There was definitely a great amount of work that was put into the sound editing. The film took roughly 2 months to be put together and a little over half of that time was spent on the sound. Since the premise relied so heavily on the sound effects, we had to make sure it sounded top notch or else the whole movie wouldn't work (especially during the second half). I'm practically proud of the Workshop scene as that was literally creating a setting using just sound and all from scratch.
Certainly was worth it. Where did you get your sound effects, and what editing software did you use?
I also enjoyed the workshop scene, moreso in the Director's Cut where you "saw" (heard?) more of the setting. I particularly enjoyed the unveiling of the super weapon--nice little magic trick there with the sheet.
Twilight93 said:
I still look at the monster sequences and wonder how the heck we pulled that off haha. We used fishing wire to pull the boxes and props and I took it out of the footage in post with After Effects. They were kind of a pain to take out but totally worth it to have that element of realism rather than just have the POV shots. It really made the monster feel real (and a threat) in my opinion.
Gotta love practical effects. That was my initial guess, but in the first scene you use the effect (Evan and Willis running down the side hall and hiding in the alcoves), I couldn't figure out where you could have people pulling the lines! I guess you had long fishing line. I'm just picking up After Effects myself--I'm curious what tools you used to remove the fishing line from the footage.
Who handled the camera work? There were a few shots I really liked, especially the creeping track on Willis near the end
of Willis, that is. I assume most of it was handheld with steadicam? Also the lighting--the beginning looks like it was lit naturally, but a lot of the lighting in the second half looks intentional.
Twilight93 said:
Again, I'm REALLY happy to hear you enjoyed it! Definitely check out the Director's Cut when you get the chance. Some of the best sequences are there and we cut out a lot of the emotion of the story in the interest of time. I would love to hear your thoughts on it!
I really enjoyed the Director's Cut too, but I actually agree with most of the cuts you made. The only scene that really helped me understand the story better was the end of the first fight scene, when there's only the four of them left and the monster makes its first "appearance." I couldn't really figure out what had happened from the flashback in the shorter version, so I never connected Ellie's disappearance to the monster and wasn't completely certain why Willis and Evan were apparently on the same side again. Also, there was that gorgeous transition from the four-way standoff to Evan alone in the room.
Other than that, however, I felt like most of the cuts were neutral or even beneficial to the overall film. Full credit to your actors for doing the entire second half in pantomime, but there's only so much emotion you can get across sighing and averting your eyes, so I was fine with some of the emotional scenes getting cut out. The "missing parts" scenes made a little more sense of the workshop, but weren't essential. And ultimately I felt the ten-minute running time was more appropriate to a film that is essentially
a children's game; it moved fast, it was fun, and it got the point across. So I congratulate you guys on both versions, but especially the ten-minute edit; cutting your running time in half is no mean feat!