Hi,

"Burned Message" is my 10 minute supernatural drama. My previous effort was "Curry Head " a 2 minute short inspired by 80s horror B movies, that I posted on this board a while back. Since then, I started a film course and this film has been done as part of it.

It is a ghost story involving love, jealousy and murder. The ghost of a dead mans wife returns from the grave to give him an important message, which his brother holds the key to. It is a message of truth to stop a wrong destructive belief her husband has been led to believe.

It was shot in HD on the Z1, with some shots filmed in SD on a PD170 with anamorphic lens. The PD170 gave the look I wanted for the last few shots. I edited in standard def in Premiere Pro and used Digital Fusion for some of the effects.

I still got a lot to learn so let me know what you think. Looking forward to any crits.

You can watch it on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCsxk55e-Ro

This is very very good indeed! I was very impressed. The story was good, the pace was strong, the acting was not bad and the sound mix was excellent.

The only things i found a little off were:

Some of the cuts were a little abrupt at the beginning and also the flashes to orange and yellow seemed wrong. I'd see if you can smooth out hose abrupt cuts and change the flashes from yellows,reds and other random colours and keep them all one colour preferably white.

The only other thing was lighting was a little poor but i think you are aware of this.

All in all some VERY very good work.

Well done!

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That was great. Even the acting was ok for the most part - a rare thing indeed.

No big criticisms from me really - cut a bit tight right at the start maybe, lighting too but that is another whole layer of complexity to do well.

I really liked the last scene - the change in location was really dramatic.

Great continuity througout even with the very creative cutting of different shots. I f I had made that I would be well pleased with myself.

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That was great; really entertaining.

The acting was really good. I liked the flash-back ideas and the editing was smooth.

It was a good story line, keep up the good work.

great work! i agree with tommy - the flash-backs were a great way to tell the story. very creative film. i also have to say - the color cuts felt a little out of place, but were still very functional. great work!

I liked that alot, great audio and the acting wasn't half bad.
Can you tell me what equipment you used to shot this, lighting, camera(s), audio equipment

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Great video, I just loved the food shots, go back and look again, heaps of food and no one eating it....I was so hungry...

Thanks for all your feedback so far. I'm pleased people are enjoying watching it.

irishmark - Yeah. A few people have questioned the colourful fades. The reasoning behind them is from the husbands point of view looking back its blue. Blue can represent loss/lonelyness etc. When the evil brother remembers the past, its yellow because it can represent jealousy. When he is in the restaurant talking to his brothers wife he is lit in yellow. The red fade symbolises death.

Mark W - Which particular shots do you think the lighting did not hit the mark? I'm still trying to learn as much as I can on lighting, so I would welcome any advice. I used 3 Red Heads for the shoot.

Tommie31 - Thanks.

guitarfaces - yep, the colour cuts. I don't think I will use them in my next film... maybe.

FNG - Used the Sony Z1 and PD170 (with anamorphics lens), tripod, 3 red head lights and sennheiser boom mic. Edited on Prem Pro, sound on Audition and effects in Digital Fusion. That's it really.

rollingstock - Yes. The food tasted good too. The restaurant let us eat it and more for no charge.

Great video. I'm not film student (well I studied animation) but in regards to the lighting I would say perhaps more contrast was needed to intensify the emotions that the characters were going through... just a thought.

Liked the story, music and general film quality. Didn't like the fades to different colours - I found it distracting. Have to disagree with some of the comments above. I thought the acting was awful and served to detract from an otherwise quality production.