watch The Wireless Trap

rotwang · May 1, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyaGHHwZxkk
This is the first film of our Monologue-Plus series.
These movies are based on a monologue featuring a single actor/actress.
This turns out as a nice win-win, because the talent gets first class material
for the reel and we have the chance to do proof-of-concept on cinematic features.

Our goal is to finish such a monologue-plus film in just 2 days,
one day filming, one day editing.
This first one was a bit more complicated, we had 2 actors and also spend time
for an extensive original score and audio effects mix.

All dialogues where replaced in the recording studio, we don't believe in set tone.

ItDonnedOnMe · May 1, 2014

Interesting concept and it looks good, but...

rotwang said:
All dialogues where replaced in the recording studio, we don't believe in set tone.

I have to say this is a bizarre decision - I found the slight mismatch between the dialogue & actor's lips distracting, and the tone doesn't feel at all natural for the scene. For something that relies so heavily on the actor's performance and emotion I can't see why you'd choose not to capture the entirety of the original performance. I think you're weakening the overall film by relying entirely on ADR.

rotwang · May 2, 2014

ItDonnedOnMe said:
Interesting concept and it looks good, but...
I have to say this is a bizarre decision - I found the slight mismatch between the dialogue & actor's lips distracting, and the tone doesn't feel at all natural for the scene.

Thank you for watching and your comment, yes, there are a few glitches, also visual ones.
But Im quite happy with the ratio of result/invested time.
Our goal is to streamline the process to get better results in limited time.

AudioPostExpert · May 2, 2014

rotwang said:
Our goal is to streamline the process to get better results in limited time.

That's the goal of pretty much all filmmakers, from no budget amateurs all the way up to the directors of Hollywood blockbusters. Part of achieving this goal is recording and using the production sound because it produces "better results" AND takes less time than dubbing/ADR. With dubbing/ADR, you have to shoot the film and then record the dialogue, in effect you're doing it twice which is obviously going to take more time than doing it once!

rotwang said:
... we had 2 actors and also spend time for an extensive original score and audio effects mix.

That is in no way an "extensive" audio mix! Also, an "extensive original score" is counter productive. The greatest emotional strength/power of incidental music is the contrast between incidental music and no music (just sound). In other words, it's when and where you use incidental music which gives it it's emotional impact. By using incidental music all the way through, not only have you cost yourself the added time of composing music for the entire duration of the short but it looses it's dramatic impact.

rotwang said:
All dialogues where replaced in the recording studio, we don't believe in set tone.

What you believe is irrelevant compared to what the audience believes! I agree with IDOM, your dialogue does not sound believable, in fact it sounds more like narration or VO than natural dialogue. There are a number of reasons for this; poor lip-sync in places, poor positioning of the actress relative to the mic, poor dubbing/ADR recording quality and finally poor mixing/processing. Recording good ADR and mixing/processing it well enough to be believable is a skilled and time consuming process, which is why it's always avoided, whenever possible.

It's likely that dubbed films/programs are common in the OP's country and therefore that dubbing is far more acceptable to local audiences. Even so, if you can achieve better results and save time by recording/using production sound, why wouldn't you?

G

rotwang · May 2, 2014

@ape, Thank you for the helpful comments. Extensive was related to exceed the 24 man hours time budget. Continuous score and nearly dry intimate voice where a design decision. Will keep your suggestions in mind for the next script.

rotwang · May 2, 2014

AudioPostExpert said:
That is in no way an "extensive" audio mix!
G

It is at least for me,

. if you consider, that I did an original score and multiple tracks of chinese curses, foleys and sampled broken dishes and glass for the end scene.

AudioPostExpert · May 2, 2014

rotwang said:
Continuous score and nearly dry intimate voice where a design decision.

I understand the purpose of VO and the benefits of realistic/believable sync dialogue. What I don't understand is confusing the two, what were you trying to achieve with this design decision? And, what were you trying to achieve by using music throughout?

rotwang said:
It is at least for me, if you consider, that I did an original score and multiple tracks of chinese curses, foleys and sampled broken dishes and glass for the end scene.

