It Felt Good to Have This Pain - Short Film

Started by matt35mm, May 09, 2012, 10:41:09 PM

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

matt35mm

My previous short film, I'm So Sorry to Hear About Henry, was a practice run of sorts for this upcoming film (same cast/crew, and just wanted to get something quick under our belts before doing something more ambitious).

So we went straight from working on Henry to working on this. We've recently wrapped (more or less), and I've cut together a trailer that I will include on my DVD for Henry at Cannes.

You can view the trailer at: http://vimeo.com/41858552

Also, you can follow updates on the film at www.facebook.com/itfeltgoodtohavethispain  I'll also be putting up some still images from the film as I edit. With this one, I'm trying to build up some anticipation for the film instead of just throwing it out there, so hopefully the Facebook page and this trailer will help with that. Please "like" that page to follow along with new info about the project.

The film itself is probably about 2 months away from being finished (the trip to Europe is taking 3 weeks out of time that I'd be spending on post production), but since I have the trailer I figured I'd start this thread about it now.

Hope y'all enjoy.

Jeremy Blackman

Looks good! Do you know about how long the film might end up being?

I fixed your Vimeo link.

matt35mm

Thanks!

It should end up being around 12 or 13 minutes long.

pete

gorgeous images dude.
I'm editing something else so I can't have the sound right now. but those shots are super pretty and packed.

matt also just a heads up - the cinematographer I use lives in Austin and he's one of the best, no qualifier needed. if you're ever looking for someone for your future gigs - check him out. I've seen similar vibes from a lot of his work as well.

can't wait to see it dude.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

diggler

Nicely edited trailer! I love the last shot of the tree suddenly standing still.
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

matt35mm

Thanks so much for checking it out, and for the kind words.

Pete, I hope someday I can afford to work with a cinematographer. At this point, I'm totally not able to afford to pay for one and I don't personally know anybody who would work for free that would do a better job than me. But it's still good to know his name, because who knows what the future will bring in terms of projects. And I like his stuff.

matt35mm

All right, well I finished this movie last November and have been submitting to festivals, and not making it publicly available because some of the festivals I've submitted to request that it be a regional premiere. We've gotten into one festival so far (Fresno), but there's still basically a year's worth of waiting to do from all the festivals, and I'm not terribly patient.

So I'm gonna cheat a little and put the private link to this movie here for a few days, because I always like sharing my work with you guys. I guess having it up temporarily allows me to justify it as not being public. And also, isn't The Art Gallery section not available to non-members anyway? So fuck 'em! (EDIT: I just tested this by logging out; turns out non-members can see it now. But whatever. Fuck 'em!)

For some reason the Vimeo version looks good on some monitors and bad on others--I guess because there are a lot of dark images. Or maybe I'm just doing Vimeo wrong.

Anyway, enjoy.

Pubrick

it's true, the film is very dark visually and i get a lot of artifacts in some shots.

i like the melancholia reference. and i liked how the tree stopped moving.

bit long for my taste but hope it does well in the festival circuit.
under the paving stones.

Just Withnail

Nice work!

Spoilers


Agree it's a bit long, but then again maybe it had to be in order to sustain the turn it ended up taking. Ballsy move with that ending! Not sure it completely worked for me, but definitely interesting. A lot of interesting stylistic choices as well. Like P said, the tree stopping was great. Also really liked the cut to white, that revealed itself as the burnt out sky. The crash was very well executed and the gore was just hidden enough not to feel gratuitous and still feel horrible.

Nice natural acting as well. And the lighting in that scene where the girl talks about her childhood is just gorgeous.

©brad

Loved it. Some of your most beautiful images yet. You're getting better with every film. And I personally didn't feel it was long. P is right it definitely has a Melancholia vibe.



SPOILERS


That crash made me jump out of my seat! How did you pull that off? How long was production?

matt35mm

Thanks y'all.

SPOILERS

The exterior of the car crash was done as a composite shot. First shot was seeing the main car driving toward the intersection, then panning over to see the other car. Then we did a separate shot of the main car whizzing through the intersection. I composited the main car running through the intersection on top of the shot of the other car.

Then we cut to the interior, which I basically did as a frame-by-frame thing. I shot at a very low shutter speed and moved the camera around while exposing each frame, to get that blurred motion look (as it would look if something was happening very fast). I had them slowly move backward into their seats, which looks more like they're flying out of their seat when the footage is played backward. Then I did a frame by frame of the airbag popping. I added blood and shattered glass digitally.

I love coming up with stuff like that. I wrote it because I knew I could make it work, and that it would be effective. And it didn't cost anything!

As far as production, we'd shoot for small periods of time over the course of about 1.5 months, more or less only shooting one scene or two scenes at a time, or sometimes only part of a scene. The movie bounces around a lot of locations, and it worked out better for us to shoot one location at a time.

xerxes

Excellent job, Matt. I thought it was really fucking great.

SPOILERS

The crash looked awesome, as everyone mentioned already. But my favorite part was the blown-out shot and the cut to the shot of the girl  silhouetted against the sky. Good stuff there.

matt35mm


wilder

Wow this felt like a really big step forward for you. I loved the lighting in the shots with the girls doing their make-up in a mirror. WHITE/NEUTRAL FLESH TONES (or rather non-yellow flesh tones), so hard to come by in things shot on video. For the most part, the performances felt more spontaneous and naturalistic than your last thing, as if they were moments you happened to catch rather than orchestrated. I loved the girl's subtle expression as her hand was held as she was being led away from the party. While I appreciate the attempt at the more experimental storytelling aspects of this short, I agree it's a little long and I'd be curious to see what it'd play like if you cut out the monologue bits and went through the party/traditional narrative bit straight, which I felt was really well done and engaging even without your more stylistic flourishes. I think it could stand on its own. Being from Austin maybe you're absorbing a bit of Malick by osmosis.

I was SUPER JARRED when the crash happened, even though we knew it was coming. Really well done. I bolted upright in my seat and went "OH FUCK!". Awesome. The blood/aftermath was also fucked. Black blood. So effective. You're obviously growing with each new thing you do, and I'm even more excited now to see what you produce next.

matt35mm

Thanks! I always really appreciate your thoughts, wilderesque.

The next thing is a feature film that I'm shooting right now. It's going to be nuts. I might well ask you to take a look at a rough cut sometime in the Summer/Autumn for some notes.