archived-vidoes Aaron Kearns' "The Counting Man" (9 Minute Black Comedy)

[EyeOdyssey]

YouTube - Vimeo - Blooper Reel (YouTube only)

A hermit obsessing over a numbers station is left to live within an absurd "Twilight Zone" based reality.
It will be either one of the funniest horror films you'll ever see or one of the most unsettling comedies to ever be made. It is the cinematic rorschach test.

This is a short film that I made in early 2015 at the age of 17 (I'm 18 now). It was what would be the equivalent to a Junior project, thing is though that it wasn't assigned. By that point I was aspiring to make a film similar to the 1960s B movie Carnival of Souls, combining that with my then rather prominent interest with numbers stations helped spawn the first draft of the film's screenplay. With further progression though other influences started to slip in which included the early silent shorts of Georges Méliès, the low budget efforts of Timothy Carey's The World's Greatest Sinner and the paranoia driven storytelling of Pi.
Just about everything in this short was done by yours truly. No other crew members were involved with the production, and that includes actors. So that meant that I was the lone actor, the camera man, the editor, the director, the writer and the composer.

The budget spent on the short was also minimal, it most likely topped at a hundred bucks. All of said money was dedicated to making the circular Coney Island inspired mask worn by the character Howdy. So just about everything else used was stuff we had lying around our apartment.


 

[Vox Alii]

I watched the video before reading any description and I must say I understood very little of what was going on. I wasn't sure who the characters were or how or why they interacted. I gather that the man in the mask was the protagonist, and I assume that he was the counting man, although I never understood what he was counting, if he was counting. I didn't understand what the protagonist's problem was or what he wanted to achieve. It seemed like the other characters (guy in devil's mask, guy in big smiley mask, and potentially others?) distressed him somehow. I have quite dark humous, but I didn't smile once, nor did I feel offended or disturbed - because I didn't understand it.

You clearly put a lot of thought and work into this, but you fail to transfer the message or the story at least to one member of your audience.

The subtitles were hard to read and I wonder why you didn't just have the character speak them out loud.

I don't mind weird films; in fact I quite like them, but only if I understand what the story is. I might be less intelligent/educated/deep than your target group, but if I were in your situation I wouldn't assume it.

Please don't be discouraged by my harshness. I give recommendations more than commendations because it's more useful. I hope to see a clearer story in your next film.

 

[EyeOdyssey]

As a student filmmaker I’m influenced by absurdism and surrealism. It’s not an intelligence or educated deepness thing and more of a personal taste. And I’m well aware of how stuff like that contrasts greatly from traditional narrative works, the main reason why I didn't submit it under Experimental is the fact that it doesn’t go all the way, if you get what I mean by that. The main goal behind The Counting Man was essentially to make what was a nightmare on film, something that’s meant to play with an individual’s head. It's a head trip movie. And as a film centric nightmare I do think it works for the audience it's aimed for.

There is actually spoken dialogue that goes on throughout the short. It's not a deal breaker though, just about all of the dialogue can be put on half a sheet of script paper.

 

[EyeOdyssey]

I’m not the one to usually bump threads, but this short really does matter a great deal to me and I want to show it to as many audiences as possible. If this is an annoyance to any of the fellow members or moderators, I apologize.