M.o.Mo. Club: "Ink"

I watched it last year. Not a great movie but it has numerous commendable aspects for an independent film.

Time for a rewatch.

Catch u guys on the 17th! :)
 
"Ink" isn't in our county library system, so I'm not ignoring the project this go-round, I just can't participate.
Maybe next month.

GL everyone!
 
Bwahahaha! I foist my fantasy junkie tastes on the rest of you...FOIST I SAY!

Seriously though, they did a lot of things really right in this, and some very clever choices. There's some really good discussion to be had here, I think. On the 17th then!
 
Damn! I completely missed 'Chinatown'! Nevermind!

I'm in on this one though - just so any UK LoveFilm subscribers know, this is available on their 'Watch Now' service.
 
So, I have a feeling this month's participants will be limited to myself, Josh, and Ernest (no pressure, guys). :lol: Honestly, I'm okay with whatever, and anyone else who wants to watch the movie and contribute -- the more the merrier.

Yeah, this movie isn't very good. But before I comment on the specifics of what I didn't like, I gotta go off on a little bit of a rant/tangent.

I appreciate what the filmmakers were going for. They set out to make a Matrix-y mind-bending action blockbuster, wrapped around a story with real heart.Wow, these filmmakers have chutzpah! Seriously, they set out to make the movie of the century, and they could not be convinced that their limited budget could stop them from doing that.

But it did. This movie is just so low-rent. Obviously, I don't mean that as an insult (my movies are way more low-rent). Blockbusters require money. There are just so many ways in which this movie falls short of audience (me) expectation. In my opinion, this movie serves as a perfect example of how low-budget indie filmmakers should be aware of their limitations and only shoot movies that they know they can pull-off effectively.

Anyway, I'm seriously tempted to hire a private investigator to track down the editor of this movie, just so I can personally punch them in the face. This is honestly the worst editing I've ever seen in any feature film. EVER! The first time I noticed this was during an early fight-sequence. I couldn't tell what was going on because the editing was so frantic, and that was on top of an up-close and frantic shaky-cam style of shooting.

Whatever. That's not the first time I've found an action-sequence to be confusing. I've learned to deal. The editing seriously pissed me off when I started to get headaches watching simple over-the-shoulder conversations, because the cuts came at me like they were edited by a kid with ADD, on crack. Holy crap, I can't tell you how many reaction-shots I saw that lasted maybe ten frames, at most. And they came in rapid succession. WTF?!

Story-wise, the movie is problematic, at best. It took half the damn movie for them to reveal what it was that the bad guy was trying to accomplish. And in that very scene, it also became kind of obvious what the big twist at the end would be.

This movie needs a protagonist. It's got a few characters who might fill that role, but they're never given the opportunity. As such, the story meanders, never finding any firm ground on which it can move forward on. Stagnant is how I would describe this plot, because we never really know what the hell anyone is exactly trying to accomplish, not until the final 15-minutes.

The cinematography and coloring are pure crap. I would honestly take the raw cinematography and hands-off-coloring of a movie like "Puffy Chair", over what I saw here. The constant crushing of blacks nearly drove me insane. I understand that they were playing with colors to indicate which world we were in, but the quality of the color correction is just so piss-poor that all it did was constantly remind me that I was not watching a blockbuster, but a cheap imitation of one.

Also, I didn't believe any of the acting. None of it. I honestly don't understand how a movie could be made, with professional actors, in which I don't believe a single performance. How does that happen? Seriously, how does that happen? Is it the director? Is it the casting? Was it the writing? What went wrong? Fuck, I see better acting in zero-budget indie movies, all the damn time.

I wanted to like this movie. I was rooting for it. But in the end, it just delivered one single, important message to me, as a low-budget indie filmmaker: Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew.
 
Hey, hey, hey! See above... I said I'm in!

Anyway...

I must preface by saying that ‘INK’ is not a movie I would choose to watch. I’m not much into fantasy movies. Nothing against them, it’s just that, as a general rule of thumb, I don’t get them. Anyhow….

For me, ‘INK’ was no exception. I didn’t get it. I didn’t enjoy it. I’d never heard of it before its selection for discussion and I chose not to read up on it before watching it. Having now read a little about it (on Wikipedia, so no assurance of the “facts”), I am marginally impressed by what was achieved for such a small budget ($250,000, allegedly). But regardless, like Cracker, so much of it just felt ‘wrong’ to me.

