Human Failing - a short film by Phil Grasso & Reese Sinai

[nouou]

Our greatest burden...
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1102/humanfailingposter.jpg





http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/1503/img2289in.jpg
Phil Grasso

http://i51.tinypic.com/33xejr8.jpg
Reese Sinai

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/1176/img2277y.jpg
Tony Alfaro



from the set:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7259/img2280v.jpg

http://i52.tinypic.com/2dminau.jpg


screen grabs:
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3469/humanfailing1.jpg

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/2915/humanfailing2.jpg



09/20: initiate pre-production
10/10: principal photography complete
10/18: final cut complete
10/19: poster completed and uploaded with film

[nouou]

reserved

[kurtmo]

nice. welcome

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Welcome to the Fest!
Any grabs from the movie?

MAH

[nouou]

Welcome to the Fest!
Any grabs from the movie?

MAH

grabs and poster added

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Cool! Great poster.

MAH

[Noel Evans]

Is that a sexy little DVX I see? Good luck.

[filmcritic]

Nice Poster and Grabs. It looks like a lot of color correction took place. Can't wait to see it.

[ZazaCast]

Looking good....welcome to the fest & best of luck!

[nouou]

Human Failing has been approved. Enjoy the flick.

[Richard J. Johnson]

Nice job. I loved some of the shots. I need to watch again to get the full scope of the story.

[Charli]

*Spoiler*

If you take away the "suspenseful" music, it would seem rather stale, two guys in the kitchen, not much action, not much words, not much really to go on. I believe you were trying to create the mood of suspense, but I don't think it was executed. The girl in the garage, what did it really do? Did it matter if she were alive or dead? Not really. If she were a "hooker" she didn't dress like one. This one missed on so many levels. Locations were aesthetically pleasing, but story was not a thriller.

[Chris_Keaton]

Man that was a clean looking hooker, shame to waste one like that....I kid, I kid. It looked nice and that was a cool ass kitchen/dinning room/bar. I felt that the kid wanted out of there, but it was blown as soon as you revealed there was a hooker in the other room. These guys were in it together, one maybe not so willing. I like how you cut to their normal lives. I think this could benefit from more room and more setup. Really run this guy through ringer, but make us care first. Overall good job.


****DING DING DING- We have a winner. This was my 1000 post.**** Ok, back to viewing.

[lawriejaffa]

Ooops i gave the wrong feedback in this thread! Edited -

Right so this film I found to be quite intriguing - i liked the second half more than the first half - I think the pace could be cut a little tighter. Once we're in the garage with the lady, it gets dark and intriguing. Some very european cinema-esque angles in here.

I particularly liked the bathroom scene at the end, i say tighter edit (to consider imo) a bit more atmos, a bit more intensity. Grip us by the balls with the kind of men in business stress and there despicable murderous releases.

[GLF]

*Spoiler*

If you take away the "suspenseful" music, it would seem rather stale, two guys in the kitchen, not much action, not much words, not much really to go on. I believe you were trying to create the mood of suspense, but I don't think it was executed. The girl in the garage, what did it really do? Did it matter if she were alive or dead? Not really. If she were a "hooker" she didn't dress like one. This one missed on so many levels. Locations were aesthetically pleasing, but story was not a thriller.

Thank you for your insights! I don't think we should be faulted for having suspenseful music over our scene...we planned on that and picked a composer that could do just that, because we didn't want to add exposition to explain why our main character was nervous. We wanted that to come through in the score. I also think that the matter of the girl being dead or alive has a huge impact on our story. Had we left her alive it would totally change the message of the film. I do also disagree with your statement that this "story was not a thriller". I think that we fall more into the psychological thriller category. I don't believe that a thriller has to necessarily involve action/gore or extensive dialog.

[tomten3000]

Definitely moody. Solid acting. Great score. Simple, concise. I liked it. And I agree, it's a psychological thriller, without question. There's plenty of (mental) action and these two don't even have to exchange words. Show, don't tell. First law of screenwriting, right? I didn't need either of these two to utter a word to understand their character, who was in charge, that the older guy had sway over the younger guy and more.

Plus, you're right. The ruthless killing was necessary to establish the villain as cold-hearted killer. Had she been dead, we might believe this was an accident, that these two are overall innocent, about to make a bad decision. Instead, we see that our hero is the innocent - and that he's already thinking about how to right his wrong (though his initial glance at the knives, which I took to believe he was thinking of killing his boss and saving the hooker, shows that he might be willing to make two bad decisions in an attempt to right the wrongs).

This, to me, is one of the two ways to approach a short-short. Tell a complete story, packed into the six minutes, or provide a snapshot of a larger story - and convey much of the story in the six minutes. I think you succeed with the later. I can easily finish this story in my head. I can see the younger character's story arc - his initial reluctance to "do something about it", the eventual turning point when, maybe, he gets caught up in something bigger with his evil mentor, and his willingness to steel his courage and - rather than do nothing - do something.

All that said, I agree that the hooker angle was a little cliche. (Though I went with "expensive escort" rather than "street hooker", since the villain seemed to have some money, what with the big kitchen and cocaine habit.) Add tension by making her a regular woman the two picked up in a bar ... A thought, anyway. Or, good lord, a co-worker.

