• READ BEFORE POSTING!
    • If posting a video, please post HERE, unless it is a video as part of an advertisement and then post it in this section.
    • If replying to threads please remember this is the Promotion area and the person posting may not be open to feedback.

watch Silent Hill Restless Dreams Remastered Short Film

J

JetFace

Hey guys I made this Silent Hill short film last year but since then I have made huge improvements with equipment so I decided to give this short film a boost in quality before I release my new silent hill short, so here you are a trailer for Silent Hill Restless Dreams Remastered!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qsQu0bcNAc

I will be releasing a new silent hill short this month as well! Silent Hill Blood Tears, stay tuned!
 
I quite liked it. Personally, I'm not entirely sure whether a direct conversion to film of Silent Hill 2 would be appropriate, considering it's largely considered to be like a visual representation of a good book. The cheesy acting and light script more akin to the work of Stephen King than Alfred Hitchcock. I'm under the impression that's why they had to change up the style slightly for the actual movie, because it's not really an appropriate presentation for film audiences.

That being said, a short film is completely fine for that!

Some of the shots in there are just perfect, like the one where James is touched by Maria through the bars, and one of the end shots where James is running down a corridor and the Nurse turns around slowly.

There are a few problems though. From what I saw, Pyramid Head seems too short. Whilst that's not necessarily a terrible change in most characters, PH is a very dominating character in the game, his height adding to that sense of domination of James' character. That's often not noticeable, but that's because he tends to slouch when dragging the sword around, which adds the sense of weight to his character that yours seems to lack. I'd say that was a problem with casting though, or possibly bad camera angles, the same with Tom Hardy playing Bane (a character always depicted as physically a lot taller and bigger than Batman) in the upcoming film The Dark Knight Rises. Then again I may be completely wrong, it's been a long time since I've played Silent Hill 2.

However I'd say you basically got the performance down as long as you keep to shots like the one where he holds James up against a wall.

The narration at the beginning could be made a lot louder, at the moment you can hardly hear it over the sound of the music. Generally speaking, you don't have music overshadowing a scene with dialogue, because of that specific problem. You want to keep the attention on either the music or dialogue, by making one noticeably louder than the other. With the dialogue, just make it loud enough so that everything is clearly audible, which may mean making the background music lower too.

Overall though I'd say it's looking pretty neat! For an independent production, the only thing that seems to be wrong from that trailer is the casting, but that's pretty easy to overlook. Nice work!

When do you plan on releasing it?
 
ThatGuyFromThatPlace said:
I quite liked it. Personally, I'm not entirely sure whether a direct conversion to film of Silent Hill 2 would be appropriate, considering it's largely considered to be like a visual representation of a good book. The cheesy acting and light script more akin to the work of Stephen King than Alfred Hitchcock. I'm under the impression that's why they had to change up the style slightly for the actual movie, because it's not really an appropriate presentation for film audiences.

That being said, a short film is completely fine for that!

Some of the shots in there are just perfect, like the one where James is touched by Maria through the bars, and one of the end shots where James is running down a corridor and the Nurse turns around slowly.

There are a few problems though. From what I saw, Pyramid Head seems too short. Whilst that's not necessarily a terrible change in most characters, PH is a very dominating character in the game, his height adding to that sense of domination of James' character. That's often not noticeable, but that's because he tends to slouch when dragging the sword around, which adds the sense of weight to his character that yours seems to lack. I'd say that was a problem with casting though, or possibly bad camera angles, the same with Tom Hardy playing Bane (a character always depicted as physically a lot taller and bigger than Batman) in the upcoming film The Dark Knight Rises. Then again I may be completely wrong, it's been a long time since I've played Silent Hill 2.

However I'd say you basically got the performance down as long as you keep to shots like the one where he holds James up against a wall.

The narration at the beginning could be made a lot louder, at the moment you can hardly hear it over the sound of the music. Generally speaking, you don't have music overshadowing a scene with dialogue, because of that specific problem. You want to keep the attention on either the music or dialogue, by making one noticeably louder than the other. With the dialogue, just make it loud enough so that everything is clearly audible, which may mean making the background music lower too.

Overall though I'd say it's looking pretty neat! For an independent production, the only thing that seems to be wrong from that trailer is the casting, but that's pretty easy to overlook. Nice work!

