Coming Out Is Hard To Do

[Jaime V]

Alright, I'll throw my hat in the ring for this one...



http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/17371/1201842457.jpg (http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/17371/1201842457.jpg)


I probably won't have any BTS as I'll be too busy working on it so let me just say good luck everyone, looking forward to all the entries!

[hunter richards]

"some closets were never meant to be opened"

Great!

[mentatDUKE]

This looks to be interesting. When do you start shooting or are you in production now? Give us stills! :)

Good luck.

[Kegan]

Doesn't sound like the OP will have time for much BTS, if he wants to make his entry in on time. Hunter kinda stole his BTS spot anyway haha. Best of luck with your movie and poster looks great!

-Kegan

[Jaime V]

Actually finished shooting it last night, and am in production editing it etc now.

I wasn't 100% sure this would get done so I wanted to finish filming before I made a thread (I hated having to back out of All Hallows Fest).

I would post stills...but they would be put to shame by stills from other, fancier people on this board :)

Besides, I feel that my writing (and hopefully editing) have been my strong points in my other fest entries (read as: still learning about visuals and sound is still VERY challenging for me) so I hope that the story and humor is what strikes viewers :)

Back to work now!

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Finally!

Awesome. Really looking forward to this one :beer:

[RyanT]

Cool poster man, glad to hear you got it shot.

Now it's just like....editing :kali:

[Luis Caffesse]

Glad to see a few comedies in the mix.
Great tag line.
:thumbsup:

Good luck.

[Jaime V]

thanks for all the encouragement guys. I love this place! :-)

[Luis Caffesse]

My original plan was to wait until after the shoot to start a thread as well...
... but apparently I don't have your kind of will power.
:)

[Jaime V]

heheh it's either will-power, or the terrible, withering shame I feel at saying I'm in a fest, and then not finishing!

By the way...what on earth is that pic in your avatar? is that a wookie in a tux?!

[Luis Caffesse]

is that a wookie in a tux?!

Yup.
That's exactly what it is.

That way I can ensure that people take me seriously.

[Marlon Ladd]

Good luck. Dig the poster.

[Electric Unagi]

Jaime: Thanks again for letting me help out with this project! Great job with getting this done and i can't wait to see this along with all the other entries. I GOTTA get into the next one!!!!

[Ted Arabian]

Jaime, I love the tagline!!! Awesome.

Glad to see that you are uploaded and approved!!!

Looking forward to your film.

-Ted

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Glad this one was uploaded!

Looking forward to it.

Cheers,

[Marlon Ladd]

Looking forward to it as well.

[Jaime V]

Thanks for the encouragement guys.

Ted, after seeing your set design pics on your thread I am so stoked to see yours too...it looks like you really kicked up several notches for this fest!

I'm looking forward to downloading and watching all the entries this weekend!

[Matty_g]

My original plan was to wait until after the shoot to start a thread as well...
... but apparently I don't have your kind of will power.
:)

Same here! I wanted to be a sneak entry.

[Mark Johnson]

Same here! I wanted to be a sneak entry.

Matty, you always will be a sneak entry no matter when you start your thread.

[Ted Arabian]

Jaime, you are going to hell!!! HAHAHA!!! LMAO!

Funny story.

You camera work bothered me. Seem like if you are going to go handheld, you need to use a handheld style. I felt that you were trying desperately to keep the camera steady.

The lighting was very flat and boring. I know that you can do more than that! That card table scene was too bright. Turned down some lights and add some texture, man!

Your actors gave a perfect tongue-in-cheek performance.

Very entertaining, Jaime!

Congrats,
Ted

[Jaime V]

Jeez Ted, you're fast! I didn't even realize viewing was open lol!

I'm gonna have to download the movies tomorrow...it's almost 1am here (busy night at work)

Thanks for viewing, and letting me know what you thought. I was trying for a handheld look. But a steady-ish handheld? Not vertigo inducing I guess :) The main reason being, that I wanted some sense of movement this time, but I don't have a dolly :)

I think I get what you mean about adding texture (um...you mean like set decoration in general right?).

