"the wooligans"-janzie

[janzie]

well,

it turned out to be much longer than i thought, so i had to cut it down a lot (about 3 min.) and i wish i could have used the extra time given, but i still tried to come up with something...i´d still appreciate any comments

thanks

jan

[penfever]

This was certainly an interesting film - sorta hillbillies meet Jim Henson. Another imaginative effort, and I really enjoyed the acting of the two lead guys. Maybe it's the language barrier, but they seemed very - funny. I loved the little bit of English thrown in ... "Space Bugs"! That's funny.
On the less positive side, I thought there wasn't enough effort to integrate the plotlines in the time alloted. You say six minutes was too short, but I think you had more in there than you needed. That first sequence where the hillbillies fight over the salt could easily have been shortened quite a bit. Maybe you could have integrated the 'spaceship' into a couple more shots so we would know what they're looking at. Comprehension stuff, mostly.
Nice work, and a fun change of pace. Keep rolling.

[janzie]

thanks penfever...i´m just downloading the occam razor...but you are right, the time/character should have been more balanced...i think i actually started editing while sticking to the plan and then run out of time...

[Dahopafilms]

WOW.

OK - I was laughing out loud at this one. The two guys fighting were hilarious. The woman was very sympathetic. When the sheep - er "wolligans" - appeared I just started laughing. Very funny to my limited intelligence.

The line "Can I press the button, master?" just about killed me.

It would have been fun to have used a fisheye or other extreme wide lens on the wooligans' POV shots in the snow, but it worked for me as it was.

I also think the subtitles added something and were well done (even the very few typos didn't distract).

I imagine that this concept was put together by a few good friends having a very good time - perhaps alcohol was involved - but regardless of how it was put together it had a very good-hearted feel to it.

Good music and good sound.

The resolution (the Vulcan/Jedi mind trick to get the salt) was cheesey but not too cheesey.

Ewe have produced a very good yarn.

Sorry.

[janzie]

thanks dahopa,

that´s exactly what it was: fun...you´re the first one that thinks that ONLY the end was cheesy ;-)

LOL

[Blaine]

Janzie,
Nice job. I got some good laughs in the one. Loved your wooligans.http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/grin.gif Good acting, too. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/beer.gif

[janzie]

thanks blaine, the wool is definately with you...

[Kaz]

Those two Austrian rednecks rolling around punching each other was comedy GOLD.

[Norm Sanders]

I'm sure my kid's will get a kick out of it as well (I'm letting them watch a few of these after I screen 'em).

First, ever heard of a character named Lambchop? Little lamb puppet that was big (at least in the U.S.) about 20+ years ago ... she's all I could think of when watching this. Cute, Janzie, very cute. :)

Actually, my biggest gripe about this is that the subtitles were hard to read at times, and flew by WAY too fast to keep up with what was being said.

As far as story goes, there's a lot of things I just didn't get what was going on & why. What was the guy digging out in the middle of the snow for? It looked like a mine went off & exploded, but I guess it was the ship crashing? Then for continuity sake, it didn't appear that any of this took place near each other, but apparently it did? I was just thrown off by the geography.

The hill billy redneck thing was funny, to say the least. Oh, and I was actually AMAZED at your final shot ... that has got to be one of the most beautiful CGI shots I've seen yet in this festival, with regards to 100% CGI. WOW!!

[janzie]

thanks kaz and norm...

i know the subtitles are too fast and i wish i would have gone for a running time of 6:05 or 6:08 just to give more time to read (i did them last minute) or if i had known that we had extra days for upload, but anyways...

as for the story and geography...

...i know it´s a little mess (and still hope that the longer version will make more sense) but it´s actually told backwards until the guys wake up and then continues in order...so chronologically it would be: sheep crash, woolinator (alien hunter) picks up their signal and hunts them down, rednecks lose their salt because of him, woolinator finds the crashed ship and tries to open it (with his shovel) and explodes (defensive mechanism...) , his shoe falls from the sky...rednecks wake up, find the ship and so on...

i actually had sequences shot from 3 different views (rednecks,hunter,girl) and wanted to tell the (flat) story from 3 perspectives...didn´t work and no time to reshoot

and for geography...it´s actually all the same place (maybe 50m apart)

thanks for your comments

[janzie]

if you hated it, let me know why...i´m desperately waiting for some criticsm, since feedback is the only thing most of us get out of this...

[Daniel_Runyon]

I just watched it and absolutely loved it. The only critique I have is that I have no idea what actually happened at the end....I gather that the sheep did something to the unborn baby, but what? Did they heal it from whatever problem or did they remove it and put it in the snow? The background behind it and the clothes looked like they removed it from her and placed it in the snow with some clothes....but the dialogue led me to believe they healed it....a bit confused, even after re-watching the ending four times!

Regardless, very funny, very well done and very inventive....LOVED it.

[conrad_johnson]

Very cute! This is one of the most engaging shorts to have been posted, I think. The acting was great overall, and I loved the sheep-aliens. How did you think of such an idea? My only complaint was that the sound wasn't good throughout. The levels on the dialogue were not consistent and some dialogue was difficult to hear, and the sound effects were not good enough to be realistic yet not bad enough to be cheesy/funny. Plus - I questioned why you used the chronology you did. Overall, really great - good job!

[janzie]

thanks daniel and conrad,

they actually healed the baby and 2 months later a strong boy was born...another time issue...

[CallaghanFilms]

I thought The Wooligans had some really nice shots.
The first few minutes of screen time really set up almost
a Coen brothers dark comedy vibe.

I also feel the actors all turned in respectable performances.

Also, I laughed out loud a few times.

