Link

Yes, I know the acting wasn't very good. I directed the guys the best I could.

Some production stills from the last scene:
http://www.frozenphoenixproductions.com/misc/brokenminds/

A link to the thread detailing my excursion into the 35mm adapter used in the movie to obtain cinematic depth of field:
http://forums.studentfilms.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2246029451/m/1381051722

Any questions you might have concerning the project, post em up laddies.

It was very good, the acting was above most films it wasn't really bad at all - I liked the stuttering from Jake it made the performance seem more human, that he wasn't perfect. The Steves were fun. The Diner scene played out good... My only gripe was the Jake's bedroom part, like I felt that it was filmed at night/had a night feel mainly due to the closed windows and the blue filter/light on him as he walked the hall. Other than that the film was great, opening credits were tight, shots were good, sound could be improved a bit, but it all came together and made an interesting little film, showed you versatility as a director going from comedy to serious.

How much did this whole thing cost and how long did it take to shoot, and take ratios?

Well thank you Mr. Blonde--Ironically, those scenes were originally conceived in the script as "night" scenes but we realized shooting a nighttime scene outside at the end was outside of our budget and capability, so we knocked the whole timeframe of the movie back a couple hours.

I really wanted to ADR a few lines outside of the school but during post-pro I wasn't on good terms with one of the talents. We're okay now, but I just don't care enough anymore to bother redoing it.

Budget was $100...but oddly enough we never used it. We were going to buy sprinklers to mount outside to make it rain in the final scene, but it was raining anyway (but it stopped raining when we pressed record ...*shakes fist at sky*) We were also supposed to use the money to make fake glass but alas, that didn't happen either because of time limitations.

It took about two weeks to shoot. Ironically the first scene (in my opinion the worst) took the longest (two days) and the last scene (in my opinion the best) took the shortest (five hours).

I don't know what you mean by "take ratios", but that could be because I'm a dunce.

Take ratios is like how many takes you did per scene or something I think. Its like 1:3 is like one good take out of 3 attempts or atleast thats what I was led to believe.

Ah--well in that case it was pretty good. I'd say per scene it was on average about 1:4. It's hard to remember because we did multiple takes from different angles, but I don't remember telling them too often to do it over because I didn't like it. The first scene was definately something like 10 takes. The last scene was maybe two. I can attribute that to the actors loosening up, and everyone being a lot more familiar with everything by that point. We shot basically the entire thing chronologically with the storyline, except the exiting the school bit (that was shot something like second to last) and the diner (that was shot second, I think).

I really liked this, funk. It seemed way more pro than 99% of the student films I've seen. Its as though you actually thought some of this out! gasp! haha. Jake was a little flat but not so much so that he ruined the film. My only criticisms would be the sound inconsistencies and I felt the entry into the diner was a little unclear. I would have liked to have known what happened that transported him there, unless it was there and I just didn't get it.
Overall, nice work. How did you do those credits?

Yeh, I'm a little angry myself that I wasn't able to get the audio 100% ironed out. I usually spend more time on the soundtrack than anything else. Thanks for the comments.

The credits were done in After Effects with Trapcode plugins (Shine and Particular). You basically feed it some numbers and it barfs out those lines. I just keyframed the camera to fly in and out of them sometimes.

Jake was transported to the diner because of Steve. There are a few explanations that can play out in your mind, but unfortunately I have to leave a lot up to the viewer because of the ten minute time limitation imposed by the festival I originally made this for. Is Steve the devil? If you want him to be, sure. Or he could be some ethereal specter that plays on the fate of others.

I've recently viewed the first three student films I have ever seen, to my knowledge, on this site. One of them being Broken Minds. I am impressed.

I really liked the opening and closing credits of Broken Minds, really professional. As for the story itself,I didn't get, but I got it. If the Steves had never gave him the gun, he couldn't have mistakenly shot Liz. That's the movies for ya, always leaving you questioned.

One piece of the conversation in the hallway did sound kind of fake. Jake asks what's your deal and Liz's reply.

Your opening bumper was pretty cool. With the phoenix.

-Conrad
www.conrad-studios.com