Some of it was over the top. I think you could've gotten away with less dialogue. I might have gone with bruises instead of blood ... and less coughing and more "just trying to breathe" (hard to get strangled to death if you can still get air.) But these are nitpicky things. I think this was a solid effort.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

I really liked this one! It looked great, the acting was really good and the ending was perfect!
The shot selection was great minus some of the kitchen stuff. Really good choices overall.

And what's everyone's beef with the hooker? They're businessmen.
High class hooker for sure. I have no idea why so many people had issues with that? At least that's how I saw her. Maybe I missed something?

Great pacing and mood as well. This one sucked me right in.

Cheers,

Mike

[Darkline]

One thing I thought this short did very well was handle the script. It was natural, it didn't have lines of awful exposition. The character dialogue was believable and the actors pulled it off well.

I liked it when he said 'lets move her to the garage', I think that when you build up the very stitled conversation so long like that (in a good way), the audience is wondering why the conflict between them both, the power play, and then throw in that line, bam, the audience get insight and layer by layer the story becomes apparent as does the relationship between boss and employee.

Quite nicely done I thought.

[elsmama]

Really liked this! Very smooth, and the music was perfect! I thought the actors were great - the "intern" clearly struggling, the "boss" quietly malevolent. Quite interesting - wouldn't mind seeing this expanded!

[filmcritic]

The color correction was interesting, it felt like Sin City in a way with only certain colors showing. The acting in this was the best I have seen yet and I liked the cutting to black before each scene. The end title was very short. Not sure the order of the scenes was the best, maybe starting on the hooker's death first would explain the tension in the opening scene, but I see the point Darkline made saying it is like a question looming over until you find the hooker in the garage. The lighting was very dramatic and the composition was very good. The lighting in the bathroom did not match the opening, granted they are at work, but throwing in a little drama to the lighting here would have helped the scene. The music was perfect, specially when the boss turns his head on the note. It might have been better to have an establishing exterior shot of the house and an exterior office shot, though it really pulls you in to the main character to always start a scene on him. The continuity of heights of the boss pinning the character against the wall was off and the sink was really loud in the beginning. Also some office sounds could have been cool when the boss is having the meeting. All in all though good job, look forward to seeing more of your work.

[Marlon Ladd]

The story here seemed kind of slow and without an ending, but rather a segway into another episode. I knew from the early shot of the sink that the two had committed a bloody crime. I did really like some of the shots and I thought the acting and the music was really good. The only complaint that I have of the hooker is that she didn't seem to look beaten and battered. The blood on her face seemed put on. Her makeup still seemed fine and there were no signs that she'd be crying or fighting. Some running mascara and a few cuts on the face would have made that all the more convincing. Other than that, good job on this.

[Matt Harris]

this was pretty good! great to see some good old fashioned cocaine on dvxuser. I really liked your lighting, the actors, the dialogue and the music... most everything.
the one thing i would push you to do in future fests is take your concept, and give us MORE. now, i like your short as is, but i would have liked to have seen more of the situation you set up.
the 3 minutes of the 2 leads in the kitchen drags a bit. I would have loved to have seen the 6 minutes broken down into 3 two minute acts:

act 1 - two guys in a car, they solicit the hooker, bring her back
act 2 - something goes wrong, there's an accidental death
act 3 - resolution

just food for thought, but good entry and congrats.

[4100xpb]

The photography on this was very good, some of the best I’ve seen so far. I particularly liked the wide-angle lens close-ups on the young lead, it really helped emphasize his state.


In the bathroom scene, I kept expecting someone to be hiding in the stall, either a cop or even the girl. I like how you chose to end it, definitely non-conventional, but I think the lead-up was too shallow and too drawn out to make it really hit like it should have.



The young lead did a great job, and I think you really could have pulled this a lot further with him. I think this film would have been stronger if you started easy, like showing them kidnapping the girl, but quickly ramped up the evilness of the actions, and continually had the young guy struggling even harder, but giving in and going along with his boss. As it stands, yes we see him struggling, but there’s not enough of a change in his circumstances or his attitude to make the ending really punch us in the gut.


Great effort, and thanks for putting this in.

[MrKilloran]

I liked a lot of your close-ups/angles on the main character, it really pushed his emotions to the forefront. The story was good but as others have said I would have liked to see a little more instead of just focusing so much on the kitchen (even though the dialogue in the kitchen is very tense - you played it well, making me think something was going to happen there) it's just I wish the story was expanded a bit to see how they got to that point. The end also works rather well. Nice work!

[kurtmo]

OK, confession time. I'm in Thrillfest and I don't really like thrillers. Yours was creepy, so that I didn't like. Still, it was supposed to be creepy, so you get an A anyways. Liked the lighting and liked the pacing. I liked that it took a while to figure out what was going on. Congrats on a solid entry.

[GLF]

Thank you so much everyone for all the feed back and suggestions! We were definitely worried about the pacing and how long the kitchen scene was. And in hindsight, we should have probably had our younger intern character refer to the girl as a call girl and not a hooker lol! Glad that most people seemed to have enjoyed it!

[natendo]

Just read all of the great commentary! I did the music to Human Failing. Thank you all very much for the compliments and critical feedback :thumbup:

- n8