The over-exposure, soft focus, blurred borders… all obviously stylistic choices of the filmmakers, I assume to reinforce the idea of this dream world, only served to annoy me. And what was with the huge prosthetic nose flopping about the screen? I did like the look of the Incubus leader (???) with the screen over his face. That was a cool effect.

As far as the story goes, I wasn’t a fan there either. Once it got going, it did become slightly more enjoyable. But the first half-hour, we’re thrown into this world with a bunch of characters that we know nothing about, care-very little for, with no explanation as to what’s going on. What? How? Why? Nothing.

My biggest gripe with this movie was that, as Cracker has noted (and I expect should be obvious to any viewer), it was essentially trying to be ‘The Matrix’, but falling short at every hurdle. The action wasn’t as good, the story wasn’t as fulfilling, the characters were barely interesting. Also, another thing I didn’t quite know what to make of… Why so much profanity? The father uses the word “Fuck” throughout the film (most notably in the first line of dialogue spoken). I’ve nothing against swearing, but it didn’t fit the tone of the movie. The rest of the film felt like a family-friendly movie, why spoil that with dialogue that adds nothing to the movie?

I’m not a fan. I don’t expect I’ll watch this movie again. However, it’s great to see what can be done on a micro-budget and this film clearly has its fans. Glad I watched it, but also glad I’ll never have to see it again.
 
Cracker Funk said:
I wanted to like this movie. I was rooting for it. But in the end, it just delivered one single, important message to me, as a low-budget indie filmmaker: Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew.
Click to expand...
D@MMNATION! :(
I HATE IT when that happens!
It's always just so disheartening.
I'm not much of an ingrained "root for the underdog" sort of guy, but I always want people to understand inexpensive doesn't always mean cheap no more than expensive always equals great. :no:

Anyway...
Looks like I'll be joining your merry little p!ssed-off group later this morning:
http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2761425945/

"Woo-whooo! I have the zee evil tools to stab meself in zee eye baaaaaaaaaaalllll"!
screwdriverxrayct3.jpg


Yay.

I'm all giddy.
Well... not really.
I'm something.



EDIT: LOL!
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1216924-ink/
Seems you guys are n the minority:
 
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Watched it.
No written note taking this time.

Alrighty, folks. This is why a reported $250k film is pretty much just fan fic and a terrible way to spend money.
This isn't an "investment" in anything other than... throwing a party for yourself.

I cannot put my finger on EXACTLY why this cinematography style looks so pre-professional.
And that scares me.
It's there. I see it. But I don't understand what I'm seeing, which for a visual person good with patterns is very frustrating.

Color grading and goofy effects aside, there's something askew about darn near every shot composition and sequence that just yells "I'm not a professional".
My fear is that until I learn WHAT that difference is that this may be the best I could ever do.
For the money spent, INK was a pretty good looking film from an elements and achievements POV.
I personally don't want to peak at this level of cinematography.
There's a professional step beyond this.
These guys here have done a better cinematography job: http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=36701
There. That's what I want to be able to do.

The story itself is 3/4 sufficiently convoluted. A near hit, but shy. A good swing, but a foul ball, none the less.
Business pressured father, loses wife, then loses child to grandparents, rancor, kid drops, big business crisis. Cool. Fine. On paper it looks great. Just like SEASON OF THE WITCH probably did. Also a fail.

I think there's too much dreamland mystical goobledy-gok.
The first half hour seemed a bit slow.
I don't need to be spoon fed the plot, but I don't want to guess at so many probable gaps that I just don't care.
Like Mad Hatter, I just couldn't invest in any of the characters.
This very much reminded me of Tarsem Singh's work: decent to better visuals, lame story.
(I was interested in seeing MIRROR MIRROR - until I saw that he was directing it. Rats. Sigh).

I need mysteries to be more overt, and the problem is that some stories just need to be dropped.
Not every hair-brained concept I, or others, come up with can provide a generally accepted interesting story construct.

Would making this story more complex help? Probably not.
Would adding better sets, costumes, and SFX make it better? Probably not.
Would cleaning up the unnecessary vulgar dialog make it a better story? Nope. Although it is something to keep in mind. Always pay attention to your core story and it's audience. If the core story is rated R then make a [expletive] rated R story. If it's PG-13 then don't add gore, tits, and language to spice it up. That's retarded. Language was the only reason for a probably MPAA R on this, and that's just stupid. LoTR was PG-13 and had a helluva lot more graphic battling. Sam Gamgee didn't run around yelling "FUCK!" every time Gollumn did something annoying.
What if Gandolf, holding onto the edge of the bridge the Balrog just fell through, yelled at Frodo et al "RUN! YOU FUCKING FOOLISH ASSHOLES"!
LMAO!