Some Foley and a few hard SFX are just two components of a sound mix and even then, your use of Foley was limited and inconsistent in places. There's the additional required component of atmos and of course in creating depth/perspective to make the mix sound realistic/believable. Including these elements would have made your use of "extensive" a more accurate description.

G

rotwang · May 2, 2014

Thank you so far for the deep dive into the audio part, I understand your suggestions and your different view
to my decisions which are about style, a contrapointed web of score and very dry voice to support the psycho talk of the actress.
This should not be a discussion, if my use of the word "extensive" is appropriate. You might be surprised, but to me the sound is working fine and doesn't give the first impression of a crap movie.

Would be great to hear about all the other aspects of the film.

Interesting points would be.
- Is the script/story working?
- Is the lighting, framing and coloring appropriate?
- What about the editing, the transitions, the inserts?
- Is the software zoom acceptable?

As always, I did some mistakes, learn from them and hope to make better films
by talking to other filmmakers and people who just watched the short.

AudioPostExpert · May 2, 2014

rotwang said:
... and your different view to my decisions...

Not just mine but every serious filmmaker (amateur and professional).

rotwang said:
...to me the sound is working fine and doesn't give the first impression of a crap movie.

Of course, it's your choice whether or not you want to identify your mistakes and learn from them. Good luck in the future.

G

rotwang · May 2, 2014

AudioPostExpert said:
Not just mine but every serious filmmaker (amateur and professional).

Of course, it's your choice whether or not you want to identify your mistakes and learn from them. Good luck in the future.

G

Sounds a bit like you know everything better. I explicitely wrote, I made mistakes (the sync glitches) and Im willing to learn.
There are no hard rules which say:
- dont use an imtime dry voice
- dont do a full score on dialog
- dont frame an actor dead center
-always use the 3act structure
etc
This is creative film making and when I decide for something which is NOT technical wrong (the sync glitches are obviously my technical failure),
then we should talk about good or bad taste and not about absolute truth.

ChimpPhobiaFilms · May 2, 2014

The audio was distracting. I'm not saying that because other's have, and I don't always agree with APE, but sound really made this film suffer. The dialogue sounded out of environment, there was some unpleasant echoing or just hollow sounding parts, and the music didn't completely fit. That's just my opinion.

I felt the pacing was a bit slow for this film. It didn't really grab me. There were some black flashes between cuts as well. In addition to that, the ending didn't feel very powerful. The fade to black and titles didn't seem fitting. Perhaps a smash cut to back with a booming noise, and quick jumpy credits might have tied it up nicer.

I loved the look of the film. There's no extreme and constant desaturation, there's vibrant and appealing looking images. I liked the story and acting as well. The sets looked nice (the scream looked photoshopped in for some reason... I know that sounds odd but it stood out to me for some reason), which is commonly something lacking in smaller-budgeted films, but you nailed it. I also thought the wardrobe was good as well. Overall, the film looked visually appealing and the story was good aside from some pacing and editing problems I had with it.

Nice work.

Sweetie · May 2, 2014

Would be great to hear about all the other aspects of the film.

Interesting points would be.
- Is the script/story working?

These questions are more opinion based questions. I personally don't like this style of filmmaking, so the story doesn't work for me. It doesn't mean that it doesn't work for others.

- Is the lighting, framing and coloring appropriate?

In my opinion, mostly no.

- What about the editing, the transitions, the inserts?

The transitions were rarely smooth. Some were ok. In my opinion, there wasn't enough coverage, specifically, coverage that wasn't on the main character, this pushed you into awkward editing choices.

- Is the software zoom acceptable?

While most will probably disagree with me on this, yes, they're fine. Movement is good to have so long as it looks right.

You might be surprised, but to me the sound is working fine and doesn't give the first impression of a crap movie.

