call this a haunting interpretation of the classic rock song Hotel California. Basically set inside an empty high school at night, following a character as he experiences tempation and entrapment. Once he realizes he has made the wrong choices, he tries to escape this evil atmosphere, but finds it is too late.


There's a real story behind this video, so if want to 'get it' you have to watch the whole thing.

any comments mean so much so myself and our crew, and would be really appreciated.

website here


direct link (should open and stream in media player)
direct link here
^right click, 'save target as' to download. 35mb

[whistle] Impressive. I might have a few comments though. First of all, some of the scenes in color were a little too dark for me. I'm thinking of the tilt down to the student's suit. A little more light in that shot would have helped get the message across quicker. I loved the green effect on the high school lockers. It really added to the atmosphere. I would trimmed a little on the long dissolves, just to make them smoother(e.g. the coca-cola machine). Second critique, as well as I understood the symbolism behind the key, I don't quite understand why the student didn't simply run off with it if he wanted so badly to escape. If you added some kind of obstacle preventing him from picking up the key, the rest would have made sense. Maybe if the key was red hot, it would have justified his reaction later in the movie(just a suggestion though). Third, I wasn't too impressed with the dissolves at the very end of the movie in between the book and the final shot of the key which were excellent by contrast. I would suggest trimming down all the unnecessary dissolves in between those two, the camera work not being terribly up to standard compared to the rest of the film which was spectacular.

I hope this helps. I really enjoyed the film. I love the song; both Eagles and Gypsy Kings versions. It's an amusing coincidence but I too have always dreamed of making a music video based on that very song.

One more thing: Could you tell me how you achieved those amazing tracking shots at the beginning of the film? As a film student, I would really appreciate if you told me.

Great film,

-Ralph N.J

Ralph, i'm really glad you liked the film, and thank you so much for your comments.

you are SO right about needed some reason for him not being able to take the key!! i can't believe i didn't think of that, but i guess that happens in film making.

I also think your definitely right about the ending shots. Ideally, we would have had steady cam or something, that would have started at the character standing looking out the window, and then in one shot, move all the way out the the road, where you would see the key.

Did you notice what it said on the school sign? That was one the parts i was proud of because of the irony. "Tonite - open house - all are welcome"

If the tracking shot your talking about is the movements through the door into the classroom, showing the teacher and students....etc ....thats just a camera on a tripod, on a weighted overhead projector cart. The great about shooting in a school is that usually, all the floors are very smooth, so you can use anything with wheels to take 'trackless' dolly shots.

thanks again for comments/ suggestions, greatly appreciated.

I liked the film too. I think Raplph is right about the darkness, it takes away from the film at some points. But I know from experience that my films tend to look darker online, so maybe thats what happened to you too. Aside from the reason for not taking the key as stated before, the only thing I would have changed was the amount of screen time the band received towards the end. I felt like I cared much more about the story than seeing the band play the song. Then again, I dont like seeing the band play in regular music videos either...
Overall, nice job. May I ask what your budget was? It looked very well done.

the budget was actually very low, because most of the equipment used was avilable for free.

The Crane supplies was only $35 (built by students in tech department)

We had free access to the Drama Department Lights, lighting boards, stands, scaffolding, fog machines...

Filmed using two cameras from members of crew

All instruments supplied by cast members

director has $3000 editing suite at home

Set/ props cost total: $29.00 (chicken, roses, glasses and plates to break)


And that's mostly it. We were able to keep the budget with reason for a student-production, because of the resources we had using the school, and with 10-15 member cast/crew, you are also able to come up with access to equipment you wouldn't with a smaller crew

[QUOTE]Originally posted by canada_habs2004:

Did you notice what it said on the school sign? That was one the parts i was proud of because of the irony. "Tonite - open house - all are welcome"
QUOTE]

I noticed. Nice touch. I still feel it would have been good enough to end from a shot of the sign dissolving slowly and directly to the final shot(which I consider perfect) of the movie without the shakier shots in between.

I also agree with Palm about how dark videos tend to look online. I also know from experience that it's never easy to judge the correct exposure with video. I always tend to underexpose a tad too much. So really, I understand the difficulty.

-Ralph N.J

quote:

you are SO right about needed some reason for him not being able to take the key!! i can't believe i didn't think of that, but i guess that happens in film making.

Don't worry. Same thing happened to me on my last short film. I pulled it off in the end, just as you did.

- Ralph N.J

http://www.studentfilms.com/film/get.do?id=928

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ralphnj,

I loved it, very cool music video.

What was that song in te end titles? I like it.