• READ BEFORE POSTING!
    • If posting a video, please post HERE, unless it is a video as part of an advertisement and then post it in this section.
    • If replying to threads please remember this is the Promotion area and the person posting may not be open to feedback.

watch An absurdist dark comedy about a guy who wakes up to the weirdest day of his life.

There's been some improved sound mixing, but this is the first time it's been watchable on-line.

(Wait, just how recently was this posted? Maybe one of the other guys beat me to it?)
 
I definitely saw this short while back. Maybe two months ago? Recently, anyway.

I liked it the second time, too, btw. :)


Yes, I showed this at the Las Vegas IndieMeet! (with Bradley's permission) That's where you saw it... His original post was him selling the DVD. It was not available online, until now.
 
Las Vegas IndieMeet!

smiley_mysterysolved.gif
 
I enjoyed the story you have here. I really like how you got LOTS of extras to help you. The acting seemed fine throughout and great locations. I suspect you did a lot of work in pre-production. Here are a few things which I noticed and didn't care for.

- Shower/bathroom scene was a bit long. Not horrible but I felt I didn't need to see him getting ready for so long.

- @ 2:24 -> CUT TO -> 2:27 – I’m not crazy about the cut and camera placement. Seeing the sheet of paper in the left side of the frame and then at the right side seemed like a jump cut to me.

- @ 2:42 -> 2:45 -> 2:48 were all at the same angle. Needed to move the camera @ 2:45 at least 20 degrees. I think a handheld shot of all those shots would have been better.

- @ 3:43 -> 3:45 Bum is framed in the left after our MC walks past him and then he is framed right @ 3:45. You could have filmed this edit smoother.

- @ 8:16 I wished you showed his friends face/reaction more so then you did. He is so tucked away in the left side of the frame.

- Shadows of crew @ 8:22 and @ 8:31. Reflection in window @ 8:37

- I thought you did a good job with the chase sequence.

I kind of stopped searching for mistakes after the chase scene.

Sound seemed fine and music was well done.

Like I said, I felt the acting was fine.

Lighting was good for the most part. You did nothing fancy but I suspect you really weren't going for that.

Story was fine.

In all, I think you folks did a good job on this short and should be happy with the end product. Yes, I did point out some flaws but for the most part they are kind of hidden and much of your audience might not even notice them. Great job and keep up the good work.
 
I enjoyed the story you have here. I really like how you got LOTS of extras to help you. The acting seemed fine throughout and great locations. I suspect you did a lot of work in pre-production.

Heck, I'm just happy you watched it! :)

There was far less pre-production than you'd expect. We did do a bit of location scouting to figure out where and when we'd be able to shoot, but quite a bit of it was finding a location and shooting there the very next day. Other locations were just found (the big room and the conference room, for example) and we improvised scenes for those places on the spot.

A lot of this was balanced out by having a professional DOP who made us look far better than we actually are. I think this might highlight the mistakes since this is actually a much more amateur film pushed up to the low-end professional end of the spectrum (as opposed to a more experienced and polished group delivering something of lower quality).


Here are a few things which I noticed and didn't care for.

I fully expected this list to be three times longer than it was. :P


- Shower/bathroom scene was a bit long. Not horrible but I felt I didn't need to see him getting ready for so long.

I agree that the opening is a bit slow. We were attempting to show the main character in a "normal" situation before diving into the craziness but we weren't fully successful. Great learning experience, though.


- @ 2:24 -> CUT TO -> 2:27 – I’m not crazy about the cut and camera placement. Seeing the sheet of paper in the left side of the frame and then at the right side seemed like a jump cut to me.

Part of this is just not shooting nearly enough coverage, part of it was the editing-by-committee approach since I moved to Seattle in the middle of post-production and all the fine-tuning of my rough cut was done by the DOP and co-writer back in Montana. We had a lot of arguments. :)

For that particular shot, my original edit came in a few frames earlier and the continuity of the spoon moving up actually glued it together quite nicely. The subtraction of those few frames gave it a jumpy feeling in my opinion but I was overruled by my cohorts. (To their credit, they also improved a lot of edits elsewhere in the film.)


- @ 2:42 -> 2:45 -> 2:48 were all at the same angle. Needed to move the camera @ 2:45 at least 20 degrees. I think a handheld shot of all those shots would have been better.

Lack of coverage just killed us in some shots. I normally don't resort to jump cuts, but in this case the alternative was worse.


- @ 3:43 -> 3:45 Bum is framed in the left after our MC walks past him and then he is framed right @ 3:45. You could have filmed this edit smoother.

Interesting. I actually like this edit and feel that the composition change (along with the score beat) is drastic enough that we could get away with crossing the 180 line. Still, it's pretty close to being an amateur cut. Something for me to watch out for in future projects for sure.


- @ 8:16 I wished you showed his friends face/reaction more so then you did. He is so tucked away in the left side of the frame.

I'm in full agreement here, but we were running out of time at that location and that particular take was the best one acting-wise by a very large margin. A lot of editing choices in this film erred on the side of performance over technical correctness. While that greatly helped the film overall, it does make a few of the shots less than perfect from a composition perspective.


- Shadows of crew @ 8:22 and @ 8:31. Reflection in window @ 8:37

These drove the DOP nuts (shadows and reflections pop up in some other shots as well, including a mike shadow in the bum scene), but since 99% of viewers never notice these things we ran with it.


- I thought you did a good job with the chase sequence.

We had those poor actors running full-out for two whole days (one for inside the office, one outside). By the end of those days they could barely stand but never complained and were always up for another take.

The best reactions we got from passers-by was when we were shooting the beatdown scene in the alleyway. They'd turn into the alley, see this incomprehensible event unfolding in front of them, do a 180 and hightail it out of there with scared and worried expressions.


I kind of stopped searching for mistakes after the chase scene.

That's okay, there's plenty of little mistakes all throughout the film. As I said before, I'm just happy you watched the darned thing.

The most important thing I learned from this project: COVERAGE COVERAGE COVERAGE. The interrogation-room sequence had me near tears trying to edit those blasted shots together. It's a bit shaky in spots in the final cut, but if you saw the original footage you'd be shocked that we managed to pull even that out of it.


Sound seemed fine and music was well done.

If you focus on the score you can hear it get better and better throughout the duration of the film. I wrote it over four months and was very, very rusty when I started. It was also my first time using Logic Studio and had to learn the software's capabilities as I went.


Like I said, I felt the acting was fine.

Ah, the miracle of editing. Our actors had their good days and bad days, but we worked very hard to make sure we used just the very best of takes (again, at the expense of technical mistakes showing up) and that turned out to be the right decision. We also lucked out and wound up with some very talented volunteers. (No one got paid for this project.)


Lighting was good for the most part. You did nothing fancy but I suspect you really weren't going for that.

Always find a DOP who has his own lighting equipment. :) I still have nightmares about changing out every single fluorescent light in the office shots for daylight-balanced ones. Took forever.


Story was fine.

It was adapted from a feature-length outline. We're currently writing out the full-length idea as a script (this short version covers the first third of the full story).


In all, I think you folks did a good job on this short and should be happy with the end product. Yes, I did point out some flaws but for the most part they are kind of hidden and much of your audience might not even notice them. Great job and keep up the good work.

Yay! Now we just need some crazy person to give us a boatload of cash!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top