Something to consider. It may be an indication that your playback equipment isn't up to scratch. It sounded pretty bad to me. At the start I was struggling to work out whether it was a poor recording or whether the actor was slurring their words pretty bad.

Sounds a bit like you know everything better. I explicitely wrote, I made mistakes (the sync glitches) and Im willing to learn.
There are no hard rules which say:

You're going to learn most when you're hard on yourself. When you're able to look at what you're doing and recognize the issues on your own and fix them.

- dont do a full score on dialog

There's nothing wrong with a full score on dialogue. I have a personal preference to do it. When you put the score on, you need to ask yourself some questions. What is your goal for the scene. Does the proposed score help or hinder your goal. In this film, the score on top of the dialogue was (in my opinion) too loud. I'd reduce it by about 15 to 20db. The dialogue was already hard to understand, if the filmmaker puts in something to make it even harder to hear what's going on, as the audience, I won't work harder, I lose interest. What does the rest of your potential audience do in this situation?

- dont frame an actor dead center
-always use the 3act structure

These are general rules. They're good rules to follow (rule of thirds, 180 rule. etc) until you understand why they are rules. I suggest that you follow those rules until you're at the point of comprehension, then, if you want, experiment in breaking those rules. Each rule is there, quite often to maintain the suspension of disbelief or to give the audience what they expect. If your goal is to disrupt the audience, break their suspension of disbelief or give them something they don't expect, then break the appropriate rule. I suggest that you have a reason to break a rule.

This is creative film making and when I decide for something which is NOT technical wrong (the sync glitches are obviously my technical failure), then we should talk about good or bad taste and not about absolute truth.

Look, you're right. What works for me may not work for you.

Take the feedback that people give you. Absorb and learn from what will help you, ignore the rest.

rotwang · May 2, 2014

@ChimpPhobiaFilms

Thank you for the nice comment. Be sure, that I will rethink the audio part, even if I like it as it is now.

Pacing slow - I agree, but a long monologue will always need some extra attention span.
Flashing cuts - I know, those are the technical mistakes I meant (there are more)
Fade out - I wanted an end with the actress satisfied and the audio dispute fading out.
The Scream was an extra layer - you have a good eye.

This comment was very helpful.

rotwang · May 2, 2014

@sweetie

Thank you for the very detailed comment, this helps much.

Would like to hear more about lighting, framing and coloring problems you see.

Yes, score could have been some db less, I agree.

Sweetie · May 2, 2014

Lighting was rather dullish. I'm not the best lighting person. I rely upon others for it. When she stood up where she moved out of the light.

Framing, your headroom required a lot to be desired. The framing also hinders what I see as your goal. These kind of character pieces also rely upon feeling the emotion of the character. You're often too wide for this to work.

Try something, take a bunch of shots that you did and punch in a bit in post. See if you feel that the shots become more interesting, more able to hold the audiences attention (which I suspect will be the case). If so, then your shot selection may be something to think more about in the future.

Also, I really suggest you play around with J and L cuts. Get to feel how they help your transitions become more seamless. Pay attention to how the audio helps with the transitions.

Next. Try to cut the fat. Figure out how to do it with what you have. Experiment with trying to tell the story from different angles, different times, in different order, taking out pieces that don't support your story etc. See how you can pull your audience in. Work out how to turn this relatively boring tale and tell it so the audience is interested and MUST see the ending. This will take you a lot of time, and you might not even find a solution.

Most of this is from an editing perspective though.

As for color, I don't think your bluish look matched your music.

rotwang · May 5, 2014

Thank's again for all your comments.
We already filmed the next monologue and decided to better leave it more static. Just a static shot, some close ups, some inserts, little underscore. Just a monologue performance setup in a simple scenery.

rayw · May 5, 2014

rotwang said:
Our goal is to streamline the process to get better results in limited time.