When do you plan on releasing it?
Click to expand...

In the game Pyramid Head is like a little bigger than James but in the movie he's like a giant or just really tall and thick. I find pyramid head has alot of human characteristics to him unlike some monsters for example Flesh Lips where it's just a giant sack of meat in a cage so for PH I didn't really think the size was a big issue.

I'm guessing everybody's sound is different, which makes even harder to edit, I hate it when music is too loud or voices are too loud. But I have better recording equipment so I don't have to worry about the sound being crappy when I make it louder.

I'm aiming to get this remastered title and some bonus stuff out by this month, and I also have another silent hill short we just filmed last week, and we still have some more to do; hopefully get that done by end of this month as well!
 
I'm guessing everybody's sound is different, which makes even harder to edit, I hate it when music is too loud or voices are too loud. But I have better recording equipment so I don't have to worry about the sound being crappy when I make it louder.
Click to expand...

It's not a problem with the audience's volume, it's a problem with the sounds in the clip in comparison with each other. At no point should you have the background music overshadowing the story narrative, so just lower the sound of the background music - the main point of focus in a scene, whether visual or auditory, should take importance over the rest of the scene. Act like the camera itself is a person viewing something, and that the audience is just seeing what the camera sees. An appropriate comparison would be when you're outside in town, for example, and are talking to a friend next to you - you will focus on their voice, and the background sounds will generally be unnoticeable until you give them importance (but they don't go away completely, obviously).

Sound is very important in order for the audience to see the film as a professional piece of work rather than an amateur one.
 
I'm not going to get on you about the specific character flaws (height, age and hair length), because those are problems that you expect from low budget films - perfect casting is very hard on a budget, and you can't really expect people that you don't pay (or if you do, you pay very little) to do stuff like cut their hair into a different style or anything like that.

I also appreciate the fact that you had to cut down a fairly complex and long story into a 17 minute short, so I can somewhat understand the use of a non-linear narrative. Again, that's another problem with independent films, or at least short films, and isn't something I'll hold against you. However, the narrative could have still done with a lot of work - instead of dropping the audience right into the middle of the story and giving a brief overview of what happened, you really could have done with setting it up properly. Again though, with this specific source material, that's another problem - finding deserted cities is a hard task, and the vast majority of the story in the game takes place in that kind of location. Still though, you've left a tad too many questions. I understand how hard it is to do though, even the people that made the feature length film had to change a lot of the story to make it - so much that they even made new characters to replace the old ones (yet kept essentially a crud version of the story from Silent Hill 1).

The acting could have done with some work. But again, that's a problem with the casting, which is a problem with the budget and restrictions of independent production.

The audio could have definitely been improved during certain sections, and the shot choices could have been worked on too. Seeing as this is a condensed version of the story from SH2, a very cinematic game in it's own right, you probably could have done with remaking certain parts shot for shot - for example, during the time when James is talking to Maria through the bars (http://youtu.be/_JyfuWT9EiA). See, the whole thing about Silent Hill 2 is that it's constantly questioning James' understanding and leaving him constantly confused and wondering whether what he's seeing is real or not. Everything has its place in that game (even the design of the monsters plays a part in understanding James' subconscious), and the main idea of that scene was to see the transformation of the woman's personality shifting between the sweet side of Mary and the sexual side of Maria. The main lines are "I am [Maria] - if you want me to be", "I'm not your Mary", and "It doesn't matter who I am, I'm here for you". Each of those is James trying to -

SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS

- reason his own thoughts about his wife during her dying days before the story. It's later revealed that he killed his wife (I'm not sure whether that was dependent on the ending you get or not), and each of those lines in that conversation is very important to understand his own perspective. On the one hand, he remembered the side of his wife that wanted to please him ("I am - if you want me to be"), but since she became ill she had also changed into something that he didn't love anymore ("I'm not your Mary"). He was feeling guilty over the fact he didn't love her anymore ("It doesn't matter who I am, I'm here for you"), but ultimately decides that he can't live constantly looking after someone he has grown to hate and kill her. The entirety of Silent Hill 2 is him feeling guilty over that, essentially, with Pyramid Head being a personification (?) of his guilt and the belief that he should be punished for his actions.