How do you galvanize the viewer to the story in the first act that won't disclose the "twist", such that it is, in the third act?
I dunno.
I just hope I can see it better than this.

Again, for the money spent... it was pretty good.
But it still looked like a DIY backyard fan fic affair without ever the hope of going onto SiFi channel.
And if you can't get it on there, just quit, fall back, and think about what you're doing.

My "low budget" indie measuring stick remains WINTER'S BONE @ $2M, about what SiFi spends for their schlock films.
Although, I don't know what Winans would have spent >$2M on this to make it significantly better.
 
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Will be watching it again and writing abt it in a couple of days, though i wont write as much as i did for Chinatown.

But since, ive seen the movie b4, it's been interesting to read ur comments here.
 
Yeah, I also had considered watching this before based upon the positive reviews I'd read etc. But then I looked the trailer up and, uh ah, didn't like the look of it based upon that. But this was an excuse to give it a try anyway.

So I started watching it and maybe a quarter of the way in I almost stopped, thinking I might not give any more of my life-time to it, or perhaps I'd watch it in smaller chunks. I stuck it out though.

So, the cinematography first, since Ray went into it so deeply. I don't know if I had much problem with it, minus the "Color grading and goofy effects." If there is something, and I was looking for something at Ray's suggestion, I'd say maybe it could be a general tightness in the framing. Maybe, I did sort of feel that much of the framing is too tight in on its subjects. Not sure about that. I'm really feeling that the cinematography is okay-ish. But I wouldn't put the color grading and goofy effects aside.

--> The second biggest problem with the look of the film for me is that most of the time it looks videoy.

IMDb says that they shot it with the Sony HDV-V1U

Is this it?

I don't know, that says it's capable of 1080/p24.

Comparing the video in Ink to that of Guidlines gives testament, I think, to the 7D's capability to deliver film-like or filmic video. That trailer does look very good.

--> Those blown-out highlights or whatever they are the biggest problem with the look of the film for me.

I very much do not like it. If I were to choose to use that effect, and that's a big if, I'd use it very sparingly. And by very sparingly I mean very, very, very, very, very...and very sparingly, and briefly. But for Ink it's the entire film.

Ouch.

And Vignetting. Do filmmakers use vignetting to indicate a dream state or a flashback into the past? Or is it to simulate vision hindered by cataracts or macular degeneration? I think that usually the latter effect achieved by vignetting outweighs the story benefit for indicating altered states or flashbacks. It tends to repel me.

Again, maybe it's only my own quarky experience or my limited sound set-up, but the audio mix did not seem quite right. I wasn't familiar with the uncanny valley concept until I heard it mentioned by Escher and others in another thread, but I feel like it's akin to that, an uncanny valley, only aural instead of visual. The mix is almost there, almost right, but just not quite right...not quite natural, and so a turn-off. For me, this seems like another case in which a shortcoming with the audio bleeds into the visual experience and detracts from it and from the whole experience. Really, I was wondering as I watched and listened to the movie, if that not-quite-right audio mix might be coloring how I responded to the visuals and to the cinematography, positively or negatively.

Thanks to Cracker, I was prepared for some possibly fast and annoying editing. The rapid fire editing of the fight scenes really didn't bother me. They may have used it in an attempt to ameliorate low-budget issues. What do if you can't afford a Yuen Wo-ping? You might resort to fast cutting like that. Or maybe it was a purely aesthetic choice. All the same, I'm impressed with what they did do. I have to guess that they did have a fight choreographer to pull off what they did do. Probably most importantly, the fighting seemed believable enough to me. And their stunt people or their actors or whoever they are...geesh, some pretty athletic people. All in all, pretty impressive on their budget.

I remember seeing Quantum of Solace and the rapid fire editing of its opening. I hated it. And they had a budget of c.200 million. What's their excuse? Don't worry, I'm not ripping on the movie overall. I thought it was okay overall. I'm a 007 fanboy and hope to see it again and to add it to my library someday.

Yeah, storywise, "there's too much dreamland mystical goobledy-gok" for me too.

