archived-videos Feedback on short?

[rwiggum]

Hey guys, I'm about to go into production for my new short in a few weeks, so started spending some time on the forums here. In the meantime, I wanted to get some feedback on a comedic short I finished a few months back. It was shot over the course of a few days, on the fly without much chance for pre-production (It was for a student film festival) but all things considered I'm fairly happy with the end result.

One word of warning: Stick with it past the first 45 seconds. You'll see why.

Without further adieu, here's Hearts & Fake Faces: http://vimeo.com/22767915

 

[kinglis]

At first I thought, are you romanticizing violence?
Then I took it as a metaphor for destroying romantic relationships.
It's a nice short.

 

[mrjrdrben]

Hahah, that was different. In a good way. I'm glad you told us to watch past 45 seconds though, because I was close to stopping it but then it all came together. Good work, keep it up.

 

[rwiggum]

At first I thought, are you romanticizing violence?
Then I took it as a metaphor for destroying romantic relationships.
It's a nice short.

...Yes? Yes. But mostly it's an irreverent comedy, and a chance for me to play around with genre a bit. Thanks for your feedback!

Hahah, that was different. In a good way. I'm glad you told us to watch past 45 seconds though, because I was close to stopping it but then it all came together. Good work, keep it up.

Haha, thanks. I've had that problem with most of the stuff I've produced so far. I seem to be very interested in making films about "bad first student film" films, but the problem in doing so is that I also like to back-load my comedy, so to most people watching, it's just a bad first student film. It's led to a lot of "no, just wait. Trust me"-s when showing it to people.

 

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

I think it was quite a nice video! There were some problems with the certain choices of shots and the pacing, but other than that I thought it was done quite nicely. Specifically, I think you spent way too long on certain shots, like the opening shot of her talking to Jason (I'm assuming it's Jason, but it's been a while since I've seen anything with him in) and the shot of her walking away with Michael Myers (again, semi-guessing). The shot of Jason killing the girl in the street also seemed to be a bit too quick and a tad amateur in the way it was shot (in that the tone of those shots didn't really match anything else in the film). The quality of the night time shots was also fairly low - shooting at a bit of a lighter time of the day would have been more appropriate, and then changing it to be darker in post-production if needed so you can retain the quality of the shots without so much... noise? I think that's what they call it. I'm so tired right now.

I think a funnier ending though would have been if she'd fallen in love with Freddy Krueger, setting off the real reason behind Freddy vs Jason

Nice idea for the video though, and some parts were very, very nice I like it!

 

[rwiggum]

I think it was quite a nice video! There were some problems with the certain choices of shots and the pacing, but other than that I thought it was done quite nicely. Specifically, I think you spent way too long on certain shots, like the opening shot of her talking to Jason (I'm assuming it's Jason, but it's been a while since I've seen anything with him in) and the shot of her walking away with Michael Myers (again, semi-guessing). The shot of Jason killing the girl in the street also seemed to be a bit too quick and a tad amateur in the way it was shot (in that the tone of those shots didn't really match anything else in the film). The quality of the night time shots was also fairly low - shooting at a bit of a lighter time of the day would have been more appropriate, and then changing it to be darker in post-production if needed so you can retain the quality of the shots without so much... noise? I think that's what they call it. I'm so tired right now.

I think a funnier ending though would have been if she'd fallen in love with Freddy Krueger, setting off the real reason behind Freddy vs Jason

Nice idea for the video though, and some parts were very, very nice I like it!

Thanks for your feedback! As for some of your criticisms:
*The opening was something I played with, but ultimately I came to what I have now because I didn't want to reveal Jason's identity until the first laugh line. As for the last shot, I agree that I held too long. I could make a bunch of half-hearted defenses as to why I like it, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
*I definitely agree with you on the nighttime shots as well. Like I mentioned, it was about as guerilla as shoots get. We didn't have time for any test shooting, and we had to light with car headlights and shoot at a super high ISO (hence the grain). It was a public park, so shooting during the day with a weapon was out of the question.
*In the original script she actually DID wind up with Freddy Krueger, but the only way to get someone to look like him without extensive makeup and prosthetics were really bad rubber masks, which would have made things look even more amateurish, so I went with a character who wore a cheap mask anyway. The final effect wasn't perfect, but it came out.
Thanks again!

 

[HarryN7]

Hey, i liked it! lol very clever idea and I laughed when he was killing someone else (which is unusual) lol. I skipped a bit when she was just walking around reminiscing though, felt like it dragged on a bit (its harder to keep the attention of someone just watching a video online) but it was good. well done