Now, that's why this game doesn't cut down well into a single short. Without the knowledge that Silent Hill 2 is in fact much more than it's presented to be, the cutscenes come off as a tad too cheesy and out of place. You say you're working on another Silent Hill short? Well this one seemed to be a self-contained story, so I'll assume it's unrelated (the teaser was a car crash, so I'm assuming it's Silent Hill 1 that you're basing it on this time?), but really with a series that's so heavily reliant on a strong narrative I think a series of shorts would be better, whereas condensing it all into a short makes things feel a bit too rushed.

That's enough ranting from me (I love Silent Hill - can you tell?), and in spite of all of that I actually quite liked your short! It just had a couple problems with audio and pacing (and a lot of the scenes were a way too dark), but overall it was quite nice. I've seen game-to-short-film adaptations done pretty damn terribly before, but this wasn't half-bad!

Really, choosing the game with the deepest narrative for the first short was probably your main problem - Silent Hill 1 (which I think is your next) would be much more appropriate for the length of time, being a much shorter game that doesn't rely too heavily on a strong narrative (I even remember being left wondering what the hell just happened when I first played through it), but more on character interaction. As long as you nail that (Harry Mason, Cybil Bennett and Dahlia Gillespie, specifically, if you choose to keep those characters), I think it'll turn out well! The only problem I could see with that is people being left confused unless things are explained, and Silent Hill 3 is too... extensive of a sequel to really be fitting into a short, again. Then again, you could be basing it entirely on the much more self-contained remake Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and I've been completely wrong, who knows!

Good luck with your future shorts, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on them!

Edit:

Oh and nice job on sorting out the audio issues on that specific scene I mentioned a few days ago, it's just the other areas that need solving now (though that'd be the setup your using as opposed to an editing problem).
 
ThatGuyFromThatPlace said:
I'm not going to get on you about the specific character flaws (height, age and hair length), because those are problems that you expect from low budget films - perfect casting is very hard on a budget, and you can't really expect people that you don't pay (or if you do, you pay very little) to do stuff like cut their hair into a different style or anything like that.

I also appreciate the fact that you had to cut down a fairly complex and long story into a 17 minute short, so I can somewhat understand the use of a non-linear narrative. Again, that's another problem with independent films, or at least short films, and isn't something I'll hold against you. However, the narrative could have still done with a lot of work - instead of dropping the audience right into the middle of the story and giving a brief overview of what happened, you really could have done with setting it up properly. Again though, with this specific source material, that's another problem - finding deserted cities is a hard task, and the vast majority of the story in the game takes place in that kind of location. Still though, you've left a tad too many questions. I understand how hard it is to do though, even the people that made the feature length film had to change a lot of the story to make it - so much that they even made new characters to replace the old ones (yet kept essentially a crud version of the story from Silent Hill 1).

The acting could have done with some work. But again, that's a problem with the casting, which is a problem with the budget and restrictions of independent production.

The audio could have definitely been improved during certain sections, and the shot choices could have been worked on too. Seeing as this is a condensed version of the story from SH2, a very cinematic game in it's own right, you probably could have done with remaking certain parts shot for shot - for example, during the time when James is talking to Maria through the bars (http://youtu.be/_JyfuWT9EiA). See, the whole thing about Silent Hill 2 is that it's constantly questioning James' understanding and leaving him constantly confused and wondering whether what he's seeing is real or not. Everything has its place in that game (even the design of the monsters plays a part in understanding James' subconscious), and the main idea of that scene was to see the transformation of the woman's personality shifting between the sweet side of Mary and the sexual side of Maria. The main lines are "I am [Maria] - if you want me to be", "I'm not your Mary", and "It doesn't matter who I am, I'm here for you". Each of those is James trying to -

SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS

- reason his own thoughts about his wife during her dying days before the story. It's later revealed that he killed his wife (I'm not sure whether that was dependent on the ending you get or not), and each of those lines in that conversation is very important to understand his own perspective. On the one hand, he remembered the side of his wife that wanted to please him ("I am - if you want me to be"), but since she became ill she had also changed into something that he didn't love anymore ("I'm not your Mary"). He was feeling guilty over the fact he didn't love her anymore ("It doesn't matter who I am, I'm here for you"), but ultimately decides that he can't live constantly looking after someone he has grown to hate and kill her. The entirety of Silent Hill 2 is him feeling guilty over that, essentially, with Pyramid Head being a personification (?) of his guilt and the belief that he should be punished for his actions.