Yeah, I can attest to that.
When I was doing my 'Places of Nature' series my processes and QCs improved over time, so I understand that learning curve as well as the challenge of working within a "sensible" time limit = maximizing 80% return on the first 20% effort.
Nailing down that last 20% really does suck up 80% of your time.
The value is debatable, and often warranted especially if you can get up to 90% done with 50% of the effort required to get things subjectively perfect*.

*No one's EVER gonna make everyone happy.
Someone's always gonna b!tch about something, so eff'em.

- Is the script/story working?

The soundtrack was so loud I frequently couldn't understand WTH was going on in this dialog dependent story.
Sometimes the dialog volume was very quiet, often it was fine.

The dialog/soundtrack mix seemed like it was 50/50, and I guess I prefer a 70/30 gross volume split between the two.

When I'm doing my dialog tracks (APE, keep in mind we're pretty much just using volume on a "quick and dirty" digital level meter) I try to keep all the dialog volume between -8 and -4, -12 at the quietest.

I suspect you don't wanna go back in and monkey with your soundtrack volume up and down across it's length, but... eh...
Knock that soundtrack down -15dBs. Maybe -20.

One more bright idea I had, and I acknowledge this is going to suck up even MORE time, keep the original dialog, pull it up on your DAW, lay in your ADR dialog on a second line, and try to match the peaks and ending sounds by adjusting speeds, then silence the original track and see how that looks.

Otherwise, the rubber lips really did look fruity. :yes:

Also, with the soundtrack so loud the necessity to crank up the volume on the gravel driveway AFX @ 3:53 was a distraction that would have benefited from either a shot outside of the vehicle approaching (Yeah - ONE MORE SHOT! negating the simplicity principle of this exercise) or knocking down both the volume of the soundtrack and corresponding gravel AFX.

Story?
IDK WTH that story was.
Some crazy Smeagol/Gollum woman hellbent on torturing her roommate or the girl upstairs?
IDK.

And IDK what roommate's shrieking over @ 4:56.
Knocked over flowers? :huh:

How the title relates to the story? Beats me.

And just to back up a little, I DID LIKE how the audio of the opening rocking piece of broken plate @ 0:06 carried over into the following shot @ 0:18.

- Is the lighting, framing and coloring appropriate?

Lighting and coloring were fine.
The framing gets a little sparse at places like 3:36 & 3:46

And the shutter speed looked "fast" @ 4:20 - 4:31.
Generally, keep it double your frame rate.
This often makes lighting for exposure + fooling with ND filters an additional hassle.

- What about the editing, the transitions, the inserts?

Fine.

- Is the software zoom acceptable?

Nah. It always looked artificial.

As always, I did some mistakes, learn from them and hope to make better films
by talking to other filmmakers and people who just watched the short.

Please, keep 'em coming!
I'm just as interested as you are in seeing how these progress over the next dozen projects. :yes:

rotwang · May 5, 2014

Wow, thank you for the nice words and valuable infos.

rayw said:
The soundtrack was so loud...

I might do another sound mix with just the score attenuated.

rayw said:
Story?
IDK WTH that story was.
Some crazy Smeagol/Gollum woman hellbent on torturing her roommate or the girl upstairs?
IDK.
And IDK what roommate's shrieking over @ 4:56.
Knocked over flowers?
How the title relates to the story? Beats me.

The Trap:
Imagine the disturbance, the heavy dispute with chinese curses from the pumped up stereo.
Neighbors calling the police.
Finding Dong with the corpse inside the apartment...

Dong shrieks, when she sees the corpse of Tim. At the same moment Mia inside the elevator
starts the streaming of a recorded dispute. Sending sound of curses and broken porcelain from her cell phone
to the stereo.

rayw said:
And just to back up a little, I DID LIKE how the audio of the opening rocking piece of broken plate @ 0:06 carried over into the following shot @ 0:18.

Thank you very much, yes, that was one of the cinematic experiments I wanted to do. Its task was indeed to start with a nervous, psycho feeling.