C A C H E - snodart/theloniusjones

Finaly got to watch CACHE this morning .

I like to different angle you took onthis ..Is he on Meds ..no..is he delusioned ? maybe .keeps you thinking .

Thought the actor was perfect for the role .

Liked the baseball bat scene ...who needs blood ..I thought the scene said it all when the bat breaks ..Silence ( no crunching) and no blood splatter . Only his frustration .

The ending caught me by surprise ..a Super hero/hero with remorse for what he had done . I just couldn't catch those last words he was saying ..I think he was saying ..."what have I done "

Great choice in picking this guy for the role ...he did a nice job !!!

Congrats on a great short .
Ian
 
desperatecomfort said:
What I have been wracking my brain about though, is what the title means and how it relates to the story...
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cache:
  1. A hiding place used especially for storing provisions.
  2. A place for concealment and safekeeping, as of valuables.
  3. A store of goods or valuables concealed in a hiding place: maintained a cache of food in case of emergencies.
  4. Computer Science. A fast storage buffer in the central processing unit of a computer. Also called cache memory.
I chose the name because I liked the way that it fit, but also how the relation is not blatantly obvious. A mild riddle in some ways. I saw that the name fit partly because his ability/delusion resemble a jump in time which I thought seemed similar to the computer science definition of the word. The "time jumps", if seen as an ability, relate to the idea that he can see into the immediate future by tapping into the memory cache of time (this of course would assumes predestiny). As a delusion, it relates to the idea that the memory cache in his brain is misfiring and causing jumps back in his own memory storage.

The other definitions of the word have a less direct fit, but I still saw a connection. Mr. Nell has most likely had the ability/delusion for some time, perhaps even since being a child. He has avoided letting the "ability" come to the surface as it has been assumed to be a error of the brain. When he stops taking the meds and comes across the pedophile, he utilizes the "time-jump" to save the girl and put a stop to the pedophile (at least in his mind). So in a sense, his "ability" had been kept hidden away until he decided to use it for what he saw at the time as justice.

At any rate, I liked the idea of people questing the title. It is also consistent with the ambiguity of the story. Because the story had many unresolved issues, a more direct name would have carried a good deal of power in answering questions that I though should be left unanswered. Some names that I briefly pondered were: time-jump, worm-hold, misjustice, etc. They all sucked. Anyway, I thought cache fit.
 
arielman said:
I like to different angle you took onthis ..Is he on Meds ..no..is he delusioned ? maybe .keeps you thinking .

Thought the actor was perfect for the role .

Liked the baseball bat scene ...who needs blood ..I thought the scene said it all when the bat breaks ..Silence ( no crunching) and no blood splatter . Only his frustration .

The ending caught me by surprise ..a Super hero/hero with remorse for what he had done . I just couldn't catch those last words he was saying ..I think he was saying ..."what have I done "

Great choice in picking this guy for the role ...he did a nice job !!!

Congrats on a great short .
Ian
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Ian, thanks for watching and the comments. Oh, and yes, the last words were "what have I done". We lucked out having already know Dave (Mr. Nell). Tim and I were both beyond impressed with his acting and dedication to the project.
 
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I think one has to be careful to distinguish story AMBIGUITY from story CONFUSION. Take that awesome, fun Schwarzenegger film "Total Recall". The ending is AMBIGUOUS. This is great, because you leave experience with questions: what is real, what really happened. And you debate it with your friends. It's not clear. BUT...there are two clear choices to choose from. That is, while the ending isn't clear, you have a choice between A or B. You don't have just a "what the frack happened" reaction. You argue for A or B. Thihs is artfully handled ambiguity. Same with a movie like "Vampire Kiss" starring Nick Cage (an old movie maybe not many have seen). In that film, Cage's character might be a vampire or he might be crazy. You just get the two choices. It's not wide open. So it's sorta artfully ambigious too. The danger with Cache is the ambiguity is not quite CONTROLLED. You haven't 100% guided your audience to the key questions. It's a question of taste for sure, also. The artier the film, the more "ambiguous" it can be. A full on art film can be totally meaningless except he meaning the audience chooses to give it. But Cache was trying to do something more than that, and it was almost really really successful.

As for the title...it's CONFUSING. I think it's too vague and removed from the subject matter of the film. I don't think you should have to explain why a film is called what it's called. I loved Soderbergh's "Bubble"...but it's a bit of stretch to guess why it's a called Bubble. Only he knows for sure I suppose.
 
sean90291 said:
I think one has to be careful to distinguish story AMBIGUITY from story CONFUSION. Take that awesome, fun Schwarzenegger film "Total Recall". The ending is AMBIGUOUS. This is great, because you leave experience with questions: what is real, what really happened. And you debate it with your friends. It's not clear. BUT...there are two clear choices to choose from. That is, while the ending isn't clear, you have a choice between A or B. You don't have just a "what the frack happened" reaction. You argue for A or B. Thihs is artfully handled ambiguity. Same with a movie like "Vampire Kiss" starring Nick Cage (an old movie maybe not many have seen). In that film, Cage's character might be a vampire or he might be crazy. You just get the two choices. It's not wide open. So it's sorta artfully ambigious too. The danger with Cache is the ambiguity is not quite CONTROLLED. You haven't 100% guided your audience to the key questions. It's a question of taste for sure, also. The artier the film, the more "ambiguous" it can be. A full on art film can be totally meaningless except he meaning the audience chooses to give it. But Cache was trying to do something more than that, and it was almost really really successful.

