]

Was the shot at around 10:50 a deliberate Kubrick homage? It looks very much like one.

I also saw some stuff that for some reason gave me a Dylan Freewhelin cover vibe, but I'll go ahead and presume that's just me...

[Impavido]

Excellent work GT. I really liked it, if I'd sat through a short film collection in a FIlm Festival this would have likely been one of my favorites.

Just some random notes:

-Good use of transitions between Black/White and full color. This Nolane-sque technique gets forced into a lot of student or low-budget projects without forethought and comes across as silly and distracting. But you used it effectively.

-Good use of subtle zooms. (I think they look like actual in-lens zooms as opposed to post-production zooms.) Sort of like the above mentioned item, a lot of people cannot use that technique effectively.

-I don't know if you had professionally trained actors, but they did rather well.

There is only one piece of constructive criticism I'd give at this point:

I think I got the point that Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

the memories with the girl actually belong to the prisoner with the accent

.

But I would not have shown that actor. I think keeping him as an anonymous voice behind a wall would have been effective and a bit disconcerting.

Again, excellent work.

What did you do to record sound indoors? Did you use a separate recorder or did you have an external mic plugged into your DSLR?

[The Godtomato]

Originally Posted by Impavido

Excellent work GT. I really liked it, if I'd sat through a short film collection in a FIlm Festival this would have likely been one of my favorites.

Just some random notes:

-Good use of transitions between Black/White and full color. This Nolane-sque technique gets forced into a lot of student or low-budget projects without forethought and comes across as silly and distracting. But you used it effectively.

-Good use of subtle zooms. (I think they look like actual in-lens zooms as opposed to post-production zooms.) Sort of like the above mentioned item, a lot of people cannot use that technique effectively.

-I don't know if you had professionally trained actors, but they did rather well.

There is only one piece of constructive criticism I'd give at this point:

I think I got the point that Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text
.

But I would not have shown that actor. I think keeping him as an anonymous voice behind a wall would have been effective and a bit disconcerting.

Again, excellent work.

What did you do to record sound indoors? Did you use a separate recorder or did you have an external mic plugged into your DSLR?

The color scheme was mapped out long before production. And I shoot everything in camera. The B&W and Sepia stuff looked like that straight out of the camera, there are no color versions.

The zoom is one of my favorite techniques, provided that it be used sparingly. I'd never do a zoom in post, not to mention that DSLRs don't have nearly enough resolution to pull 'em off. And I used still camera optics, so doing an in-camera zoom was a pain in the ass and required many takes for smooth motion.

Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

The memories belong to Walter, the main character. Never heard that they belong to the European guy. What made you think that?

I record all audio to an external recorder, usually an H4 and use a slate for sync. It's the professional way, and DSLRs don't have nearly enough audio controls on them.

[Impavido]

Originally Posted by The Godtomato

Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

I thought that because he asked the other prisoner to remember something he liked. It made me think that forming that connection with the other prisoner and his recollecting it during the 'procedure' was how Walter was circumventing the system. Of course that doesn't explain why the blonde girl said 'Walter', but I have a habit of not taking all flash-back or memory sequences as literal.

I record all audio to an external recorder, usually an H4 and use a slate for sync. It's the professional way, and DSLRs don't have nearly enough audio controls on them.

I love my H4n, it is an amazing little device. Synching in post is a bit of a pain but worth the trouble.

Though the good news for me is that Canon announced a firmware update to the 7D that will allow me to disable AGC in addition to viewing and setting audio levels in-camera. Better late than never I guess..

[Harry Caul]

Originally Posted by The Godtomato

The color scheme was mapped out long before production. And I shoot everything in camera. The B&W and Sepia stuff looked like that straight out of the camera, there are no color versions.

That is pretty cool.

[The Godtomato]

Originally Posted by Harry Caul

That is pretty cool.

It's the way I work. Part of the discipline I learned from shooting my earlier stuff on film.

Oh, and if anything looks like a deliberate homage to Kubrick, it probably is.

[Harry Caul]

Originally Posted by The Godtomato

Oh, and if anything looks like a deliberate homage to Kubrick, it probably is.

I figured, that particular shot just really hit me as an homage to something like this:

[Impavido]

I forgot to mention that I really liked how the clock behind the bad-guy had no hands. Very nice touch!

So as for my misinterpretation of the narrative: Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

Are they actually Walter's memories

[The Godtomato]

Originally Posted by Impavido

I forgot to mention that I really liked how the clock behind the bad-guy had no hands. Very nice touch!

