C A C H E - snodart/theloniusjones

[TimurCivan]

I think I would have let him live a little longer so I could burn his eyes out with a hot fork.

Damn dude.

this is the side of aram i dont ever want ot see. Espeacially when he gets his Bionic Joints.... the nhe will be like the Terminator and end us all.

But the baseball bat scene ewas the weakest point. perhaps something simple like the shadows, on the curtain could have been more complex and interesting. like if the Molester was trying to get up, and kept getting beat back to the ground. somethign to give the flat image some depth.

 

[snodart]

But the baseball bat scene ewas the weakest point. perhaps something simple like the shadows, on the curtain could have been more complex and interesting. like if the Molester was trying to get up, and kept getting beat back to the ground. somethign to give the flat image some depth.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. So are you saying that seeing the actual hit was a weak point, or the the whole scene (including the behind the blinds)? Or are you saying that the part with the shadow on the blinds was the weak spot. I'm very interested and just want to make sure that I understand. Thanks for the input.

 

[david jerome]

Wow. Wow again. Wow again. woW backwards.
OK, I can finally think of a word,
Intense.
Maybe wow is a better word.

 

[TimurCivan]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. So are you saying that seeing the actual hit was a weak point, or the the whole scene (including the behind the blinds)? Or are you saying that the part with the shadow on the blinds was the weak spot. I'm very interested and just want to make sure that I understand. Thanks for the input.

Mmm ok.

The initial hit was good, the sound was awesome.

But after that, he just goes kinda limp. i nkow he moves al ittle, but i seen someone get hit in the head with a baseball bat. ( dont ask) they fell down but immediatly the body goes into shock, and Fight or flight kicks in. he would at least tried to get up a little. Aside form realism, it provides a nice visual. The shadow on the curtains, would be the guy on the ground, with maybe a hand up trying to defend himself, ot you could see his shadow, start to try to get up. to give the sense that he is feeling the beating more before dying.

Its gruesome, but it also makes for a more compelling image.

 

[snodart]

The initial hit was good, the sound was awesome.

But after that, he just goes kinda limp. i nkow he moves al ittle, but i seen someone get hit in the head with a baseball bat. ( dont ask) they fell down but immediatly the body goes into shock, and Fight or flight kicks in. he would at least tried to get up a little. Aside form realism, it provides a nice visual. The shadow on the curtains, would be the guy on the ground, with maybe a hand up trying to defend himself, ot you could see his shadow, start to try to get up. to give the sense that he is feeling the beating more before dying.

Its gruesome, but it also makes for a more compelling image.

Perfect Thanks Timur. I understand now. We did think about this but decided to go the route we did. We were looking to show Mr. Nell's inner anger reaching the surface. The guy, in our opinion, would have been out cold and most likely permanently altered. My wife is a Pediatrician and Tim is an ER Doc, so we based this on their experiences/education. The idea was to show that Mr. Nell was beating a dead horse so to speak. In our minds, Mr. Nell was not finishing off the Pepophile necessarily, although perhaps he told himself he was. He was unleashing his inner anger and rage from his scared childhood (and maybe his current condition). I'm not trying to validate what we did with this, but just explaining our original goal. Thanks for you thoughts and input!

 

[TimurCivan]

thats cool.

 

[Kirk Gillock]

Definitely stands-out as being one of the best. Nice job.

The only thing I didn't like was the hooded sweatshirt. It revealed more than it disguised. What? You see, as soon as I saw the hooded sweatshirt the strange feeling I had of "Where have I seen this before?" finally got answered. ....Unbreakable. Granted, if he's going to attack someone he's probably going to want to hide himself by wearing a dark hooded outfit. (I normally do.) But still, the similarities between this and Unbreakable really made me step back from it. Some other herofest entries did this as well. Bone Hand was similar to The Professional, Once a Hero was similar to The Crow (The Sparrow?), and, the biggest offender of them all, Buckethead. LOL

Seriously, when working in a genre like this its almost impossible to avoid similarities to other films. I mean, how many different ways of telling the rise or fall of a superhero can there be? But the point of this festival wasn't to come up with a completely new idea, but rather to tell a story. And you told your story VERY VERY well. It was powerful and moving. The direction, the acting, the shots, were all excellent. Definitely one of the best. Good luck!

 

[theloniusjones]

The initial hit was good, the sound was awesome.