As for the title...it's CONFUSING. I think it's too vague and removed from the subject matter of the film. I don't think you should have to explain why a film is called what it's called. I loved Soderbergh's "Bubble"...but it's a bit of stretch to guess why it's a called Bubble. Only he knows for sure I suppose.
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I had begun typing a long drawn out response to your comments as to our core goal, etc. Then I realized that from your great input, what I would really like to know is what Cache gave you.. or what did you get from the story... what did you think it was about. I think that knowing this might help the discussion a bit before I respond. I would be greatly appreciated if you have a chance.

Thanks
 
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I think I got what I think you intended. That the superhero was seeing things that foretold teh future. And that he happened to see that one man, a child molestor, was going to commit a crime. At the same time, he's seeing a therapist for possible "delusions." He's stopped taking medication (ie., maybe he's descending deeper into a psychotic state). But because of his own experiences in childhood, he can't NOT listen to his premonitions. He has to stop the man. And so, having believed in his own powers of premonition, he goes to the man's home and beats him to death. And then I'm not entirely sure...I think he perhaps thinks that he made a mistake. That maybe he is crazy after all, and not a superhero, and he just killed an innocent man based on his delusional state of mind. I think.

Just seems it's supposed to be a twist...but it's not clear.

I must add that your short film is really really well done in so many respects. I'm not just jerking your chain here. Everyone posting here seems impressed with what you accomplished, and so am I.
 
sean90291 said:
I think I got what I think you intended. That the superhero was seeing things that foretold teh future. And that he happened to see that one man, a child molestor, was going to commit a crime. At the same time, he's seeing a therapist for possible "delusions." He's stopped taking medication (ie., maybe he's descending deeper into a psychotic state). But because of his own experiences in childhood, he can't NOT listen to his premonitions. He has to stop the man. And so, having believed in his own powers of premonition, he goes to the man's home and beats him to death. And then I'm not entirely sure...I think he perhaps thinks that he made a mistake. That maybe he is crazy after all, and not a superhero, and he just killed an innocent man based on his delusional state of mind. I think.

Just seems it's supposed to be a twist...but it's not clear.

I must add that your short film is really really well done in so many respects. I'm not just jerking your chain here. Everyone posting here seems impressed with what you accomplished, and so am I.
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Great info, thank you. I didn't get that you were jerking my chain at all. I was just curious to hear how the story came across to you. Your take on the story might as well be a quote from my notes from when I was writing it with Tim. The end is not meant to be a twist. Twists seem to be pretty common in shorts, so maybe some people were looking for it. We did not want it to be a twist at all, in fact we were avoiding it to some degree. At any rate, your input has been great. I would agree that there are probably ways that Cache could have been tweaked, bent, and tunned to make the story more powerful for some. To be honest though, because this is our first true production, our ability may have simply limited us from doing so. From all the great feedback we will be able to take the new information and ideas with us as we venture into HorroFest. So, it is truly appreciated.
 
Just watched it again. I'm trying to make up my mind.

Dude, it was far better the 2nd time. The questions I had from the first viewing kind of melted away. I have my own interperitations, but damn it, it is fun to watch.

There are a couple of others to consider, but I think you have taken this one, in my opinion.

Keep kicking ass. Do you have more stuff that can be seen on-line? If not, I'll trade you DVD for DVD - either Redneck Samurai or CPU.
 
snodart said:
Great info, thank you. I didn't get that you were jerking my chain at all. I was just curious to hear how the story came across to you. Your take on the story might as well be a quote from my notes from when I was writing it with Tim. The end is not meant to be a twist. Twists seem to be pretty common in shorts, so maybe some people were looking for it. We did not want it to be a twist at all, in fact we were avoiding it to some degree. At any rate, your input has been great. I would agree that there are probably ways that Cache could have been tweaked, bent, and tunned to make the story more powerful for some. To be honest though, because this is our first true production, our ability may have simply limited us from doing so. From all the great feedback we will be able to take the new information and ideas with us as we venture into HorroFest. So, it is truly appreciated.
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I guess most directors hire poor, abused writers to do those very intangible things like nail a story. Once it's nailed, of course, it seems perfectly obvious to everyone and you can just get rid of the writer altogether, at the bottom of a deep pit. ;-)
 
Matthew B. Moore said:
Just watched it again. I'm trying to make up my mind.

