Today I tweaked the ending of the animatic and continued working on the sound design for it, this is how it all currently sounds. I think the second half needs more work but overall I am quite happy with how it is turning out.
Hey Charlie - it's already much easy to 'see' your film without all the music, so I think this process of 'stripping out' has been useful. As I was watching, it occurred to me that maybe you're in need of a contra-zoom or two, as in:
For example, when at the end, when we have the boy's POV shot of the bed (which is currently a boring shot), this would work very nicely as a slight contra-zoom, as the bed appears to both advance and recede, thus conferring on it the boy's anxiety, without the bed itself having to be monstrous. I can see too how the effect in the Poltergeist clip - in which the back of the shot seems to move away while the character remains in the foreground could be used to good effect at about 22 seconds, when we see him looking into his room - and his room sort of shifts its reality. Like lens flare it can be over-used, but there's something about your story-world that seems a comfy fit.
In terms of the 'difficult final shot' of the red eyes in the darkness - I still think you're rushing it and the abrupt end of the accompanying sound design isn't helping. I have a suggestion to make - I think if you were to add a subtle echo effect to the end of the line 'And you'll sleep the night through' - so the echo beginning on the word 'through' and allow that word and its echo to die off as the boy is seen to move away into the darkness - signalling a reality shift - then once the eyes open cut to black at the same time as we hear a blood-curdling scream (in addition to the horror SFX you've already got) - let the scream die off + an echo, but before it completely dies off, fade up the image of the quiet bedroom - we hear some bird song - and then the narration comes back in. I just think you need to give more breath to the ins and outs of these moments and allow sound to blend from one reality to the next.
Another observation would be that I don't think the boy should scream at all until the poem mentions it - it's more like a battle cry you want when he charges into battle, but to be honest, you could swap out this 'big' vocalisation for a sort of grrrrr of determination and a furrowed brow. If he screams 'before' he screams then I think you're robbing the drama from those otherwise climatic scenes.
Hey Charlie - it's already much easy to 'see' your film without all the music, so I think this process of 'stripping out' has been useful. As I was watching, it occurred to me that maybe you're in need of a contra-zoom or two, as in:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svEPWBxpYjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTuCTVJMdQA
For example, when at the end, when we have the boy's POV shot of the bed (which is currently a boring shot), this would work very nicely as a slight contra-zoom, as the bed appears to both advance and recede, thus conferring on it the boy's anxiety, without the bed itself having to be monstrous. I can see too how the effect in the Poltergeist clip - in which the back of the shot seems to move away while the character remains in the foreground could be used to good effect at about 22 seconds, when we see him looking into his room - and his room sort of shifts its reality. Like lens flare it can be over-used, but there's something about your story-world that seems a comfy fit.
In terms of the 'difficult final shot' of the red eyes in the darkness - I still think you're rushing it and the abrupt end of the accompanying sound design isn't helping. I have a suggestion to make - I think if you were to add a subtle echo effect to the end of the line 'And you'll sleep the night through' - so the echo beginning on the word 'through' and allow that word and its echo to die off as the boy is seen to move away into the darkness - signalling a reality shift - then once the eyes open cut to black at the same time as we hear a blood-curdling scream (in addition to the horror SFX you've already got) - let the scream die off + an echo, but before it completely dies off, fade up the image of the quiet bedroom - we hear some bird song - and then the narration comes back in. I just think you need to give more breath to the ins and outs of these moments and allow sound to blend from one reality to the next.
Another observation would be that I don't think the boy should scream at all until the poem mentions it - it's more like a battle cry you want when he charges into battle, but to be honest, you could swap out this 'big' vocalisation for a sort of grrrrr of determination and a furrowed brow. If he screams 'before' he screams then I think you're robbing the drama from those otherwise climatic scenes.