Now, that's why this game doesn't cut down well into a single short. Without the knowledge that Silent Hill 2 is in fact much more than it's presented to be, the cutscenes come off as a tad too cheesy and out of place. You say you're working on another Silent Hill short? Well this one seemed to be a self-contained story, so I'll assume it's unrelated (the teaser was a car crash, so I'm assuming it's Silent Hill 1 that you're basing it on this time?), but really with a series that's so heavily reliant on a strong narrative I think a series of shorts would be better, whereas condensing it all into a short makes things feel a bit too rushed.

That's enough ranting from me (I love Silent Hill - can you tell?), and in spite of all of that I actually quite liked your short! It just had a couple problems with audio and pacing (and a lot of the scenes were a way too dark), but overall it was quite nice. I've seen game-to-short-film adaptations done pretty damn terribly before, but this wasn't half-bad!

Really, choosing the game with the deepest narrative for the first short was probably your main problem - Silent Hill 1 (which I think is your next) would be much more appropriate for the length of time, being a much shorter game that doesn't rely too heavily on a strong narrative (I even remember being left wondering what the hell just happened when I first played through it), but more on character interaction. As long as you nail that (Harry Mason, Cybil Bennett and Dahlia Gillespie, specifically, if you choose to keep those characters), I think it'll turn out well! The only problem I could see with that is people being left confused unless things are explained, and Silent Hill 3 is too... extensive of a sequel to really be fitting into a short, again. Then again, you could be basing it entirely on the much more self-contained remake Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and I've been completely wrong, who knows!

Good luck with your future shorts, I'll definitely be keeping an eye on them!

Edit:

Oh and nice job on sorting out the audio issues on that specific scene I mentioned a few days ago, it's just the other areas that need solving now (though that'd be the setup your using as opposed to an editing problem).
Click to expand...

I like making my films out of order, it's not wrong, many movies do that for example Pulp Fiction, everything is out of order and doesn't come together till the end.

But ya summing up Silent Hill 2 in 15mins was not easy, I basically just wrote the simplest of simple of the story ha, which is just focused on James. Also these are fan films so the audience I'm directing it to are the fans mostly.

I was planning on doing shot for shot for the jail cell but there just wasn't any room so the angles we got were the only ones we could shoot. That jail cell set was made in my basement ha.

Before this project was made, I had a decent two year experience just from making videos, mostly comedy or even some for school projects (they're all on that channel) Lyle was kind of new to directing, he's big on film and games. All the actors are just good friends, no of us are professional actors, the budget already had reached close to 300 so it's good that nobody was demanding to be paid :) The good old, "Work with what you got" technique is basically how this film got made.

Silent Hill 2 doesn't make the best short but hell it could be a damn amazing movie. Don't know why it hasn't been made yet.

Since I felt the last short was too "trying to squeeze everything in there" kind of deal, I thought maybe I would do my own vision of "Lisa's Death" scene. It's still a short film, about 13 - 15mins again. We've done things a bit differently this time. For example I built some sets and we rented a building for 4 days, (took a whole day just to drop off everything and put it together, had some issues with the set just being a "tiny" bit too big. I made all the monsters which are really disgusting in this new one. I made a boom pole as well for my shotgun mic although I discovered some sound issues later on... >:l but lucky most of the dialogue is voice overs so I will be using my usb pre-amp set up which sounds perfect.

You sound like a audio expert have you tried plugging a shotgun mic with xlr cable to 3.5mm to the camera? I've been discovering some weird issues, like sometimes I get buzzying noise and sometimes I don't. Haven't had any issues with the mic itself considering I've use it quiet alot lately by plugging it into a pre amp which is plugged into the computer by USB.

Also I love shattered memories but I don't think that would translate well because of the plot twist tricks the audience more, if you played it all the way through I think you would understand what I mean because if you made it in film the twist would seem to obvious.

Hopefully Blood Tears will be out on the 1st

Thanks again!
 