Thanks for the compliment. For the bat hit I recorded Snod smashing a coconut, watermelon, canteloupe, and honey dew melon with a bat, and we blended them together in Digital Performer until we got something we liked. We ended up going with mostly the canteloupe and honey dew with a bit of coconut and watermelon mixed in. It wasn't quite as "real" sounding as we had hoped for, but I fortunately have never heard a bat smash a person's face, so I'm not really sure what it would sound like anyway. We had a good time doing it though.

 

[TimurCivan]

you have to hit a steak too.

 

[theloniusjones]

you have to hit a steak too.

Good idea. Might have given us the "thud" it was missing.

 

[Slimothy]

Sorry if I'm repetitive, I haven't seen all the replys.

The look of this one is incredibly filmic throughout most of it. What time of day did you shoot the EXT scene w/ the van? Looked excellent. What I liked: story, cinematography, acting.

As Dahopa said, if I were to dig for negatives this would be it:

-Some barrel distortion on some of the shots (BTW: way to go on building your own adapter.)
-Music didn't really do it (or lack thereof.) Who knows, maybe this is better off w/o much music, but I like a good score.
-Lack of sound fx during the killing scene
-Killing scene looked phoney.

Great job.

 

[Slimothy]

The only thing I didn't like was the hooded sweatshirt. It revealed more than it disguised. What? You see, as soon as I saw the hooded sweatshirt the strange feeling I had of "Where have I seen this before?" finally got answered. ....Unbreakable. Granted, if he's going to attack someone he's probably going to want to hide himself by wearing a dark hooded outfit. (I normally do.) But still, the similarities between this and Unbreakable really made me step back from it. Some other herofest entries did this as well. Bone Hand was similar to The Professional, Once a Hero was similar to The Crow (The Sparrow?), and, the biggest offender of them all, Buckethead. LOL

I also second this comment. I also thought of Unbreakable.

 

[snodart]

Sorry if I'm repetitive, I haven't seen all the replys.

Fresh is better.

The look of this one is incredibly filmic throughout most of it. What time of day did you shoot the EXT scene w/ the van? Looked excellent. What I liked: story, cinematography, acting.

Thanks. We shot the van scene around 2pm. The sun was mostly overhead, but favored Mr. Nells face. The girl and the pedophile shots were done around 3pm (different day) with the sun a little more behind them (cam facing west).

As Dahopa said, if I were to dig for negatives this would be it:

-Some barrel distortion on some of the shots (BTW: way to go on building your own adapter.)

I was wondering if this would be mentioned. It's actually not true barrel distortion though. It is a flaw in my design. I used 2 extentions to hold the GG at a distance fromt he macro where it could shake away without shaking the cam or the adapter (the white things in the pic below). I did have 3 extentions there, but ditched one of them to ensure that the adapter and camera did not absorb even a hint of vibration. I tested it and it worked fine and didn't appear too let the GG move along the Z axis (front to back). The pattern of the vibration found a "grove" though in some of the shots and allowed the GG to move along the Z axis at the corners that didn't have the support. I need to add the 3rd extension and all should be well again. Two on either side of the motor and one at center across from the motor. Good eye.

-Music didn't really do it (or lack thereof.) Who knows, maybe this is better off w/o much music, but I like a good score.

Agreed. Ran out of time for the score. Tim was able to add the guitar at end... but the rest was done in the 11th hour right before uploading.

-Lack of sound fx during the killing scene

I'm assuming your talking about the shadow/blinds part. We talked about it, and liked the no sound idea better. The goal was to let the score take over and keep the viewer as more of a specator.

-Killing scene looked phoney.

I know reviewing all the shorts is daunting, but I would love some more info on this one. Just so we understand what it was about the scene that didn't work for you.

Great job.

Thanks, and thanks for your input.

 

[KOVAROVA]

i dont have a lot of time to chime in but i wanted to let you know that i really liked this. :thumbsup: great job! loved the small details.. pic holding a lamb, bad coffee.. but why the azul / Blue poster? that took me by surprise.

 

[snodart]

but why the azul / Blue poster? that took me by surprise.

A Spanish version of a French film that deals with loss, in the house of a Pedophile in America. I thought it was a little too obvious really.

Seriously though, it was already there. We chatted about what to do with it, chatted about it some more..... never made up our minds, so it stayed.
(Homage to Spanish versions of French Cinema)

Thank you for mentioning the details. We tried to keep a tight hold on them as much as we could. Thanks for the comments and complements!