Thanks again for watching Ted! I'll check yours out tomorrow if the wife will let me on V-Day ;-)

[ExtremeSleuth]

Overall I liked it. Funny idea, and the ending was very funny. I agree about the lighting being very flat. The performances were pretty good. Good job.

[Ted Arabian]

I think I get what you mean about adding texture (um...you mean like set decoration in general right?).

Yeah, set decor helps! But even if you don't have it, you could have flagged some of the light off the walls. They just popped with nothing on them. You needed some break-up on those lights.

I'll be watching yours again and give more feedback later.

Enjoy the fest!

-Ted

[MDCFILMS]

Only to encourage:
Too shaky overall.
audio needs work almost everywhere.
color correction needs to take place.
the story was not good to us.
Take it or leave it.

[Jaime V]

Thanks MDC. I appreciate any critiques and take from it what I can. Thanks for viewing and taking the time to post your thoughts.

[Blaine]

Jaime, the biggest problem I had with your film was the lack of production value. While the story was funny, it fell into the trap of looking like it was shot in empty rooms. I would have liked to seen some set dressing here to bring your locations to life.

[Zak Forsman]

Jamie, I would encourage you to keep exploring and learning. you're on the path. the biggest problem I had was that it conceded to gay stereotypes. I didn't believe the choices the characters were making, i didn't believe them as people. comedy or not, try avoiding the mockery and farce next time. my 2¢.

[Jaime V]

Blaine - I can't argue there. I will tack set dressing on to the ever-growing list of things I need to learn how to do much better! Thanks!

Zak - Thanks for the words of encouragement. Re: the stereotypes...it was my intent to make fun of the stereotypes themselves, as opposed to mocking gay people. If that didn't come across properly, then obviously I failed there.

Thanks for viewing and posting your thoughts for me...seriously guys...it's the best way for me to learn, and I have a lot to learn.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

I have to say... when he "switched sides" I really didn't buy it. Nor did I like the stereotype attached to it. The lisping and such.
I think I see where you were headed with this but I think you approached it too tentatively.

There were some good moments though. The poker game also seemed pretty natural. As did some of the acting.

Cheers,

Mike

[Chris Messineo]

First, I like hand-held camera work, but this was a little too shaky.

Second, the stereotypes were a little hard to take - even if you didn't mean it that way.

[Matthew R. Rodwell]

Lol great story, really enjoyed the ending. I do have to agree with the others on the camera work though, was a bit distracting. Overall great job :D

[John LaBonney]

Jaime:

I think the technical details have been pretty much covered, shaky hand-held and lighting issues. I need to learn a lot more about lighting myself.

I also agree about the poker room set. It seemed like a cool game room like this should have some cool guy stuff in it. It looks almost antiseptic.

Story-wise, I'm not sure that I'm in love with it (no LoveFest pun intended). It seems like you had an interesting premise at the get-go, but I saw the ending coming a mile away. I would have preferred a shocking twist to bring me to the finish line.

I thought that Patty was a pretty good actress.

Take it all with a grain, as I'm not one to talk. My last dvxuser fest entry pretty much finished dead last.

[Noel Evans]

Sorry mate. Totally missed the mark for me. Keep going man, seriously there were moments when I thought nice shot. Opening kitchen shot for example. THen the shaky thing .....

[kurtmo]

I liked the music.
I was distracted by the handheld camera perspective. Once or twice the audio was a bit weak – kinda drowned out, but not too bad. In the end, the story didn't work for me.

[Kholi]

Hey Jaime! Keep pushin' forward, man.

As a writer I have to suggest that when writing about what can be a touchy subject you take special care to treat the matter like fragile glass: respect it when moving from point a to b.

The stereotypes were a bit of a miss although there's a funny moment or two here.