I like making my films out of order, it's not wrong, many movies do that for example Pulp Fiction, everything is out of order and doesn't come together till the end.
Click to expand...

Ah, but those stories have been written with the plot structure in mind, whereas what you did was you took a plot made with a linear approach in mind and jumbled it up. There are often reasons behind using non-linear plot structures, for example in Memento the structure keeps the audience confused and slowly brings all of the plot together throughout it, representing the main character's perspective of the story (who has short term memory loss). Something you have to keep in mind when using Tarantino's films as examples is that he often makes good films but with little thought put into why he does it that way - which isn't wrong, he's very good at making the films enjoyable none the less. The main difference between the examples of Pulp Fiction and Memento are that Memento focuses around one story, and Pulp Fiction focuses around three (I think I remember) - Pulp Fiction also uses the non-linear structure to set up a backstory for each of the other scenes (and it's very nice how the stories cross over together). Memento was from the main guy's perspective, so it wouldn't have made much sense to use a linear narrative as it wouldn't represent his view at all.

Another example of a non-linear narrative done well is Reservoir Dogs, which again does it to give each of the characters back stories and further make the audience empathise with them. You wouldn't have felt much for the cop at the end if it hadn't developed his character - which would be kinda hard to do if they didn't keep switching back to the scenes pre-bank-robbery, as he was dying.

Something I never see spoken about much, and something I may be completely wrong about, is the perspective of the scene. During a scene you don't want to switch perspective at all, and you want to aid the continuity as much as possible. Memento needs the non-linear narrative to keep the perspective of the main character, Pulp Fiction needed it to show whose story it was telling, etc. If you take a look at Pulp Fiction, you could see each of the scenes as "this guy and that guy", but it's actually more accurate to say they each revolve around one person - the scenes involving Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace are all from Vincent's perspective (save a few shots here and there, but majority are based around him), the scenes involving Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield are from Jules' perspective (take note of the kitchen scene at the beginning in the apartment, where Vincent Vega retreats to the background and the camera sticks with Jules as he gives his speech), the scenes involving Butch Coolidge are all from his perspective (e.g. the bar scene where Jules goes to sit with Marsellus Wallace when Butch goes to the bar, where he's atagonized by Vincent before Vincent is taken away - and the camera always sticks with Butch), etc.

Obviously there are exceptions to certain shots, but I put that down to the fact that Tarantino isn't much for making a "perfect" film, he's there to make a film that's heavily enjoyable. Also those shots are used sparsely to give context (Mia overdosing whilst Vincent is in the bathroom, etc.).

You sound like a audio expert have you tried plugging a shotgun mic with xlr cable to 3.5mm to the camera? I've been discovering some weird issues, like sometimes I get buzzying noise and sometimes I don't. Haven't had any issues with the mic itself considering I've use it quiet alot lately by plugging it into a pre amp which is plugged into the computer by USB.
Click to expand...

For future reference, I'm nowhere near an expert on any subject to do with film - in fact I only got into the whole "I want to make movies" mind set some time last year, and am still a student. I'm sure you'd get plenty of help over in this part of the forum though!

Also I love shattered memories but I don't think that would translate well because of the plot twist tricks the audience more, if you played it all the way through I think you would understand what I mean because if you made it in film the twist would seem to obvious.
Click to expand...

Shattered Memory I think is a nicely contained story in and of itself, and it fits the non-linear narrative structure that you seemed to have going for the first one without having to really edit the story much to do so. Also, the twist of it
being his daughter in therapy and not actually him
wouldn't be that obvious at all. I think it all depends on the way you'd shoot those scenes, but you perhaps wouldn't have to - you could even have something where
Harry is travelling through Silent Hill, and during moments of extreme stress (e.g. surrounded by the monsters, almost drowning, etc.) could have lines from the therapist, and then everything would pan out as usual, with the ending of
Harry walking into the lighthouse and seeing his daughter - but instead of having her interact with him you'd just flick to another perspective of the room where the door is closed, Harry is missing and the daughter moves her attention back from the door and to the therapist
.

Obviously, the plot would need some work, as with any good adaptation (because of course doing straight adaptations to film isn't going to work out too well, considering video game stories are based around completely different target audiences). In fact if I had the resources and the time I'd shoot that myself.
 
