So for starters, I absolutely looooved the storyline and found it quite different. The hallucinations bits are stunning and soo well directed and shot they reminded me Sabrina The Teenage Witch (the netflix version)! The demon in the shadows and mist worked amazingly and potentially better than when we saw the demon from a distance as it kept the mystery going strong.
Also, the scene with the birds crying and starring at him brought soooo much more tension to the story that kind of made us take a trip down memory lane to Hitchcock's Birds and I think that was by far my favourite part as who doesn't appreciate a good reference to Hitchcock?! The short in general had so many gorgeous spots and shots that I just couldn't take my eyes off, thanks to the aerial and tracking shots! Even simple establishing shots such as the one from the inside of the cave looking at the dead body of Gawain and then later of Rowan seemed like a painting.
In the scene with the deer however, when Gawain walks with his stick next to the deer and the stick clashes with the animation of the deer you can kind of feel the animation next to reality a little bit as it feels quite light. And I also kind of felt the same gap within real life, props and animations when Gawain picked up the deer's head as I assume only the head was a prop and the rest of the body cgi? Maybe I wish Gawain struggled a little bit more to pick up the deer's head as deers can be extremely heavy. But the head itself, when in close-up it looked completely realistic and well made!
Lastly, something I was a bit disappointed I think was the costumes as I really could not stop noticing the metallic rings that stop the threads (cannot find online what they're called) around their shoulders and wherever they had laces. I really do not think they had such sewing technologies back then?? Plus I wish the costumes were more distressed and the leather more broken into, as Gawain and Rowan have been living in the wild for years and the materials seemed quite fresh and more like a Halloween costume.
Also, the scene with the birds crying and starring at him brought soooo much more tension to the story that kind of made us take a trip down memory lane to Hitchcock's Birds and I think that was by far my favourite part as who doesn't appreciate a good reference to Hitchcock?! The short in general had so many gorgeous spots and shots that I just couldn't take my eyes off, thanks to the aerial and tracking shots! Even simple establishing shots such as the one from the inside of the cave looking at the dead body of Gawain and then later of Rowan seemed like a painting.
In the scene with the deer however, when Gawain walks with his stick next to the deer and the stick clashes with the animation of the deer you can kind of feel the animation next to reality a little bit as it feels quite light. And I also kind of felt the same gap within real life, props and animations when Gawain picked up the deer's head as I assume only the head was a prop and the rest of the body cgi? Maybe I wish Gawain struggled a little bit more to pick up the deer's head as deers can be extremely heavy. But the head itself, when in close-up it looked completely realistic and well made!
Lastly, something I was a bit disappointed I think was the costumes as I really could not stop noticing the metallic rings that stop the threads (cannot find online what they're called) around their shoulders and wherever they had laces. I really do not think they had such sewing technologies back then?? Plus I wish the costumes were more distressed and the leather more broken into, as Gawain and Rowan have been living in the wild for years and the materials seemed quite fresh and more like a Halloween costume.