So as for my misinterpretation of the narrative: Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

That clock is still hanging up on the wall of our school's soundstage and will most likely hang there forever.

They are to me, but I love hearing any other interpretations.

[Master King Sexington]

Here are some notes I made:

Continuity error in the first two shots, no one is walking towards him then when he rises a woman is walking past him. Was this intentional?

The audio when she says Walter felt pretty distorted and there's definite hissing in his conversation with the therapist. Audio is a *****, and I have a ton of that in my stuff. It's very difficult to get rid of completely.

Something about the exposition with goggle man feels rather forced. Could be his delivery (which is very over the top which fits oddly with your very restrained tone and cinematography) or the dialogue itself but it just feels strange when placed with the rest of your film.

Aside from those minor issues I really enjoyed your work. Your usage of the three tone visuals to display certain areas of time worked greatly to your advantage and is something I also have implemented in my films. I enjoyed the story and the complexity behind it, and while the Kubrick and Nolan influences are apparent, I felt that there was a definite Gilliam influence as well as a dash of Park's Oldboy, with the music and imprisonment angle.

Though I want to confirm I understood it correctly-

Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

The color of the film were his original memories, which he was then abducted for an unknown crime and erased. The black and white was him sent back in time and remembering who he was, then getting reabducted, and the sepia was his final being erased and waking up on the street. Am I correct or did I get something crossed? I wish we could have seen what crimes he had apparently committed (or did we and I wasn't paying enough attention?) as I feel that would've gotten a layer of thematic complexity (is erasing who someone is justified if they were bad? How bad would warrant it? Etc.).

So good work. I have a couple of more questions, like what exact models of Canon DSLR did you use (as I'm looking at them), and what audio equipment? I recently got a Zoom h4n and haven't gotten a chance to use it.

Neat film. I'll watch the other later.

[The Godtomato]

Originally Posted by Master King Sexington

Here are some notes I made:

Continuity error in the first two shots, no one is walking towards him then when he rises a woman is walking past him. Was this intentional?

Never noticed that. Obviously unintentional. I wasn't controlling the background. I tend to ignore continuity errors when I'm editing, except the utterly egregious ones.

The audio when she says Walter felt pretty distorted and there's definite hissing in his conversation with the therapist. Audio is a *****, and I have a ton of that in my stuff. It's very difficult to get rid of completely.

Audio always kicks my ass. On my film and on practically every student film out there, there is very rarely a dedicated sound man. The boom pole gets handed to whoever isn't doing anything at the time. Plus, the mike I was using on the location shoots was ancient. Like from the 1980s.

Something about the exposition with goggle man feels rather forced. Could be his delivery (which is very over the top which fits oddly with your very restrained tone and cinematography) or the dialogue itself but it just feels strange when placed with the rest of your film.

I was going for slightly over the top with that, but it sort of flew out of control. The act didn't have his lines memorized when he showed up on set, so the game plan was to just keep rolling takes until he got the words down. There wasn't much space to build a performance there.

Aside from those minor issues I really enjoyed your work. Your usage of the three tone visuals to display certain areas of time worked greatly to your advantage and is something I also have implemented in my films. I enjoyed the story and the complexity behind it, and while the Kubrick and Nolan influences are apparent, I felt that there was a definite Gilliam influence as well as a dash of Park's Oldboy, with the music and imprisonment angle.

Guilty as charged.

Though I want to confirm I understood it correctly-

Select the black box below with your cursor to view the spoiler text

You are mostly correct with the color.

In the dailies, there was a whole undertone of Orwellian dystopia running through the film. At one point one of the characters said something about being watched. However, I had to drop that because the limited production design and lack of suitable locations. I just couldn't believably sustain those undertones.

So good work. I have a couple of more questions, like what exact models of Canon DSLR did you use (as I'm looking at them), and what audio equipment? I recently got a Zoom h4n and haven't gotten a chance to use it.

About half the movie was shot on a Canon T2i. The rest of the film is split between the T3i and the Canon 7D. There is one single shot in it filmed on the Canon 5D Mk II and the lovely 50mm f1.2 L-series lens. I was borrowing cameras left and right, so the movie was filmed on whatever camera I could get hold of for the day.

My favorite out of those is the Canon T3i. That adjustable screen allows you to have enormous flexability without needing an external monitor.

The audio was captured either on an H4 or an FR2LE which is a professional digital sound recorder. The sound quality is mostly the same, but the FR2LE allows much greatly control of the levels.