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Two new films up. The Submariner and The Noise.
This is a trailer for my thesis film at CSULB. Its my latest work and will be completed over this next summer. You can watch it in full screen and at a higher resolution at YouTube.
I’m taking a lot inspiration from Soviet propaganda filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein.
Shooting started at the end of last semester when we did all of the live action footage, then miniatures and effect shots were done in April. Now I have many hours to spend editing and scoring the whole thing. It’ll add up to a great lot of sweat, but definitely worth it.
From the start I aimed for a film along the lines of early Soviet propaganda films, though a variety of influences found their way in. The some of the effects remind me of a Melies kind of approach, though I hadn’t planned it.
It was shot with the Panasonic AG-HVX200, which I’ve loved using. The format is HD/24p with DVC Pro compression. Many of the shots had their color completely removed and were recolored in post. This, I believe, gives them a look like early painted films (when the only color in film was done by hand). It is being edited in Final Cut Pro and the visual effects I’m using most often are “Threshold” and “Color Balance.” They’re very simple effects, but very powerful.
The current soundtrack will be the basis for the final score which I played on my guitar to hurry out some sound for this trailer. I plan the final score to include a number of other instruments in addition to the guitar. Other songs have been drafted as well, but this is the most representative of the film’s overall feel.
Now I leave you with the recently discovered, final film of the great Ingmar Bergman:
-Christopher J. Rock
