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MOS feature


Niki Mundo

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I just saw The Nines on DVD last night. They ran subtitles on audible and recognizable dialogue in the most dramatic part of a scene. It had a really interesting effect on me. Important clues to the plot where whizzing past in the dynamic dialogue delivery. The subtitles did help me recognize these plot elements better. That's kind of the opposite of MOS.

 

I guess you could make a silent movie with subtitles. You wouldn't necessarily need those cumbersome cards. Actually, you'd then be free to run vocal/music tracks on top of the scene. Normally, you avoid vocal/music tracks since they compete with spoken dialogue.

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Any thoughts on a truly MOS feature... 90-120 with no dialog at all..

 

or.. we could reinstate the dialog cards from the Silent Era? right? guys? :blink:

 

'The last Laugh' had no dialogue cards.

 

In the sound era, there's 'The Thief' 1952 with Ray Milland has no dialogue. Though I've never seen it.

 

'Dementia' has no dialogue, but is only about an hour long.

There is a version of it with narration by Ed McMahon. That makes it sillier.

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I think from a director's POV it's not a really prudent idea to design a film around filming just MOS. That's really sort of messing things up. I can't imagine watching a 90 minute feature with various funny cuts that cover up sync, that's just nuts. If you want to really do that though, inserting narration would be a much better way to go.

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Hey Leo,

 

I found these titles on IMDB. Which Dementia is the one you're referring to?

 

It's the 1955 one.

 

post-7981-1209409470.jpg

 

It is photographed by the infamous Wm. Thompson. The Kino disc has both versions.

 

'Beast of Yucca Flats' is only an hour long and also has narration.

 

Stating that the "best" thing in it is a bizzare line of dialogue should imply that it's not exactly a good movie and was mentioned as an example of bending over backwards to avoid lip sync.

 

However here are musical numbers from 'Rat Pfink a Boo Boo':

 

 

 

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I just finished making an MOS feature with an arriflex 16s. As long as you get enough cutaways you can make a decent soundtrack if you're willing to spend ridiculous amounts of time. I did it and I will never do it again. I doubt the movie will be seen by many unless a festival that I send it to takes a liking to it. So far I'm just finished the colour correcting and mastering the sound track.

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Any thoughts on a truly MOS feature... 90-120 with no dialog at all..

 

or.. we could reinstate the dialog cards from the Silent Era? right? guys? :blink:

 

How about a single character trapped in the wilderness who has to fight for survival. Maybe sole surviver of a plane crash or something OR a story told from the POV of a deaf person. They did something like that in a few scenes in Babel, it was amazingly effective and disconcerting.

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I like your approach, Steven. Solve the challenge with scripting.

 

I thought about Fellini. You could shoot it his way with numbers instead of words then loop English. The trick is to run European credits and titles. If people thought it was a foreign film, they might forgive the loose loops. Given the fact that Europe has tapered off on production, you might actually get some market response from people hungry for European product. Wouldn't that really piss off our European posters, here. We steal their product distribution channels by making fake foreign films just because they're cheaper to make.

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yeah.. JSB has more of what I'm thinking about.. Its not a silent movie.. There is sound design and plenty of "audible" things going on.. Just no dialog.. Say a film about a mute.. Or that the first plot point.. His tongue gets ripped off.. To go with JSB's..

 

Two men crash a plane into the woods and get captured by the locals.. Who cut out their tongues as punishment.. Now they have to try to escape and survive but they can't talk to each other.. We could have the locals speaking dialog.. But dont have it subtitled.. The point being "no dialog" but plenty of things to see and hear.. I see the first scene..

 

FADE IN:

 

EXT: JUNGLE - MORNING

 

A horrid everlasting SCREAM

 

SILENCE

 

INT: JUNGLE HUT - MORNING

 

A sweaty bruised battered and gagged man hangs by his feet from the rafters of a bamboo roof. Two large "Natives" restrain and steady him.

 

A third and more important looking man enters his arms and hands bloodied and sastisfied at his handy work, makes his way over and squats down to touch the foreigners face, caressing it with the blood from his hands whispering into his ear.

 

The native leans back to get a better look and SLAPS the foreigner shouting and screaming at him making gestures of flying and exploding. Silence.

 

He shakes his finger in his face dissapointed. One of the restraining natives hands him a knife and two short pieces of wood.

 

He caresses the foreigners face with it as he humms a tune and removes the gagging dirty cloth. The foreigner spits in his face and shouts obscenities.

 

The native, unphased, squeezes the foregners face and shoves a piece of the wood into his mouth and prys it open and puts it in place followed by the other.

 

The native reaches into the screaming mouth and pulls out and severs his tongue. Blood pouring onto the floor.

 

A horrid everlasting SCREAM.

 

SILENCE.

Edited by Jesse Cairnie
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I thought about Fellini. You could shoot it his way with numbers instead of words then loop English. The trick is to run European credits and titles. If people thought it was a foreign film, they might forgive the loose loops.

