V-656

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

POSSIBLE SPOILERS




Damn. This crapped out on me at 4:30
I LOL'd at what happened to the teacher though.
I'm off to try again.

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Alright, this was fun. I'm sure the kids had a blast with this.
Not much to say that hasn't already been said?

The robots were cool. The kids did a good job for the style of film you were making.
I laughed a few times. Fun stuff. I'm sure this took a lot of effort to make.

I liked the "smart" girl. She played her part well, as did the teacher.

[Chris_Keaton]

Ugh, I can't get it to load to see the whole thing. It stopped when bob pushed the sensor. I'll try again later.

[taylormade]

Thanks, everyone, for taking a look at our entry. I hope Chris gets to see the ending - especially after our discussion about his Samurai Fest entry.

This fest a is a rare chance to get honest and constructive comments about something you made, a rarity today when most of the feedback is filtered through fawning friends and family, or folks who feel they must be PC when commenting about your film. Your feedback is real raw data that goes a long way in making any future project better and more satisfying.

It’s interesting to see how divergent some of the comments were. The hardest to decipher were the overall take on the acting in V-656, which went from “wooden” to a “bit over the top.” Any criticism belongs squarely in my lap. The kids gave it all they had and followed my instructions, so any missteps in this area are entirely my own.

Same with the CG - I had neither time or equipment to go all out with it, but wanted to give it a shot. I thought making it a bit 50’s Sci-Fi might overcome the technical limitations, which is why we went for an over-the-top Saturday matinee look instead of dark, chilling drama. This was never going to be totally realistic so there was no point in pretending it was. No excuses, just my decision what direction to take it. It seemed to work for some viewers and disturb the heck out of others.

This was a fun project and the fest was a great opportunity to watch 17 films from talented filmmakers from around the world. Can’t wait for the next one, and all your thoughtful comments will hopefully make my next entry better.

[Chris Lukeman]

Fun kids film! I thought the acting mostly fit the tone of the whole. I really liked the robot animation for the push in shots (like 3:06). One easy (ie low rendering time) way to sell some of the animation shots would be to add some camera shake to the footsteps when the robots walked in all of the wide shots. Not as much as Transformers or anything, but just a little. The robots sounded really heavy when they walked and it felt off to me that some action shots were handheld but those were locked down. I know you had shake in some of them, I guess I noticed that it wasn't consistent. I did like the short though!

I am curious if you liked the fact that the table was reflective or if you were mad because it cranked your render and animation times up haha.

[taylormade]

I actually liked the reflective table - pure chance that the scinece room had them. I think the little robot is probably the most realistic of all the bots, partially because of the reflections and because his walk is the most alien and robotic so you buy it.

Actually, V-656 shakes the camera everytime he takes a step. I thought about doing it with Bob, but I was afraid it might take away from the big guy. Easy enough to go back and add a little for him, too.

Thanks for watching!

[Mobie540]

Wow, that was really creative. Kudos to you because that must've been extremely time consuming. My sole venture into animation was a balloon and that took forever.

Anyway, I found myself chuckling at parts and really found the whole thing enjoyable. Great work!

[Chris_Keaton]

A cute cartoony kids short. That smart kid really acted her but off. Any significance to the robot's number?

Oh yeah, I liked that ending better when it was mine.

[taylormade]

A cute cartoony kids short. That smart kid really acted her but off. Any significance to the robot's number?

Oh yeah, I liked that ending better when it was mine.

I thought the number sounded cool so I went with it. No significance.

My granddaughter will be happy to hear you liked her performance.

Actually, my co-writer Kent Tentschert came up with that piece of the plot. I laughed out loud when I read your script in Samurai Fest - not at the script but at the coincidence. Apparently great minds think alike.

[jambredz]

LOL. i was laughing alot. at first i didnt like the cartoony look...then I saw that thats what u were going for. Its a nice kids flick