Slash Mouth Girl - Who's There Film Challenge (2013)

Slash Mouth Girl is a short horror film I made for the Bloody Cuts Who's There Film Challenge 2013. It started on November 1st and submissions were due by December 30th. Besides the submission date there were 3 rules to follow:

1.  It can be no longer than 3 minutes and you must show the title card up front for 5 seconds to make it no longer than 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
2. You can not exceed a budget of over 1,000 US dollars.
3. You have to follow the theme of Who's there?

Pretty simple, right?

The was my first leap into the world of film making and found the whole process very exciting. I didn't have a camera and wanted to buy something that could give a cinematic feel and be intuitive to use. After some research and watching film making tips on youtube and elsewhere I decided to buy an Ipod 5. I also purchased some magnetic lenses and used the app Filmic Pro.

I went with the Ipod mainly to be able to make films later and enter them into Iphone Film Festivals. Since I'm an amateur I didn't want to go with anything to technical or expensive. Something handheld or with the IStabilizer could attach to a tripod. I found a nice used one for about 200 dollars which fit my needs nicely.  Most advice is story first, gear second. It doesn't matter what you use as long as you have a good story, but it does have to shoot in HD!

We did two days of shooting in a shopping arcade in Amagasaki. My first technical difficulty was the lighting. After 7pm the arcade turns out most of their lights. I don't have my own lights and I was still learning the Filmic exposure feature. At different angles the lighting changes on the actors and creates a visual irritation. I fixed some of the video in the app VideoGrade, which is wonderful, but should of changed the temperature and exposure some more to cover the inconsistencies.

Lesson number 2 is the importance of dailies. Dailies are the shots you watch and edit after a day of shooting that way you don't have inconsistencies in clothing, standing positions and etc. When you have a question you can watch the dailies and decide accordingly. Also you'll now if you got enough shots and cutaways to work with if needed.

Lesson 3 is the sound. Although they turn off the lights they don't turn off the canned music piping through speakers. On day 1 of shooting I already knew I would have to do some ADR (additional dialogue recording). With my M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 I made some recordings of the atmosphere to lay under the dialogue. In the bar scene I was able to control the environment more but the actors spoke so softly and I didn't have the mic close enough I had to do ADR as well. Synchronizing the voices was a tedious process as my video editors didn't give a clear indication where things began and ended.

My main overall take away for technical creation is Mac to Windows doesn't work. Only use Mac to Mac products when creating video products. Most Windows software won't support .mov files, which is a real shame and seems spiteful. Before I edit my next film I'll have to buy a Macbook to edit properly with either iMovie or Final Cut. I suppose Premiere would work but my computer is too old to run Premiere, so I'm due for a new computer any way.

It was great fun, a great challenge and I hope you enjoy it! Follow me on twitter: @joshuaXwood

Also go on youtube and search Who's There Film Challenge 2013 to see all the other wonderful scary films made for this contest.