Dude, it was far better the 2nd time. The questions I had from the first viewing kind of melted away. I have my own interperitations, but damn it, it is fun to watch.

There are a couple of others to consider, but I think you have taken this one, in my opinion.

Keep kicking ass. Do you have more stuff that can be seen on-line? If not, I'll trade you DVD for DVD - either Redneck Samurai or CPU.
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Thanks for giving it a second look. We don't have much else other than Cache since this was our first "real" short. Everything else that we have done up to this point has been tests and for the sake of practice. HeroFest really kicked us into gear and gave us something to shoot for. My website has some random tests clips in the filmmaking section, but slowly we (Tim and I) plan to replace them all with more substantial work. For now, we are going to work on HorroFest and just keep pressing on.

Swaping DVD's sounds great. Ours won't have any perks like BTS, but I would love to have a copy of CPU. I haven't seen Redneck Samurai, so maybe I can get it next swap.
:)

Tim and I agreed that for HorrorFest we will probably try and get somebody to film the making of and to grab some stills as well. I wish we would have done it for Cache. If anything, it would be fun for us to edit and watch.

sean90291 said:
I guess most directors hire poor, abused writers to do those very intangible things like nail a story. Once it's nailed, of course, it seems perfectly obvious to everyone and you can just get rid of the writer altogether, at the bottom of a deep pit. ;-)
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lol. probably very true.
 
spidey said:
The movie is all goodness.
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Wow! To get that comment from Spidey, and on your first true production no less, that is a major accomlishment. And I wholeheartedly agree with his sentiment. Truely a fantastic work of art!! :thumbsup:
 
Very good, all around.

Nice lighting and camera work. Great acting - exceptional among all the other entries.

I liked your approach to a superhero story. I expected something else to happen at the end though - another scene to wrap things up better. Were you planning on doing something else with the ending?

Sorry if this has already been addressed - 14 pages of posts are too many to go through in detail!
 
Spidey, Larry, and Conrad; thanks for taking a look and posting your comments.

conrad_johnson said:
I liked your approach to a superhero story. I expected something else to happen at the end though - another scene to wrap things up better. Were you planning on doing something else with the ending?

Sorry if this has already been addressed - 14 pages of posts are too many to go through in detail!
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This has been discussed, but I wouldn't expect anybody to read through all the pages. I looked back and grabbed this from what I said earlier. I think it pretty much sums it up. BTW, the ending is as we wanted it to be. We did have to trim some to fit it all into 6 minutes, but the ending has the same feel in both versions.

snodart said:
With the story, the idea was to put the viewer on the side of Mr. Nell while at the same time allowing for the shock of the attack to exist. By the way, I'm not attempting to justify what we did, but just explaining our goal with the story. I (I say "I" because theloniusjones may have a other points to make) didn't want people to walk away from this with a feeling of victory, but with a pit in their stomach. I wanted the viewer to be okay with Mr. Nell seeking out the pedophile and let them assume that it would play out as a typical hollywood style battle. The thing Disney is great for.

Example:
The hero and villain are fighting the end battle... the villain slips and is hanging by fingertips from the ledge... the hero, being good, tries to pull the villain up... the villain tries to take advantage of this by attacking the Hero, but causes himself to fall.

So with this example good wins but not by killing. The villain is the cause of his own death. Most all Disney movies work this way as well as many blockbuster type movies. I think this is great and even necessary (homage to Joseph Campbell).
The goal with Cache was to lead the viewer in this direction, but to force them to think about it in terms of reality. Though it would be ideal, most actual events don't play out with an all is well feeling at the end. This is the idea we wanted to explore with Cache. With Mr. Nell's unexpectedly brutal attack on the pedophile, I wanted the viewer to say something like: "I wanted him to get that guy, but not like that, damn". So in a way, I wanted to effect the viewer in such a way that they might be forced to take a closer look at how they view such events (in reality vs. hollywood). My wife is a forensic pediatrician and deals with child abuse cases. I told her once that I would have no problem beating the life out of a child abuser. Later though, when I really thought deeply about what I had said and tried to imagine what it would be like to do such a thing.... I ended up with a pit in my stomach.
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Cryogenic Filmworks said:
I was impressed by this. Did not see anything unpro. You had good camera, lighting, sound, music, acting. I couldn't find anything wrong. Great job.
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Not sure what to say other than "Wow" and "thank you!"
 
I'm new to the boards, but not to film work. I enjoyed the simplicity with which you told your story. I like that you didn't fill in all the blanks by the end; your choice was to give the audience credit that they are smart enough to fill in their own blanks, whatever they may be. Sometimes tidiness is not required in every story.

Nice short.
 
hemichic said:
I'm new to the boards, but not to film work. I enjoyed the simplicity with which you told your story. I like that you didn't fill in all the blanks by the end; your choice was to give the audience credit that they are smart enough to fill in their own blanks, whatever they may be. Sometimes tidiness is not required in every story.

Nice short.
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Well said hemichic. Thanks for the input and welcome to the boards.
 
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