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.

Walking Scared

I was walking up the stairs to Umeda station from the Tanimachi line early on Saturday morning. I work in Hyogo prefecture in the city of Nishinomiya and take the Tanimachi line from my home to Umeda and walk to Hankyu station to arrive at Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi station by 9:00 am. This particular morning as I come through the gates on my way to the Hankyu side of Umeda I see a disturbing image in the distance.

The woman, roughly about 40 to mid 50's, is 170 cm tall with a long face and Japanese. Her face is painted completely white with red lipstick and heavily painted dark mascara around her eyes. The only similarity I'm able to come up with is Heath Ledger's Joker for the Dark Knight Returns. I've seen this woman before stalking around the stairs to Hankyu mall. At that time she was with another women with similar make up and bad sense of style. They were lurking about and seemed super supicious.

As I'm walking my way down the long hallway I avoid eye contact, keeping my head down and walking at a brisk pace. Across the main vein of the Umeda underground is a hallway leading to the Hankyu station. Down that hall are many restaurants, bakeries, and drinking spots. It's a popular throughway for people who aren't interested in walking on the street. It's cool in the summer and warm in the winter, plus you can see some of the most beautiful and cute women available to set your gaze upon. If your into Asian girls, of course.

On this particular day, a very beautiful girl was walking in the opposite direction wearing tight 90's style Jordache jeans. Her face was quite small and cute while her body was tall and lean. She seemed a little disproportionate but looked good regardless. Her hair was very long with red highlights tied up in a ponytail. As we passed by each other we made brief eye contact and kept walking to our designated destinations.

As I was walking, I turned left to the two escalators that take you up to the outside of Hankyu mall. While standing on the  first escalator I could hear a loud stomping behind me. The escalator is very narrow with no way to get around a person if your in a hurry, so I did the polite thing and began to walk up the escalator. Once on the second escalator I turned to see who was behind me and there she was, the Joker! She was following me and muttering in her best English for me to stop to have a chat.

I was a bit freaked out and began to walk faster doing my best to ignore what was happening. On top of the escalator I took a right towards the station. I could still hear the sound of shoes clunking behind me when I felt a touch on my hand. Freaked out I raised my hands up like there was a gun being pointed at me, palms open and kept walking. I looked behind me and something had fallen on the ground. It was money! She had tried to put money in my hand. I watched her as she bent down to pick it up and kept coming after me. She tapped me on the arm and I said "No, thank you." I sped up my pace and never stopped to listen to what she was trying to say.

I glided across the walkalator went straight up the escalator to Hankyu station. At the top of the escalator was my co-worker, he had played Terminator at Universal Studios Japan, rushing towards the ticket station. I ran up to him quickly explaining my situation, "Hey, this creepy woman is following me trying to give me money." He looked at me quizzically and proceeded to buy his ticket when the woman appeared next to him.

Startled, as he should be, he did his best to ignore her but she kept muttering something in English that we couldn't understand. He finally turned and said, "No, we don't want any." We went through the gates and headed toward the train. After sitting down I explained the story to him and shared a laugh about this peculiar situation that had occurred.