 

I think that foreign flicks in America already have a serious problem being released as is. If this person is on such a low budget that the film can't afford to shoot sound then it stands an even lesser chance.

 

Yes, Fellini got away with it but back in his era loose looping was still somewhat accepted by audiences (i.e. Soviet cinema - the looping on Chapaev was just comically bad but that was 1934). These days standards have changed. Back in 1969 you could still get away with shooting in B&W. Now it's a real tough sell. Besides, let's not forget one more thing - Fellini was FELLINI!

 

The only way you could get away with it is if your looping was done exclusively for comical effect. On my feature I decided to loop for accuracy, we'd spend lots of time getting stuff smooth. The result is that everyone thinks we shot sync.

 

If you're shooting in 16mm you can pick up a cheap CP 16 or Eclair, try to get some untrained person or student to do the sound on some decent equipment, and then figure that 50% of it you're going to have to loop anyway. At least here you have a chance of getting some stuff done right. If you're shooting 35mm then either get a BL (Visual Products has a decent package with glass for $15K) and do the same or go the MOS and post sync route. Rely on visuals and narration, that's a sure bet to minimize sync. Design your shots and choose your locations so that the sync recording will be easiest (tighter shots for dialog, very quiet interiors with minimal risk of noises).

Edited by GeorgeSelinsky
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If you're shooting 35mm then either get a BL (Visual Products has a decent package with glass for $15K) and do the same or go the MOS and post sync route.

 

Visual Products has a decent BL-1 package with glass for $15K? God, I really LOVE my Commie-cams!!!! :D

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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I think that foreign flicks in America already have a serious problem being released as is. If this person is on such a low budget that the film can't afford to shoot sound then it stands an even lesser chance.

 

Yes, Fellini got away with it but back in his era loose looping was still somewhat accepted by audiences (i.e. Soviet cinema - the looping on Chapaev was just comically bad but that was 1934). These days standards have changed. Back in 1969 you could still get away with shooting in B&W. Now it's a real tough sell. Besides, let's not forget one more thing - Fellini was FELLINI!

 

Not just Fellini. The neo-realists were able to get away with using non-actors because professional actors dubbed their voices. I think Marcello Mastriani's voice was consistantly dubbed by one other actor in Italian movies.

 

Many Italian peplums, westerns, spy movies and what not were international co-productions. So there'd be actors from the various co-producing countries and an American or British lead, thus every one in the cast were speaking diferent languages.

 

An English track dubbed in Rome would have loose synch, whereas one done in New York or LA would take care to match the lips by writing a dubbing script based on the lip movements of the actors.

This could result in some tortured syntax. & most of the characters wound up sounding like radio announcers.

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Yes, many have done this in the past, but badly looped features are the fodder of endless jokes these days. If you're for real and aren't going for the cheese, you're not going to be taken seriously. It's sort of like bad optical bluescreen or cheaply done puppet monsters in horror films. I think Americans in particular are sensitive about it.

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It's sort of like bad optical bluescreen or cheaply done puppet monsters in horror films.

 

Digital greenscreen has taken all the fun out of traveling mattes.

 

& a Harryhausen stop motion puppet has so much more character than some slithery slick pootertoon.

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Yes, many have done this in the past, but badly looped features are the fodder of endless jokes these days. If you're for real and aren't going for the cheese, you're not going to be taken seriously. It's sort of like bad optical bluescreen or cheaply done puppet monsters in horror films. I think Americans in particular are sensitive about it.

Either way, I'd recommend recording production audio on the set, whether you've got a roaring MOS camera or not. That will at least give you something to help align with on an NLE timeline. I haven't read everything on this thread, so I don't know if the subject of ADR alignment software has already been brought up. That said, does anyone here have experience with such software, such as VocAlign, etc.? (I know ProTools works with the VocAlign plugin.) If so, how well does it work?

Thanks.

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We've put The Last Laugh and The Beast of Yucca Flats on our Netflix que. They didn't list Dementia, Thief, and Rat Pfink.

 

While I've known about 'Rat Pfink' for ages, I only recently caught it on TCM Underground.

 

'The Thief' is on Alpha Video which is a cheap public domain company. http://www.oldies.com/

 

& 'Dementia' is on Kino Int'l, so a bit over priced.

 

Kino used to have the feature length documentary 'Antonio Gaudi' by teshigahara. Which only has about five minutes of narration at the end. It makes it's point with classic Soviet montage. As un-PBS as one can get. & not unrelated to this thread. I caught it on TCM and managed to at least make a so-so VHS

 

Kino wanted $30 for a no extras, 70-75 minute movie. So I didn't get it it. When Kino dropped it, Amazon was selling used copies for over $100-200! Was I kicking myself.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/630...3638&sr=1-2

 

Now it's on Criterion, still over priced but at least with some extras.

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