Some positive stand outs for me include the scene where the warrior woman meets the tracker person. Some pretty cheeky and amusing dialogue and interplay there.

I did not have a problem with the profanity. It felt natural enough to me. That yelling and dropping of f-bombs in the car scene...am I the only one here who's also done that very thing? Heheh.

Er.

I also like the sequence in which the tracker is orchestrating the collision for the father to have in order to "break the flow," or whatever. Nice and moving dramatically, as well as being well shot.

The screen-mask-thingies of the incubi and their goofy, weird grinning faces are pretty cool looking and well done.

And I like Chris Kelly as the father. He seems like a good actor and has a nice screen presence. I'd cast him if I could and had a role that was right for him.

I hate to have had anything negative to say about the film. But I respect and appreciate their ambition and what they did do well on the budget they had. I was impressed by the quality of their locations and sets too. Did you notice those?
 
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richy said:
I did not have a problem with the profanity. It felt natural enough to me. That yelling and dropping of f-bombs in the car scene...am I the only one here who's also done that very thing? Heheh.
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I don't think Ray or myself were saying that the profanity didn't sound natural. Maybe it did. I don't really remember now. Regardless, it's a stupid idea to put profanity in a film such as this. Everything about this film screamed "family friendly!"... everything except for the swearing. All the filmmakers did here is isolate a large chunk of their audience. They obviously didn't want a movie filled with sex and violence, nor did the story call for it. But with a little thought, f-bombs are easily removed from a script. Just my opinion, but the writers should have thought a little more about thier core audience.
 
Okay, I will have a lot to say about this film later, of course. Not entirely surprised that I liked it more than all of you. So why did I suggest it, if I thought it would be something you guys wouldn't like? What is the filmmaking lesson that I picked up from this? Again, more details on that later; as a composer there were a couple music choices I found particularly effective, but I haven't had time to re-watch.

Anyway, the lesson is this: if making a genre film, do not feel afraid to exclude potential audience. This film is for fantasy fans...people who really love the genre, not just people who saw Lord of the Rings. They *could* have made it more accessible and it would have been more outwardly successful (they had problems getting distribution at first), but their audience found the film and made it a success.

Story is this: shopping for distribution, the film made some waves, internet-wise, but got leaked. Possibly the most heartbreaking thing that could happen to a filmmaker. However, they decided, the cat's out of the bag, so let's just go with it. Told people, sure, download the film, if you like it, toss us a few bucks. They found distribution, got dvds in stores, and sold them.

Now, that's definitely a lemonade from lemons story. I don't think you could really intentionally market a film like that. But worked because their core audience (teen-to-adult fantasy fans, not the family-friendly crowd, mad_hatter. They were shooting for people who liked Pan's Labyrinth or the Fall. Also, rayw, totally understand why you didn't like the Fall, but it's a really beautiful story. For people who like that kind of story), are the sort who hang around the internet. They're the people playing Skyrim right now (a game rated mature).

I heard an interview with Jonathan Coulton once on NPR, talking about the embarassingly large number of dollars he makes each year, entirely through marketing his music online. He was of the opinion that anyone could do that. What he didn't seem to realize is his music pretty much IS internet culture, in folk-rock form. Ink is sort of like that; most people will not like this movie, but those would would are likely to be hanging out online. Therefore, lemonade out of the tragedy of losing control of their film.

Returning to the point, when doing a genre film, you can pander to the masses or you can make a film that your audience will love. I can see why rayw called it a "fan-film" because it is just that. A film for fans. This is not the film that will get anyone loving fantasy dreamworld sort of stories. But if you like that, this is an enjoyable film. I do believe that a balance can be achieved (again, Lord of the Rings is accessable, but fun for fantasy fans too), but there's something to be said for a work that doesn't try to be something it's not. This is where I think Ink really succeeds.

If they had more money, I think an AD who served as an acting coach wouldn't have hurt (most of the cast seemed chosen for their ability to fight). The color grading style I also found sort of dull, and it reminded me of how creative coloring CAN be done. The similarly themed, yet much better film Avalon comes to mind. I thought the ending was meant to be a reveal, not a twist, so it didn't bother me that I had figured it out long before. Like many fantasy films, it uses a lot of archetypes and conventions of fairy tales. To someone interested in that (me), the use does not bother me. To someone not interested, I can see where it comes off same-y and predictable.