Ya I'm only 20, and going to college in just a few days! I'm taking acting course though, I can learn to be a good actor or even use that skill towards my directing considering the relationship between the two are very important. Plus I just wanna get school out of the way, and just wanna make movies you know? Might be easier at college considering there are alot of film and acting students! I'll probably wirte scripts, music, and maybe even some short shorts in my free time when I'm at school since I'm only gonna be working seasonal like summer. The restless dreams would probably be my first professional short, sort of. I would like to get some professional camera though, one with xlr inputs instead of the 3.5mm. The restless dreams short I used this Sony HDR CX100 really tiny camera. For Blood Tears we used Canon Vixia HF S20 which are a pretty popular model, it's like a expensive consumers camcorder. I see alot of people using DSLR cameras which have amazing picture but I don't understand how they would get good sound, it would be like my situation now.
 
Good sound is fairly simple to get, it's just hard to get the information to begin with. What you need is an external microphone and (if your camera doesn't support using one) an external recorder. Shotgun microphones are used to get audio from a specific point that the microphone is pointed at, whereas a boom microphone gets audio from all around it. They both can use wind protectors (?) and the like to get rid of background noise. Getting someone to handle the microphones off camera and maneuver them around the scene to keep a constant distance from the actors (which keeps the volume (/levels, again I'm not familiar with the terminology) basically the same throughout the scene, which gets rid of problems like the jail scene in your short film where James' volume changes depending on where he's standing.

It's also a good idea to do that for shot switching so that you don't get things like the audio quality changing between shots, which is the biggest problem people tend to have nowadays (though I can't remember seeing it as much of a problem in yours).

There are other types of microphone, but the only other one I can think of suggesting for this film at least would be something like a... the name escapes me. Those microphones you clip on to your collar? I say that because the conversation scene between James and Maria would still probably be too hard for a single external microphone to pick up because of her location behind the bars. They also wouldn't be too visible either, considering the brightness of your film and the dark colours everywhere.

Again, not much of a technical person, but there are specific sections of this board that can help you out.
 
ThatGuyFromThatPlace said:
Good sound is fairly simple to get, it's just hard to get the information to begin with. What you need is an external microphone and (if your camera doesn't support using one) an external recorder. Shotgun microphones are used to get audio from a specific point that the microphone is pointed at, whereas a boom microphone gets audio from all around it. They both can use wind protectors (?) and the like to get rid of background noise. Getting someone to handle the microphones off camera and maneuver them around the scene to keep a constant distance from the actors (which keeps the volume (/levels, again I'm not familiar with the terminology) basically the same throughout the scene, which gets rid of problems like the jail scene in your short film where James' volume changes depending on where he's standing.

It's also a good idea to do that for shot switching so that you don't get things like the audio quality changing between shots, which is the biggest problem people tend to have nowadays (though I can't remember seeing it as much of a problem in yours).

There are other types of microphone, but the only other one I can think of suggesting for this film at least would be something like a... the name escapes me. Those microphones you clip on to your collar? I say that because the conversation scene between James and Maria would still probably be too hard for a single external microphone to pick up because of her location behind the bars. They also wouldn't be too visible either, considering the brightness of your film and the dark colours everywhere.

Again, not much of a technical person, but there are specific sections of this board that can help you out.
Click to expand...

A couple of months ago I picked up NTG-2 Rode Shotgun mic, very awesome mic, then I just made my own boom pole (indymoglue backyard effects video :) I also have Centerance Pre amp which is used for plugging instruments or microphones directly to the computer by USB which sound alot better than plugging directly to the camera... but if I that, it would be so complicated in the editing stage. We could always yell out scene 1 cut 2 etc. I like the camera that I got, well I got it almost the same time as the mic ! lol
 
Ah, so the main problem you have is with syncing the sound in post? Making a loud noise visibly is the common work around for that - stereotypically you see it with movie slates that clack in front of the camera, but you can also just get one of the cast members to clap loudly before the scene in the shot. Then it's just a case of matching the clap with the visuals and it's all set!

If that's still too complicated, then you should really get someone else to do the sound editing in post, because really that's the kind of thing you're expected to do. Good sound and bad sound is one of the biggest factors, in my opinion, that seperates amateur films from professional films, second only to shot choices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top