The Face of the Earth Goes Wide (And I Mean Wide)

The Face of the Earth Goes Wide (And I Mean Wide)

With some soul searching I decided to do it. I’ve questioned the thought of putting my short film on the internet for a while now and felt that the time was right. After getting a recent plug from Man Bytes Hollywood it made sense for visitors to have a look at a film that nearly killed me (ohhh the drama).

Updates!
There is no fee to download the film but anyone who feels generous that their 18:49 was time well spent feel free to donate via the Pay Pal button on the sidebar, uh no pressure. In downloading the film my only request to you the viewer is to please leave comments via a questionnaire I will provide you with below. If you do comment, be honest and respectful that is all I ask. I guess that's two things. I’m not against constructive criticism but I am against comments like “That shit sucked”. I didn’t make this film to sit in a cardboard box on a DVD or on my hard drive. I’m putting this out there for you, the audience, to see.

Background
In 2003, I decided I had to take control of my filmmaking career. It was necessary for me to go out and make a short even if it meant falling on my face while doing it. With my support system intact (thank you Linda) I wrote the script that would become The Face of the Earth. At the time I was driving for a cab service on the edge of lower Westchester and the Bronx. I did this for over a decade to get me through the tough times when I was or wasn’t getting freelance production work. The writing came out of that experience. I went through every resource in the city I could find to gather up the talent to get this film made. I got a great cast and crew but not without any snags. The sheer brutality of making a film on this level takes a huge ego check at the door, a cast iron stomach, an undying will in the purest sense and a coolness that will get you through the most heated situations and that’s still not enough. We shot that summer in the Bronx and Queens in 100° weather. 120° for the interiors in the motel room in Queens. I was doing triple duty (quadruple if you include editing) on this film and I would never do it that way again but the film had to get made, my way.

Festival Circuit
I submitted to them all. Tribeca, Sundance, SXSW, etc. All the big ones and some of the little ones. Got no love. The film didn’t get accepted into any festival. I have my own theories on this but why taint your viewing experience? There will be plenty of time for that later. I felt it was time for people to see this film considering all the time, money, blood, sweat, tears and gastrointestinal acid that went into it. Why should a group of film festival programmers decide the fate of my film?

Participate
So it’s the here and now. Take a look and tell me what you think. I think it’s uncompromised filmmaking on some level, you may have a different opinion. After comments have been gathered and assessed by way of this anonymous questionnaire I will post the results on the this savage art…There has been an added entry field at the end if you do want to add your e-mail address and continue a dialogue about the film. I have done everything technically on my end to make it the best viewing it can be without making your download unbearable. It was a balancing act of quality and file size. If it was my choice I would have you all sitting in a nice air-conditioned screening room but that’s not going to happen any time soon. This is what I got;

Tech Specs
The film was originally shot in DV using the Canon XL1S. As we all know you use what’s most advanced at the time and this camera was. I am very happy with the look of the film. We pushed the boundaries of shooting DV in that level of darkness. I edited on a Mac. Final Cut Pro Express on the very same iBook I write this blog on. It was what I had at the time. Later I did end up getting the G5 and the whole Final Cut Pro shabangabang which I used towards the end of post-production. Did an online here in New York at Final Frame, great guys. The actual Quicktime file was really dark so I brought it back into Final Cut Pro, did some color correction and spit it back out through Compressor to a .mp4 file. It is 50mb so give it some time to download. Even though you are seeing it letterboxed it was original shot in a DV aspect ratio with a widescreen matte framed out in camera. The actual frame size of this is 320X240 keeping the 4:3 aspect ratio intact. You will need a Quicktime player which you can download here or on the sidebar. If your system has speakers, crank 'em up. It will take you around 2 minutes to download but that’s a small price to pay for this savage art…

So here it is…..The Face of the Earth

Here is the questionnaire when you are done screening. Thanks everyone for participating.

Update: I have created a larger 640X480 file at 124 mb to maximize the viewing experience of the film. You can option for this one by clicking here or the link on the sidebar. This will take you about 6 minutes to download but it does look considerably better. Let the file fully download before you play it. Note: the suggested download times are based on a broadband connection, results may vary.

Please e-mail or post a comment if there are any problems with the download or the questionnaire.