From a writing standpoint, I wasn't as crazy for the "Narrative ADD"
that I felt was happening (Narrative ADD, damn, that's not half bad...
I'll have to remember that one.) By this I mean that, like I said, a certain
comedic tone was set from the get-go...only to have the film change
it's look and feel completely with the introduction of the aliens themselves.

I really liked where the film was heading early on,
but if you wanted to go the outlandish puppet route,
perhaps you should have done so from the beginning IMO.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/beer.gifCheers

[Ought2bCommitted]

Lots of fun!!!

I really enjoyed it overall. Lots of solid laughs. Nice to see you paid attention to technical aspects and didn't just go for laughs.

Subtitles were often too fast, but that's about it. Overall, I got a real kick out of it. Nice work! Thanks for the laughs!!!!

-Robert

[Z B Brox]

I'm with Robert here, about my only complaint is the quickness of the subtitles. Sound was fine for me, and I loved the cockpit shots of the sheep, the lighting, the design, all of it. I gotta say, I enjoyed this short about as much as any of the 30 or so I've seen so far. Really good work, and I'd love to see it after you got some more time to work out the kinks you left in the subtitles and whatnot.

Oh, and while it can be hard to judge across a language barrier, all your actors convinced me. The two men really got across the good-natured tomfoolery, and the woman seemed immediately sympathetic. Nice work.

[janzie]

thanks, Callaghan, robert, Z B...glad you had a little fun

[Ought2bCommitted]

No, I had A LOT of fun. I'm still chuckling over it. Yours is a special piece. Kudos.

[EditPhish]

This is one of the few I have left to comment on so here goes...

It was goofy (hehehe) but in a fun way... very cute. After some of the hard to follow stories in this fest, I was glad for something light and mostly easy to understand ;)
Only part that was a little confusing to me was that I didn't understand what was going on with the guy digging and then the explosion. It didn't seem like part of the same story to me.

Your music was a good fit... the banjo at the beginning, the "feel-good" music at the end... reminded me a muppet movie (in a good way! LOL)

Gotta agree with the others who said the subtitles were a bit fast.

Loved the dialogue about space bugs... very funny. And the line about the shoe/"there's a foot in it" made me laugh.

Your framing/cinematography fit the goofiness of the film. Editing was good. No problems with your lighting choices for the most part, except for inside the Wooligan's spaceship... I know you were going for something "different" here to emphasize they were inside a spaceship, but it felt off to me... to red I think. Seemed a little synister, and didn't fit the tone for the rest of the film.

The way you chose to do the timeline was unusual. That's not necessary a bad thing, I'm just curious why you chose to tell the story this way as opposed to straight through. I don't know if it added to the story, or took away from it telling it in this back-and-forth in time way.

Overall I enjoyed it... thanks for sharing!

[Z B Brox]

No problems with your lighting choices for the most part, except for inside the Wooligan's spaceship... I know you were going for something "different" here to emphasize they were inside a spaceship, but it felt off to me... to red I think. Seemed a little synister, and didn't fit the tone for the rest of the film.

Ah, I've gotta disagree there. Maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for tone shifts, sbverted expectations, irony, etc. but I loved that these cute little hand puppet sheep were bathed in eerie red light. It emphasized that they were actually aliens, not Lambchop. And amused me, too.

[THX-1138]

First, I loved the snowy outdoor backdrop of your short. It instantly made it unique to the other shorts.

THe bigest bug I had was that at the end your bars become grey in some clips and your blacks aren't consistant. Possable CC problem. Mimor but noticable.

Great work. Thanks for the entry,

Kip Kubin

[janzie]

thanks a lot guys!
i actually watched it again tonight and didn´t like a lot of choices i made...as for the timeline: i wanted to shoot a scene with a shoe falling from the sky and then explain where it came from. it was planned as a story, told by an old grandfather to a little boy (maybe compareable to "the princess bride" -structurewise- with the little boy asking questions and the grandfather hopping around in the timeline to make it more exciting for the boy- so he wouldn´t tell right from the beginning what actually crashed that certain day...and introducing the characters a little more : the 2 guys, the pregnant girl and the fanatic who believed in aliens all the time and finally tracks them down (after they crashed) tries to break the ship open (which is buried in the ground-after the crash) and explodes as they defend themselves...

after realizing, that i´ll never be able to tell the whole thing in 6 min, i tried to cut it down to the "most important" scenes, while sticking to the original structure - BAD CHOICE!!

it´s just sometimes hard to work on an idea and then rewriting it, while you try to keep as much as possible- DEFINATELY SOMETHING I HAVE TO LEARN!

i´m still trying to find some energy/enthusiasm to reshoot the missing scenes and finish a longer version, but it´s so hard to find the motivation after you´ve finished a "product"

we´ll see, but again thanks for your comments- i´ll try to comment on all the entries, but i haven´t even seen them all, but -as i said in another thread- the feedback and constructive criticism is the most important thing for all of us...

THANKS

[kimko]

Man The Characters Just Grab You Good Comedic Timing Kool Story, Entertained Me To The End, Fun!

[iSTy]

I don't like country/western music. Jerky picture although got better, not keen on subtitles either. Thought the aliens were brilliant. Although the ship at the end was unrealistic.

[janzie]

thanks kimko and iSTy,

what do you mean with "jerky picture"???

i know that spaceships can never be as realistic as squeeky sheep from outer space with condoms on their heads...;-)

[iSTy]

I meant 'jerky picture' as alot of the films seemed to have. I just noticed it alot more in some.

[Beat Takeshi]

This one made me laugh with the Brokeback Mountain dudes :)
I thought for sure they were going to kiss. The alien ants line made me laugh out loud too. I though this was a cool idea.