White Desert

Don't know about anybody else, but the playback here is extraordinarily choppy. Anybody able to play this clip?


www.derekmok.com

It's the vimeo. Blame the Vimeo.

I think you will comment similar lines from other forums..

One.
Really interesting story, did you write it or was it adapted? But honestly the story is the only thing that kept me watching it, if I wasnt interested in what happened next I would have stopped watching after the first minute or so due to the acting, editing, camera, and audio problems. The good thing though is that those are things can be learned and improved upon with practice, good storytelling is much harder to learn so I think that you are pretty well off so far. Again, I thought the story was great but you just need to improve on the other parts of film making. Some of the edits were a bit akward and there was some pretty bad "hissing" during the dialogue.

I really liked it though, keep up the good work. I wish I could write interesting stuff like that.

Two.
I'm having serious issues making it through the video. The audio needs some heavy EQing. I can't pay attention if I have to keep turning my bass off, or raising and lowering volume every other line.

Editing could be a bit tighter and better timed with dialogue changeups.

I can't tell whats in the shadows when-what I assume is the other end of the phone- is shown. Is it a freeze-framed face? It does not appear to move or have any video artifacts.

There's no ambient room noise at all. You should be able to hear the glass contacting the table when the glass contacts the table, or pills rolling around, or...noise.

----

I am now rethinking my strategy of filmmaking. I will do more careful planning. Communicate with actors better. Yes, the sound issue. I read a low budget shotgun mike in LAFCP writing, I am budgeting for sound equipments too.

Let me defend myself little bit here.
This project many troubles for me. It was 12 pages script originally but I had to cut down to 8 pages.

I only had one day to use the location and actors were available only one day.

Fillmming was done under 6 hours.

A lot of things were not right but I learned to keep it cool. I never raised my voice on anyone. I never BSed to anyone. I accepted what I had and worked on.

Now, I will take onto next step. I have a script about the memory. I will work with actors more, get a better sound etc.

=)

Switching off the HD option helped the playback.

I wanted to deliberately not get influenced by the other notes you posted, so I didn't read your post above.

- Ouch...change the titles! They look really, really horrible. You start off well this time, just pure imagery, but the titles sends your intro slamming back onto amateur ground. Do you even need them?
- The girl's acting is very shaky. The guy does better, but both are still stiff, like they don't know how to recite a script without sounding like they're, well, reciting a script. Did you ever try letting your actors just do the scene while saying whatever they want? I've used that technique a few times and in my case, I've always gotten far better performances -- it was a case of my written dialogue not fitting with the actor I'd cast. Freeing them up to say things their own way allows them to focus on acting rather than reciting.
- The editing is weak. Too much overlap on the slamming of the door at 1:05, dragging down the action. At 1:12, the wide two-shot and the MCU on the girl don't cut well because they're on the same axis. But you didn't pick a good spot to cut, either -- when cutting dead on axis like this, you really pretty much have to match her action at least somewhat closely. Right now she teleports from the doorway to the middle of the stairs. The wide also cut the girl's head off at an awkward place. I would have done a post-production zoom to cut off even more of her so that it's not neither here nor there.
- This "proscenium" shooting you're doing here really makes the scene look amateurish. Learn to "invade the axis" between two characters. And adjust camera to actors, respond to the changing frames rather than locking the camera down stiffly all the time.
- Need audio editing. I'm willing to bet that you're cutting sound exactly where you're cutting image right now. Learn to use overlaps, control when a sound hits, control when a line of dialogue begins and ends.
- What is that phone voice about? It's as bad as videos made by kids on YouTube. Sounds like a guy speaking too close to a webcam.
- The black guy's performance in the "Darling" voice-over is horrible. I don't know what his relationship to the dialogue is, and the actor doesn't seem to know, either, so he's doomed to just speak in a flat monotone. There's no performance here.
- Your film fell apart once the phone conversation started. The performances are so bad, so unmotivated, so nonsensical that I almost laughed out loud when the black guy says "What?"
- Really bad cut at 2:54. Medium of the girl to medium of the girl, and her position in the outgoing frame is almost identical to her position in the incoming frame. You need to study up on cinematic grammar some more.
- Again, you need to start adjusting camera to actors. Why are we on the black guy's ass when he gets up from the chair? It screams, "My camera is on sticks and I can't move!"

Seriously, my friend, get a writing partner. You need someone to help you write the script. Because your stories aren't engaging, you're practically begging us to look for the technical flaws in your films, of which there are many. This piece is basically like a first-year film-school exercise.


www.derekmok.com

Now I'm reading your last post to get some more context.

> I am now rethinking my strategy of filmmaking. I will do more careful planning. Communicate
> with actors better. Yes, the sound issue. I read a low budget shotgun mike in LAFCP writing, I
> am budgeting for sound equipments too.

