DESIDERATUM - A Film By Ben Sliker

[Ben Sliker]

Woohoo top 8! I can't find the right words to express my excitement for seeing your film on the big screen next week, but I think Jeff Goldblum said it best when he said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBxgAmdPQWg

... at least you didn't post the clip where he says "must go faster, must go faster" in both JP and Independence Day.

Very nice job on the film BTW.

Glad you liked it, even if we do sport bare front bumpers.

[Ben Sliker]

alright, film should in Zak Forsman's hands tomorrow morning!

[Brandon Rice]

niceness!

[Ben Sliker]

yeah, let me know how it looks on the big screen. I'll be in Charlotte coverin' me some NASCAR. Turns out the flight/loss of work for a 12 hour stint in LA was going to cost me more than I can afford.

although, my esteemed (albeit vertically challenged) collaborator Joe Johnson will be there, along with the infinitely helpful Lana Bolin to represent DESIDERATUM.

[conrad_johnson]

I'll challenge you verbally.

[jasonthewho]

On a technical level, this film was near perfect. The audio and video were all super clean and sharp. Really made the film go down easy. Great lighting, colors, angles. The acting is also very solid.

SPOILER ALERT (for the 2 people who haven't seen it yet)

I have a problem with the nonlinear and disguised method of telling this story. Since it's supposed to be a surprise what their quest is, we don't get to actually see a traditional quest: Character wants something, fights for it, gets it. All of this is in Desideratum, but since its nonlinear, it instead becomes more of a series of confounding images, only paid off in the last few moments. I wasn't really invested, since I had nothing to invest in. If I had known she wanted a child, I would have been involved, would have wanted to find out if she succeeded.

This storytelling technique also makes the dialogue a little stilted, because it has to be generic enough to not give away the twist.

I'm curious to your thought process here. Did you think a straightforward story about a couple trying to have a child would not be interesting enough?

Even with my issues, I still think the way the last moment was done was moving. It would have been even more moving if we had been following their quest, as opposed to trying to figure it out.

[Ben Sliker]

On a technical level, this film was near perfect. The audio and video were all super clean and sharp. Really made the film go down easy. Great lighting, colors, angles. The acting is also very solid.

I'm curious to your thought process here. Did you think a straightforward story about a couple trying to have a child would not be interesting enough?

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Unfortunately, you experienced some of my worst fears about how i structured the movie.

Do I think it would be less interesting in a linear fashion? In short ... yes. I also think that the series of events that happened would have made it a much longer movie, perhaps that dining room conversation could have been 6 minutes in itself to build enough drama.

I do think it pays off earlier than the last few moments, there are subtle hints throughout but the bombshell i think is the negative pregnancy test around 4:27.

So, in the end, it makes Ben a sad panda that you felt nothing until the last few moments. I was hoping to elicit emotions first without the meaning attached to it. Did that not work for you? Did the images not have any impact without specific meaning attached to them? Perhaps if I had just veiled the adoption part instead of all the aspects of child birth/adoption, that would have worked in a linear fashion and still had some mystery about how it was all going to end... hmm ... very interesting ...

[Ben Sliker]

dammit Jason! now I'm going to go and cut my film linearly, just to see what it looks like ...

[Tim Joy]

I agree with Jason. Been trying to figure out what it was that I had issues with on this one, without being too harsh as I normally am.
It's a very long story, something that takes place over months, if not a year or so, and trying to fit that into 6 minutes... didn't work for me, BECAUSE we don't know what's going on and have something to invest in until the very end. It was still interesting, but perhaps not as engaging as it could've been.

Like many people, I thought she had a drug problem, but she was a little too nice-looking for that

Still.. the piece was very moving. I liked the music, and the mood. I think technically it's well done too, but something about that dining room scene looks very 'lit' and unnatural to me. Perhaps the color grading is at fault?

Really loved your sound design choices. The silence when they first enter the doctor's office was great.

Camera movement was subtle, understated- perfect.

I felt the performance of the doctor could've been stronger and more commanding. She seemed nervous and lacking the authority doctors usually seem to have. It was 78% there, so I'm really just nitpicking. The other performances were great.

High marks from me.

[conrad_johnson]

Still.. the piece was very moving. I liked the music, and the mood. I think technically it's well done too, but something about that dining room scene looks very 'lit' and unnatural to me. Perhaps the color grading is at fault?

It's funny you say this, the dining room scene was lit almost entirely with natural light, only one fill light was used, otherwise it was all window light. In fact, the closeups were all natural light.