Anyway, keep up the discussion. To those who didn't like it, I hope you at least found something to use in your own work (I believe in trying to learn something from everything, good or bad, to my taste or not). Thanks for watching and participating!
 
JoshL said:
...their core audience (teen-to-adult fantasy fans, not the family-friendly crowd, mad_hatter. They were shooting for people who liked Pan's Labyrinth...
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I appreciate what you're saying Josh, understand you completely, but I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not suggesting that Ink is a family movie, or that its aimed at families, like Toy Story is, for example. I know that it's a genre movie. My use of the term "family-friendly" is due to the fact that the content of the movie is family friendly - I'd have no problem showing Ink to a five year old. The only thing that would hold me back from doing so is the repeated use of the word "fuck".

As I stated, I'm not much into the fantasy genre, my experience of fantasy only stretches to Harry Potter and LotR (both of which I really enjoy, come to think of it). So maybe it’s the fact that I don’t understand the conventions of the genre, or what fans of the genre expect, but filling what is essentially a “family” film with swearing just seems like a stupid move…
 
Definitely a good point! I think in fantasy, like video games, comic books, cartoons, etc, there is a "just for kids" chip on the shoulder. This may have been true at one point. Fantasy often comes out of fairy tales, and the entire point is learning through metaphor. Even the early days of video games had plenty of adult content, but the general perception was that they were for kids. Storytelling in games has matured, but there's certainly still a "trying too hard" aspect sometimes. I think that's probably the case here. By including lots of language, they seem to be saying "we want to tell this story to adults, not to kids", perhaps a little to loudly.

Contrast that with The Fall, also R rated. They don't use adult language (IMDB lists one instance), but the story is more mature overall (suicide is a major theme). They didn't NEED to try hard; they were already there. I don't think that's really just a fantasy thing; Midnight Run would be a perfectly fun road movie for the whole family if they didn't cram it full of every curse possible. Harry Potter is another good example. The first book, definitely a kids book with a PG movie. By the last, it's grown decidedly into Young Adult territory, and the film is a PG-13. In that case, the series was designed to grown and mature with the readers (which I think is one of the most brilliant aspects of it).

Either way, you bring up an interesting point about targeting your audience. It's definitely something you need to make a choice to do. When Del Toro was pitching "At The Mountains of Madness", one of the things that he was told is it had to be PG-13. He said it probably would have ended up there, but he didn't want to be constrained to that. If it ended up an R, it ended up an R, and he wanted the studio to understand that from day one. Of course, the studio passed on it, but there's something to be said to sticking to your guns, doubly so when pursuing your dream project.
 
I liked it.

A Husband and Wife team. Jamin Winans: Writer/Direcror/Editor/Producer/Composer. Kiowa K. Winans was Producer/Sound/Costume Designer/Art Director. I can only imagine what their household was like during prep & production.

Nobody got rich on this one. It was a labor of love; something we can all relate to.

Instead of a $200,000,000 Transformers2, I'd rather they made 200 films at $1M. There'd be more and varied films coming out, and we'd all have work.

A perfect film? Gimme a break, they never are. But the Winans made a solid little movie for 250K, and no one will ever convince me it's 800 times worse than Transformers2.
 
_Rok_, I seriously doubt they made this movie just for the love of it. With a quarter of a million dollars on the line, surely, profit was the intention. And just because a different filmmaker might have a much larger budget, that doesn't mean that they also aren't doing it with love and creativity.

JoshL, we don't all have to like the same things, and that's fine, but I'm far from convinced that the filmmakers strictly made this movie for fans of the Fantasy genre, and didn't care about anyone else. They added action. They added drama. They attempted to tell an intriguing story of personal growth. I think those are appeals to the masses.

By the way, who doesn't like "Pan's Labyrinth"? That movie's fucking awesome!

I also object to the idea you're proposing, not just from the perspective of the audience, but as a filmmaker. I think it's a horrible idea to make a movie that panders to any particular audience, or to stick to the tenets of any particular genre. That's when things become formulaic. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for homage, nor does it mean you are forbidden from ever doing anything that might be cliche. But at all times, in my opinion, a filmmaker should simply strive to make a movie that they themselves would want to watch. Screw the audience. Make a movie for yourself, and hopefully there will be other people who like what you like.

And I think that's what the Winans tried to do. They really let their creative juices flow, and there are many bright-spots in this movie. But it's not enough. They bit off more than they could chew, and went and tried to make a blockbuster on a $250K budget.
 
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