EIGHTEEN SECONDS by Jack, Zac and Mac

Sorry guys but Spidey is right. While individually you guys impressed me with your work, combined I feel like this was an exercise in what you can get from the camera and an adapter. Unlike some other people I don't think this is the best short I've ever seen. It took no chances, the music is mundane and the story lacking.
Sorry, no thumbs up here.
And I take it we are to infer one of them is Eric or Erica or the are Eric and Erica?
 
Great job with this one. The best short I have watched so far. The editing and the music matched the visuals and the acting was very good. The elements seemed pretty balanced which helped, a lot of times when the visuals are so much better then the acting, it can be distracting.

The film came together very nicely even if I cant 100% buy into the idea of her fainting. I was entertained and engrossed the whole time. Great job on this one.
 
i disagree with the sentiment that this film had no dramatic arc. for me, the isolating effect of loneliness is as devastating an obstacle as anyone could imagine. therefore, we can easily intuit what these characters' essential needs and wants are even if they don't express them verbally. we see an unfolding of events here where a "greater power" connects these two souls in ever more significant ways. the connections progress from the mundane and coincidental, to the sexual and emotional, and finally within the context of proximity which culminates in a brief, yet undeniably transcendental experience. i can't imagine mac, zac & jack would diminish this 18 second moment with the idea that they are simply falling in love. to my eyes, they are seeing each other in a very truthful way and perhaps acknowledging a shared suffering. to say it's just a bunch of images that could have been slapped together in any order is insane to me. and to call it a music video is insulting. do we know nothing of poetry here? not everyone needs to rely on gunplay and plot points to evoke drama. my 2¢.
 
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Nice Cinematography. But personally I found the story too predictable.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't see any reference to Eric or Erica in this film, so how is it even eligible for the competition?????

Great job though! It was nice!
 
I was totally enthralled by this, was it a 'connection' thing?
Thought everything just went soo well together.
Thank you.
 
I really enjoyed this short. I have gone through about 15 films so far and this is my favourite by far. Great work.
 
Spidey's and Macgregor's films are absolutely nothing alike. The motivation behind making each of these films were entirely different. Don't even get me started.

Jason
 
Zak Forsman said:
i disagree with the sentiment that this film had no dramatic arc. for me, the isolating effect of loneliness is as devastating an obstacle as anyone could imagine. therefore, we can easily intuit what these characters' essential needs and wants are even if they don't express them verbally. we see an unfolding of events here where a "greater power" connects these two souls in ever more significant ways. the connections progress from the mundane and coincidental, to the sexual and emotional, and finally within the context of proximity which culminates in a brief, yet undeniably transcendental experience. i can't imagine mac, zac & jack would diminish this 18 second moment with the idea that they are simply falling in love. to my eyes, they are seeing each other in a very truthful way and perhaps acknowledging a shared suffering. to say it's just a bunch of images that could have been slapped together in any order is insane to me. and to call it a music video is insulting. do we know nothing of poetry here? not everyone needs to rely on gunplay and plot points to evoke drama. my 2¢.


well said zac. i agree with ya. :thumbsup:
 
I don't like feet in particular...but the scene with the feet really sells it for me... I don't know why, but it brings the connection full circle. I think that is my favorite scene of the film right now.
 
macgregor said:
Those who say there are no actors acting in this shortfilm just because they dont speak are simply idiots. You may like it or not, but this statement sounds like a 12 years old kid who is envy. Sorry.

Those who say there is no story at all, are short minded. Sorry. This is a 6 minute story. If you plan to tell Schindler´s list in 6 minutes, you might be wrong.

ANd those who say the editing could have been done in any order, definately did not understood a thing. Each of their actions are related, and they go in crescendo. It is like saying that the editing in 21 grams could have been done in any way. False.

wow. no need to get hostile.
 
Dang. You know what I realized?

Anything with Mac and Jack in it becomes sickeningly controversial on this site.

I got mixed feelings. But, it ain't nothing that hasn't been said by one person or another here so no need for me to put it back on the table.

And, I'd get hostile to if someone were TELLING me that something I did was WRONG instead of ASKING me why I chose to do this or that, searching for my reasoning behind it to see if I had succeeded in what I attempted to convey.

Sheesh, man. Good Job, you guys. I couldn't tell this was HVX, because it just didn't look like typical soft and smudgy HVX footage. I really love the look.

Congrats on a well-done thrown-together piece.
 
ripupthehwy said:
Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't see any reference to Eric or Erica in this film, so how is it even eligible for the competition?????

JDS's character is named Erik. But there's no dialogue to explain that.

If they made a mistake, it was not making the Erik thing more clear. But other than someone walking by JDS and saying "Hi, Erik!" or him saying to her "my name is Erik, what's yours" there's not much of a way to do it. Not a lot of talking going on in this piece.

With no disrespect to the mods, I thought the Eric or Erica rule was pretty pointless from the get-go. If you're gonna go that route, then they should have gone all the way and given us something like "a character named Eric trapped in a room with a piece of toast and a pony" and so on...

But anyway...

Mac and Zac's film is a great piece of filmmaking and I have enjoyed it immensely. What I like about their work is you either like it or you don't. You get it or you don't. They keep it simple and remind us that film is a visual medium.
 
Mac you always seem to get the highest praise and the harshest criticism. i would guess that is a good thing.

btw - you suck. ;)
 
KOVAROVA said:
Mac you always seem to get the highest praise and the harshest criticism. i would guess that is a good thing.

Exactly what I said. This is going to turn out to be another Similo thread.

If people want to know if he's going to do a full-blown narrative, with dialogue and such, why not just ask instead of telling him what he needs to do?
 
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