Forget sound. That is a technical/budget issue that will disappear when you work with a full professional crew. You have much, much bigger issues to deal with. Forget about those notes you got on EQ, room ambience. Sufficient audio levels on dialogue are important, but if you're trying to be a director/writer, it is not your job to do it.

> This project many troubles for me. It was 12 pages script originally but I had to cut down to 8
> pages.

The problem is, four pages is too long for what's in here right now. You don't have a story, you don't have compelling relationships.

I would suggest this. Throw away everything you've written. Talk to your actors, and don't give them a specific script. Workshop the characters with them, and think up scene studies with these two characters. Let the actors decide what to do or say. Videotape the workshops. Do as many as you can.

Now look at the tape you've cumulated, get a sense of who the characters are, what they talk about, how they think and behave.

Once you have the characters, decide where they are in their lives and come up with a plot that challenges them, which brings out their strongest and weakest qualities. A plot that puts them in conflict.

A couple of two-character stories that come to mind for me:

Pretty Woman: Invincible corporate raider mogul, at the peak of his powers but the nadir of his humanity, meets vivacious, poor, joyful young woman. At a time when he's poised to make his most ruthless move, he's reminded of his better sides.

Million Dollar Baby: Gym owner/boxing trainer who's given up on life and hope, and given up on trying to win back his daughter, meets a woman who's willing to be his daughter, who wants to embrace life despite being dealt a crappy hand.

Lethal Weapon: Happy, stable cop, who's never even been hurt and is on the cusp of retirement, is partnered with a maniac with a death wish.

Notice how good conflict tends to be with characters whose qualities clash in interesting ways.

> I only had one day to use the location and actors were available only one day.

One day would have been ample for a piece like this. I've shot 10-minute shorts for that much time. The key are good performances, a compelling story and well planned shots.

> A lot of things were not right but I learned to keep it cool. I never raised my voice on anyone.
> I never BSed to anyone.

That's good. You still need to work on better material before you dive into shooting. I believe you're too enamoured with shots, and don't spend enough time on script, humanity, story, character, acting. Try shooting an acting scene where you don't use any music. Take a scene from a Tennessee Williams play and shoot it. Learn how to hone a scene and make it mean something. Then get a writing partner and work on writing scenes that are dramatically compelling.


www.derekmok.com

Now time to readjust..

The technical stuff can be adjusted...but you can't readjust acting & story...and it's quite bad in this piece.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I liked the movie, YongHwan. I think it's very creative. You really should stick with your own vision. When it comes to technical help, you should definitely listen to experts in this thread; they are mostly editors and many are FCP and NLE experts. This is not a creative forum. If it were they wouldn't be telling you how to write, direct or shoot film.

What you have is a fresh approach to filmmaking. I saw an earlier work of yours before and this is very similar in vision (the way you photograph and the way you see are very original.) So go ahead and ask for advice but be careful how you take; don't let anyone blunt your creativity or hijack your vision. I'm not saying anybody is hijacking your vision here, but in general be careful; take artistic criticism with a grain of salt. Before you accept anybody's artistic criticism, ask them to show you a movie they have written, shot or directed. Editing advice is fine...

Good luck with your efforts.

>>This is not a creative forum<<

Yes, it is. This is a specific forum where creative advice is offered.

But, you know, feel free to listen to - 'you rock. Do what you think is best. Don't listen to anyone else.' I'm sure that will make you a better film maker.

The video is fine, just that Vimeo is a little slow for streaming.

As an editing forum, I don't usually tell people how to shoot or how the actors should act, as that falls out of the realm of creative offline editing, where we often have to make chicken salad out of chicken sh!t. But the shot choices here look very odd, and that's something which you could fix in post. Your cinematic language is all over the shop, and the set ups aren't right, so the piece feels a little hokey.

You're missing a shot of Reed walking back to his chair, to set up the surprise he gets when he realizes China has followed him into his room. Prior to that, you needed to set up Reed's state of mind- that he's on drugs and feeling a little woozy. Reed's state of mind and his drug habit isn't properly set up with emotional impact. And you need to establish the White Desert concept- what it is, and how the other guy got sucked into it.

The many of the cuts are just off. Many times you're cutting to the wrong person, and we're looking at the back of the speaker's head. The cross dissolves don't do anything to me. Need an example?

At around 4:00, it's a bad cut. China's starting a turn when you cut to her standing. I get that you're trying to say that time has passed before China came to a point of realization (at least that's what the dissolves kind of convey). But her line before that came out of the blue, making her her sound nothing but preachy.

If you want this to work, you need to take a good long hard look at what you have, write down what the key points of the story are, and work your way to it.



www.strypesinpost.com