=\ And I just bought two pairs of jeans from American Eagle.

[Matt Harris]

Jaime i had fun with this, technically its a bit weak, but you'll improve over time.
The flashbacks were good though, looked like a CSI flashback, and the the fact
that you not only had a gay theme, but a main character coming to grips with
his sexual preference is brave and topical. And it was generally funny.
so aside from the sound and blah cinematography, i enjoyed what you
were going for!

[Brian Parker]

Good effort here and there were some good sequences like the flashbacks. Everybody has covered most of the points. I see where you were going with the piece and ultimately it gets there.

[Jaime V]

Guys, thanks for all the comments, critiques and advice! I haven't been able to visit dvxuer for a couple days since I was in the middle of my PC to Mac Switch!

Now I have to watch all the other entries and vote before the 24th!

Thanks again for watching and commenting!

[Ted Arabian]

Jaime, congrats on the switch to mac!

[Matt Harris]

switching to mac: music to my ears. nice!

[Jaime V]

hehe yeah the Mac switch is pretty nice. I ended up getting one of the new Mac Pro's. It takes a bit of getting used to, coming from windows, but just in the few short days I've had it I'm starting to really love it.

Tonight, I plan to load up all the entries and watch them on the AppleTV. It's kind of crazy when I think about it...but my whole house is Apple now...MacBook Pro for the wife, Mac Pro for me, Apple Extreme Base station and AppleTV. 5 years ago I would have laughed at the possibility!

Anyways, I'm all psyched for the next fest already! Note to self: No handheld camera work, and figure out some creative lighting :-) Plus, all the other stuff like sound etc. God I wish I lived near some of you people that were doing these fests :)

[mentatDUKE]

Jaime, this was a quirky film with some unique subject matter. Some of the comedy beats worked better than others. The initial conversation between the couple for example. I think the punchline could have been stronger, but this was a good effort all in all.

[Bryce A]

Hey, good job on getting the entry in. The one thing that really stood out with this piece was that the living areas just didn't look lived in. I'm not sure if it was the white walls or the camera positions, but it just left things feeling a bit empty. Anyhow, the story flowed well and I'll owe that to the editing.

[pmark23]

Nice short.

Shaky camera really annoyed me. It's like the operator was going out of his way to make it look shaky. Simply holding the camera as steady as possible makes it look handheld. The composition was nice though.

Editing and direction was very good. Since the camera was handheld, there could have been more movement (a step forward or a step backward to dolly in/out.) The flashback was especially nice.

Sound needs work. Production design would have made the film look much better. Even moving a few potted-plants around for the shots, or using coloured lights for the background would have helped (I strung up Christmas lights and moved potted trees and plants around to fill up the boring background in my short.)

Colour balance jumped between some shots. A couple shots were blurry.

All-in-all a good little short. I watched it a couple times.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

switching to mac: music to my ears. nice!

Maybe that's what inspired the movie ... you know playing for the other team : )

heh heh, some nice laughs here :thumbsup:

[Jaime V]

mentatDuke - thanks for the critique on the story. I've had mixed results with the punchline...some people saw it coming a mile away, others didn't...seems about 50/50...not sure what to make of that, but I'm always trying to write interesting stories so I'll have to work on that more.

Bryce - thanks, yeah...the living areas were pretty much lived in...but I guess not decorated very well :) I think I've come to the realization that with zero budget, I have to be way more creative in decorating the set, and bribing my friends to re-arrange their rooms :-). Or come up with a budget :)

pmark - Thanks for the advice re: handheld. Takes practice I guess....it wasn't deliberate on the camera-man's part. And I do agree you're right about the movement. I initially wanted hand held for the first scene because I wanted some movement (of which at least there was a little) but I didn't do anything with it throughout the rest of the film!

Jack - hmmm...maybe it's my subconscious rearing it's head! thanks for watching and taking the time to post!