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Topic: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

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The Los Angeles River Murder

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Honest detective Rick Studs and inappropriate partner Terrence Dickinson attempt to solve the murder of a woman dumped in the Los Angeles River in this black (and white) film noir comedy.

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Post-production Camera Movement

Now for my say! Before you griping EEDIOTS call me out on the light flicker... Just think of it as a gritty look, for the film noir feel.

This is a dark comedy, so it's got quite a bit of serious drama mixed in with comedy. Fun, right?

This is the last movie I'm filming with my Quickcam Pro 4000. I swear. It's time for this thing to be put to rest. It ran a good run. Over 5 years of failed, decent, and okay brickfilms.

Last edited by Timothy R (July 17, 2011 (03:20am))

  • Joined: December 26, 2008

Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

I liked this one quite a bit. The atmosphere you set up really worked for it. For the most part your voice actors were good (the husband really stood out as an exceptional actor to me... I don't think I did a great job, but I know you were down to the wire at the point when you hired me, so not really your fault). I wasn't bothered by the light flicker, although there were a few points where the animation ran a bit fast. Overall though I think the film worked very well, and it's definitely one of my favorites so far.

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

This was amazing!  One of the few brickfilms out there that actually feels like a mystery brickfilm.  Some of the voice actors were just phenomenal (loved the way the home business guy showed he was scared/hiding something through his voice).

It's just too bad you didn't get it entered on time.  You would definitely have placed in the top 5 or probably higher.

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MadBrick's Website

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

I actually did get it in on time, surprisingly. Thanks!

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

I really liked this too. One of my favourites so far! It really felt like a good mystery, and I liked some of the humour too.
The one thing I would try to improve a lil' is the sound design. Like there's a bit where the murderer shoots the bar man, his blood comes out, then you hear the gunshot. But that's just me being picky!
4/5 - well done! mini/bigsmile

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

Fantastic job Tim, loved the ending.

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

Filmfire96 wrote:

I really liked this too. One of my favourites so far! It really felt like a good mystery, and I liked some of the humour too.
The one thing I would try to improve a lil' is the sound design. Like there's a bit where the murderer shoots the bar man, his blood comes out, then you hear the gunshot. But that's just me being picky!
4/5 - well done! mini/bigsmile

Yeah, it's not very ship-shape at times. During the editing process, iMovie became extremely unbearable. I had to render what I had, then import that file into a fresh new project, continuing from there. I altered that file a bit so that's probably why.

  • Joined: December 26, 2008

Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

I liked it, apart from some technical shortcomings with the animation and light flicker I thought it was pretty good.  My favorite element of this was probably the voice acting; the dialog was mostly convincing and fun and the story wasn't entirely predictable. I enjoyed most of the humor as well.

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

That was excellent. The voice acting and writing was awesome, and I actually thought the animation was pretty good (just the light flicker and camera quality bugged me).

Awesome work, I hope it places.

-JK

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

Great film, Tim! Though the animation wasn't the greatest and there was light flicker, you still managed to make a great film and execute it well. One of my favorite entries.

Spoiler (click to read)

I thought at first that her husband had committed the murder.

4/5.

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

As already stated, the voice acting was the major highlight of this entry.  Crystal clear quality and excellent acting.  The light flickering wasn't the problem here, it was the posterization of the image that made the light flickering more noticeable.  At one point I thought the black area on one of the fig's hair was was giving me hand signals.

Nice touch on the mega-size camera, btw.

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

I liked it. I think the bad quality contributed to the atmosphere. Where did you get the voice actors?
4/5

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Pillow's Website

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

Yeah, the posterization is probably because my QCK4000 has been through a lot of things you don't want to know about.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. mini/smile

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

Unlike most people, I don't seem to love this movie that much.

I won't point out the obvious flaws of camera quality and such since it's already been said.
I found the story rather dull, it didn't seem like a very good detective narrative, as he never had got to do anything really clever with observation and deduction, all he really did was fallow obvious clues, which were usually just some locations and such.
The characters and acting didn't really seem realistic to me, especially the husband, who seemed very poorly written, and the acting was just awkward.
The sets were very bland, and the ground to backdrop prop off was waaaaay to close to the camera, and most of the buildings were blocky and dull. Though, I did enjoy your flowers.

Sorry for being rather negative... mini/blankexpression

But there were a few things I liked, such as the black and white, which worked extremely well for this film, along with a few funny parts, and the minifigure design was excellent, and very fitting of the time period.

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Squid's Website

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

AnnoyingNoisesProductions wrote:

Though, I did enjoy your flowers.

Well gee, thanks! mini/tongue

Probably would have went with my original script which features a lot more investigation and puzzles, but do you think a 40 page brickfilm would have been done well in a year? mini/wink

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

I really liked this. I kinda liked the LA Noire feel and also liked the voice acting. Overall, it was pretty good apart from a little light flicker.

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

The atmosphere and voice acting where probably the best parts of this film, the light flicker, quality and black and white all made it same very 1950s film-esque and pretty much set the entire feel for the film. Im not going to go into to much detail on the voice acting, because as everyone else has said, it is probably the best thing about this entire film.

Spoiler (click to read)

I at first thought the murderer was going to be the cleaner guy or whatever, and then I thought it was going to be the husband

but not taking the obvious way out also added to the film.

Overall, 5/5

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

Sorry for the late comment, Tim!  I really dug this.

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

What did the detective say at the end? I couldn't understand. mini/confused

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Re: ToY: The Los Angeles River Murder

It's a great great movie, I agree with all of those who said they enjoyed this film! Although I kinda thought it needed a twist, something really unexpected. Overall though I think this movie is very refreshing when it comes to modern brickfilms.

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