 

[KOVAROVA]

i dont get the connection with the poster. something like KiDS may have been 'obviously' better. being a fan of that movie it took me way out of the scene for a moment. props like that are huge signals... might have been better to remove it.. or replace it with a crucifix or someting like that :evil:

that said.. it was an interesting casting choice for the pedophile.. not the type you would expect and gave that idea more dimension and more opportunity for your audience to question it.

v/good stuff.. look forward to your next movie.

 

[sean90291]

Oh, I was hoping to hear some comments about the bat hit. Just wondering what everyone's first impression was... also could use some technical nit picking. It was a pretty complicated shot and was a big chunk of work for us. We composited Mr. Nell and the pedophile with Shake. Dave (Mr. Nell) actually hit a 2 X 6 piece of wood that I was holding. J. Wayne (pedophile) was standing alone with no bat swinging when he made the great fall. Anyway, I would love to hear some comments about it if anybody is up for it.

Great camera work. You evoked a consistent, dramatic mood. Great lighting. Loved your performers. The story was so close to being awesome--it was good--but it could have been awesome if you really hit home the notion that the hero may have been imagining his powers and may have killed someone in error. I think that's what it's about: a guy who could have been a superhero or could have been crazy. Anyway, you almost nailed it if the story had been fine tuned a litttle.

And yes, I did wonder how you did the bat hit. It was flawless. It shocked me. I kept wondering how the heck you did it, because it looks amazingly real. I actually wondered if you used a foam bat for the quick strike, and then when the actor's hand goes out of frame, replaced with bat with a real one. I couldn't figure it out. So you did it with effects. Expertly done. It was a shocker. Worth watching if anyone hasn't seen it yet!

 

[MsManhattan]

The cinematography and lighting in this film are flawless -- but the thing that really stands out to me is the how nuanced the story is. When I discussed it with Aram, we had very different takes on it, and as I read some of the earlier posts I can see that people are really coming to it with different interpretations, which I think only makes it stronger.

Like, Aram, I inferred that the bedroom door opening and the man lurking in the doorway were a prelude to molestation of the little boy. But whereas Aram thought the little boy was the main character as a child, I thought the little boy was the main character's son, and it was the main character lurking in the doorway.

I thought he was driven to such rage over the incident with the little girl on the street because it ignited his own self loathing over the vile acts he had perpetrated himself on another innocent victim. And his whole psychosis -- delusion vs. reality -- probably stemmed from not being able to accept the horrendous things he had done (which had probably also been done to him -- so goes the cycle of child abuse).

As far as his premonitions, those to me somewhat confused the storyline, but they didn't bother me particularly. To me the story would have worked with or without them -- although, I love the beginning of the film and you wouldn't have had that without the premonition.

I never gave how he got the dude's address a second thought -- not when it's so easy to get personal info on people these days. I understood completely that he was reading the guy's license plate.

Finally, re: killing the guy -- it was extreme, and yes, possibly a miscarriage of justice, but I liked that. I, too, considered that possibly the dude in the car could have been the girl's father but probably not because if so, he wouldn't have driven off like he did. And, again, I thought the fact that you had established (1) the guy was delusional and (2) the guy was himself an abuser who was filled with so much self-loathing that he was driven into a rage (sorry, I'm repeating myself) that when he killed the guy it was really a projection of how he wished he could kill himself or that someone else would.

Anyway, I loved this, love the nuances and all the room for different interpretations, love the look and feel. Really, really excellent job.

 

[snodart]

i dont get the connection with the poster. something like KiDS may have been 'obviously' better. being a fan of that movie it took me way out of the scene for a moment. props like that are huge signals... might have been better to remove it.. or replace it with a crucifix or someting like that :evil:

Hey, I hope you understood that I was being sarcastic and attempting to poke fun at myself. I wasn't serious about it being obvious. We talked about taking it down many times, but just ended up leaving it. So there was no true art direction involved with the poster. And yes, KiDS would have been more fitting. Crucifix would have been excellent.

I have to feed my kids, but will be back to respond to the great new comments.

Again KOVAROVA, I hope my attempt at funny didn't come across in the wrong way. I really appreciate your input and agree with you.

 

[Chris Messineo]

Wow. Beautifully shot! Simply lovely to look at and the attention to detail in the shot selection is fantastic. Your lead actor was wonderful. Only complaints would be I would have liked to have seen some more work down with the sound and score. Overall, one of my favorite films in the contest.

Chris