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"The Good Wild Man" Short Film


Mark Kenfield

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Hey guys,

 

Been wanting to share this with you all for a while now, and here she finally is, "The Good Wild Man". A good old-fashioned post-apocalyptic tale.

 

 

It's 15 minutes long, so you may want to grab a cup of tea before settling in to watch it.

 

As always, would love to hear your feedback, both what you thought worked, and what you thought didn't.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

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Very nice visuals and color palette. But if this is post-apocalyptic - as evidenced by the car & the items in the shack - I don't get why the characters seem to have suddenly de-evolved into non-verbal homo-sapiens.

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I agree with Bill. The audience is quickly trying to create their own sense of history. The first male lead has a haircut that sugests that the apocolapse happened three months ago, as do the perfect white teeth.

 

For the running time, I thought that the developed concept was a bit narrow. I had time to wonder what a post apocolaptic Australian savanna might look like. Where were the aboriginees? The most likely ones to survive.

 

It is pretty looking. It could have been harder, meaner and dirtier, but I think that should have been driven by a harder, meaner, dirtier concept. I sort of felt a bit distant, with the visual scale modulated within limits that were too close together. So the result feels a bit over-normalized.

 

A white-culture, well groomed dystopian vision.

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Hi Mark

since u are not responsible for the scripting...characterisation....and various other elements involved in storytelling... am not getting in there.

What u are responsible for... which is cinematography, is very commendable.

 

What worked :

  • very good opening shots.
  • your choice of locations is great
  • liked your lensing
  • camera operation was good
  • nice night effect mood

 

What didnt work:

  • there was no consistency in the colour grading of day sequence
  • camera positions feels too restrictive. could have been more wild and yet fluid.

 

Hey ..these are just my opinions. since this is a creative endeavour there is nothing right or wrong. its just a process!

had fun watching it. was intriguing. cheers!

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Really appreciate the feedback guys, I know the Director will be glad to hear your thoughts, I'll pass them on.

 

Very nice visuals and color palette. But if this is post-apocalyptic - as evidenced by the car & the items in the shack - I don't get why the characters seem to have suddenly de-evolved into non-verbal homo-sapiens.

 

Cheers Bill. I believe the idea was that everything was so far post total apocalypse that all semblance of civilisation, language, agriculture etc. had vanished.

 

I agree with Bill. The audience is quickly trying to create their own sense of history. The first male lead has a haircut that sugests that the apocolapse happened three months ago, as do the perfect white teeth.

 

For the running time, I thought that the developed concept was a bit narrow. I had time to wonder what a post apocolaptic Australian savanna might look like. Where were the aboriginees? The most likely ones to survive.

 

It is pretty looking. It could have been harder, meaner and dirtier, but I think that should have been driven by a harder, meaner, dirtier concept. I sort of felt a bit distant, with the visual scale modulated within limits that were too close together. So the result feels a bit over-normalized.

 

A white-culture, well groomed dystopian vision.

 

Yeah, hair and make-up were our biggest disappointments with the piece too. First we lost most of our major locations (everything except the hut) to bushfires two days before we were supposed to shoot - and those locations included a waterfall and river where we were going to have a scene of the characters washing themselves (which would have explained why they weren't totally filthy); and then we lost our make-up artist the day before production. So that certainly put us on the backfoot... I guess the result is as obvious as we feared!

 

I don't quite follow what you mean by "with the visual scale modulated within limits that were too close together. So the result feels a bit over-normalized." Gregg. Could you expound on that a little more please?

 

Hi Mark

since u are not responsible for the scripting...characterisation....and various other elements involved in storytelling... am not getting in there.

What u are responsible for... which is cinematography, is very commendable.

 

What worked :

  • very good opening shots.
  • your choice of locations is great
  • liked your lensing
  • camera operation was good
  • nice night effect mood

 

What didnt work:

  • there was no consistency in the colour grading of day sequence
  • camera positions feels too restrictive. could have been more wild and yet fluid.

 

Hey ..these are just my opinions. since this is a creative endeavour there is nothing right or wrong. its just a process!

had fun watching it. was intriguing. cheers!

 

Thanks Rajavel. Which scenes stood out to you as inconsistent in the grade?

 

And what do you mean by "restrictive" camera positions? Do you mean the camera didn't move around enough showing the various angles of each location?

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I don't quite follow what you mean by "with the visual scale modulated within limits that were too close together. So the result feels a bit over-normalized." Gregg. Could you expound on that a little more please?

 

 

I felt that the visual style was a bit too consistent, it lacked a sense of the extreme, and this limited what you could express. Re scale. Extremes would have worked. Being completely lost in the lanscape. Being confronted with extreme closeups, macros that nudged us into a more abstracted sense of the momentary idea. For example, the locket was an in to some more subtle, spiritualized layer. How do we express the character's sense of that. A flicker in their iris, a reflection of the face in the locket, the slight movement of their eyelash?

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Hey guys,

 

The film is now part of Filmconvert's 2014 Cinematography Competition. If you anyone fancies following the link below and voting for us, I'd be eternally grateful!

 

filmconvert.com/competition_2014/Video.aspx?id=769

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

Edited by Mark Kenfield
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Hey guys,

 

The film is now part of Filmconvert's 2014 Cinematography Competition. If you anyone fancies following the link below and voting for us, I'd be eternally grateful!

 

filmconvert.com/competition_2014/Video.aspx?id=769

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

 

Done. Nice work and good luck!

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Hey Mark

My wishes for ur film in the cinematography contest. will be following :)

 

Mark...regarding the grade..for example...if u notice the skeleton shots....in order of appearance...they vary in brightness and contrast levels. they get brighter and then get less brighter in the sequence which i felt was breaking the flow of imagery. and also felt the pink grade of the sky was bleeding too much below the cloud/sky...onto the trees and even onto the rocks near the actor. the gradation of the same could have been less prominent.

the two full length shots in the beginning sequence where the man is standing facing away from the camera...at 32 sec and 45 sec....in between which no time lapse has happened...shows significant change in the grade..which stood out too much for me in terms of imagery.post-14805-0-60017500-1413641977_thumb.jpgpost-14805-0-17492600-1413642000_thumb.jpg

and....by 'restrictive' i meant nothing technical...but a 'feeling' that it was too straight and safe. showing such wild people and wild locations....the camera positions could have been more edgy...and more wild. it could have been more 'handheld' frames and spots rather than smooth butter like positioning ! replacing these wild ancestors with two corporate guys in ties would have fitted in with the existing smooth frames and operation. but as i told u in my earlier mail....this is just a creative endeavour and everything is a choice ....and what u have done is also working well. we are just exploring new windows in this forum. thanks for sharing this film. and my wishes for ur competition.

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Thanks guys, much appreciated!

 

And thanks for the detailed feedback Rajavel. That sunrise was brutal to grade, the two shots were part of the same clip and taken only 30-odd seconds apart, but the ambient light in the sky rose about two stops between them, so matching them was a nightmare (macroblocking kept coming up as I pushed each section higher or lower - and ProResHQ 4:2:2 has it's limits). I might take another swing at them though.

 

Cheers

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