"He Can Hear It"

[Steve Zimmerman]

Here is our short: "He Can Hear It", we shot it without the 85 filter. I was the DP.

 

Super 16mm 200asa Vision2. Camera was ARRI SRIII with telephoto 35mm format super speed Zeiss lenses.

 

The director wanted a Lance Acord, naturalistic, soft light, no shadows look. I usually light more contrasty so it was a nice change.

 

I underexposed one stop at all times indoors (rated at 400asa). Since the character was blind, the lighting motivation was that he rarely had any lights on, so most of the lighting came from 2 575 HMI's through the windows. I used a Kino Flo for back and kicker lights at times. We never used a matte box, so there's some cool flares and hazing of the image at times.

 

Outdoors, I metered for the sunlit areas, letting the shadows go darker. This was from a best-light transfer, so you can see where the one scene with tungsten light was over-corrected orange. Overall, I was very happy with the look and it came out just the way I wanted it to.

 

Here's the link: click on "He Can Hear It"

http://www.twelvebosses.com/

[andres victorero]

I can only see a white screen :unsure:

[Steve Zimmerman]

I can only see a white screen :unsure:

 

You should try updating quicktime. Sorry we don't have it in any other format.

 

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

[Mark Williams]

You should try updating quicktime. Sorry we don't have it in any other format.

 

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Steve I watched Journeymen great film. For a minute at the beginning I thought it was a real life documentary. Very addictive and honest. Really enjoyed its seeming simplicity.

[Mark Williams]

Just watched He can hear it. Again great acting. I wasn't sure about the ending? I can see some of the notes were one dollar bills but not enough to know for sure he had been conned although I think that was what happened. Also the end where he went to jokingly play his piano and the end music played How did it end? Did the guy give the piano back or was it just the title music? The film was great and again addictive. Just a little unsure of parts of the ending.

[Steve Zimmerman]

Just watched He can hear it. Again great acting. I wasn't sure about the ending? I can see some of the notes were one dollar bills but not enough to know for sure he had been conned although I think that was what happened. Also the end where he went to jokingly play his piano and the end music played How did it end? Did the guy give the piano back or was it just the title music? The film was great and again addictive. Just a little unsure of parts of the ending.

 

Thanks for the nice comments.

 

About the ending:

The student swindles the blind piano teacher, paying him with one dollar bills. He gives this to the land lady/property manager. The land lady's cold exterior melts for a moment and accepts the payment as rent.

 

At the end he instictively reaches for the piano keys as he did earlier, forgetting it was not there anymore.

He walks away only to come back and reach for the keys again. The music you hear is the end credits music.

One could interpret different things about the meaning of the ending, but that's what is actually happening.

 

I was only a consultant of sorts on Journeyman, I supplied a couple ideas. I was going to be DP, but the director John Ford made it very simply with just himself, the actors and the camera, without any lights.

 

 

I was DP for another short from another director (Matt Serrins) on the site. That 16mm footage was given a supervised high def transfer. I haven't seen any of that yet, the director is now attending grad film school in the LA area. I'm in Charleston, South Carolina. He was still polishing the edit last I heard. When a clip is online I will try to post a link on here.