Check out my short "Rear View", shot on 35mm

davidreimers

davidreimers

Well-known member
Check out my short film "Rear View" I wrote, directed, edited, and produced during my last semester in college. It is 6:20 Mins. long including credits, it's a narrative drama, shot on 35mm with Kodak 5201 and 5205 film stock. We shot it in 3 days (wish I had at least one more), but you all probably know how it is. I like simple pieces, so I think this can might be the case with my short too. Anyways, feedback always appreciated. Thanks a lot and enjoy:

www.davidreimers.com/rearview.htm
 
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Hey, that looked positively great! I dno't think i need to expound on the cinematographic merits of it - I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that it looks great. My only grip would have been about the acting - i felt that the old man's acting was a bit forced, and wasn't very convincing. Other than that, i enjoyed it the whole way through - Great job!
 
Agreed, the old man threw me out of the story, both in his acting and what I can only assume to be ADR (which didn't match up too well). Great looking piece. The shot in the beginning of him walking out of the airport felt strange, but I cannot explain why.

Great job.
 
It's senseless to criticize acting in any no-budget non-pro film, so I won't... only time I'd mention acting is if it's good :)

The DP work is very good.

No comment on the story.

I hated the music. Both the music itself and the way it was used. It was terribly terribly obvious, and used in a hamfisted way. Alienating. If you can't get the emotion from the drama, don't try and squeeze it from the music track. And if you can get the emotion from the drama, then why beat us over the head with the music?

The first problem is the choice of the music. If you have a touching scene, try music that's not "in sync" with that exact emotion, that way you get additional layers. Second, the music is way too much "on the nose" - swelling up in all the obvious places, getting in the way, too insistent, and too plain loud.

The editing was another clunker. So, so, so boring. Couldn't you do something else other than keep straight cutting endlessly between the driver and passenger with practically every exchange? I mean, would it explode the film if you stayed with f.ex. either the driver or passenger for awhile, or indeed, took a break from both while the dialogue kept going o/s? How about some movement? Or different angle? How about changing the timing/length of the cuts? There's no sense whatsoever of cutting rhythms here. Boring as it gets.

Anyhow, that's some honest feedback, not meant to be negative, just trying to move things away from complacency.
 
The driver seemed unnaturally friendly for a cab driver, I would've had an easier time believing him if he said this was his first week or something.

Overall I just didn't take anything from your movie. There wasn't any real drama. Mostly just two guys talking and without the audience knowing his son's dead there really isn't much in the subtext.
 
Gohanto said:
The driver seemed unnaturally friendly for a cab driver, I would've had an easier time believing him if he said this was his first week or something.

Overall I just didn't take anything from your movie. There wasn't any real drama. Mostly just two guys talking and without the audience knowing his son's dead there really isn't much in the subtext.
Click to expand...

I wasn't going to comment on the story, but things are being brought up...

Gohanto, to be fair, I guess the writer/director would say that not knowing about the son is not a problem early on, since you obviously are waiting to see where this leads... kind of like building tension... "what's up with the old man?" "what's his story?" "hey, since we're finding out about the taxi driver, well what's his story?"

So, the structure is all built around: lead up --> resolution. As standard a technique as it gets, entirely legitimate, and totally OK. One can argue about just how interesting their interaction is leading up to the revelation, but that's a separate issue, the structure itself is fine. The problem rather starts once we reach that promised resolution: "ok, ok, ok... so WHAT'S this about???". We're on pins and needles. And then the resolution comes - to me personally, a crashing disappointment. It's like "so that's what it's all about?" BFD, I want that 5 minutes of my life back! Now, if on the other hand the revelation was something interesting - well, time well spent. But my point remains: the structure is fine.

Then again, there was zero imagination in the imagery all through. Starting with the opening (which bothered someone here). Airplane flies over - I'm already tensing up. Cliché, cliché, cliché... please, please, please let the next shot not be of someone emerging from the airport! Splat! Sorry. Yep, emerging from the airport. I mean, are we incapable of exercising imagination to figure out another, less tired way of conveying the idea: "Our hero lands". If it was shown differently, one could say: "respect... cool way of showing something we've seen ten bazillion times before, in a fresh way". As is... nope, standard tired, tired stuff. You're doing a short movie. You only have a few minutes to really stand out from the crowd. And how do you stand out, if you're relying on the most exhausted clichés around? How is this ever going to be memorable? How is this making an impact on a viewer? And so on with the rest of the imagery, until it mercifully ends :crybaby: .
 
Close ups on cars are a little tricky unless filming at an angle. As the car pulls away from the house you can see in the silver strip of car, the camera and a man shifting something in his hands. Also, some of the sound effects threw me off. At points there would be this natural sounding sound effects and other times a low-res, 8-bit muffley effects. Such as the window rolling down and the bag holding the flowers
 
I thought it wasn't too bad. It looks beautiful, though isn't revolutionary. That's OK by me. The music fit just fine by my ears. Maybe a little over the top at the end but overall alright.

What bothered me was just the sound. Their voices never fit -period. And I know the pain of making ADR fit having done it a few times. It takes a pro or at least someone who knows what they're doing to really get the right feel. This didn't take for me right from the beginning. And the sound effects were often "off" as well. Just didn't feel real. The wind at the grave site was one. It sounds very windy but the trees and grass don't show it. The crinkling flowers was another as well as the window sound (as someone mentioned).

Overall it wasn't bad. I didn't regret watching it and it had my attention. The biggest areas to improve were sound design and acting on the old man's part. The last line was blah as well. Should have been re-written, said better, or cut. It was too over-the-top. Good effort though.
 
short review -> beautiful cinematography. completely unnatural performances. and from the moment the dialogue started in the cab, i was always ahead of the story. in other words, every turn of it was predictable. dialogue was purely artificial having no basis in the way people actually speak to one another. and i'm not talking about the ADR. i'm talking about your dialogue making concessions (having to talk "around" things) to save your big reveal for the end. but hey, that's just my dumb opinion which you can freely dismiss. my 2¢.
 
I may be in the minority but I just put my red pencil down and watched it. The shortcomings weren't too difficult to overlook. Some of the shots were really nice--your choice of stock was excellent. Kind of nice to listen to audio that doesn't sound like s**t for a change--bet it's really good on DVD (or projected).

I think there are cab drivers like that and I do think people speak to each other that way (but I come from a small town). Made me want to see more which, I guess, is the point, no?

Nice going.
 
Now that all the pros around here have given their word...Let me just say..your stuff is looking good and alot better than lot's of crap up here!!!!!!
Keep it up buddy..and I liked the actors..especially the old man!!! Alot of these "Pros" up here want it all perfect!!! haaaaaaaaaaaaaa
 
I liked how the prop tombstone was propped up against an existing tombstone. In one shot it looked like it was too wide.

But beyond that, it looked great. I didn't think the cab driver was too friendly - I get cab drivers like that who insist on talking and sharing and it drives me crazy. I actually think it's a form of hostility to be so insistently friendly and chatty to comeone who clearly does not want to talk (whether they >sniff< need it or not). The old man's acting probably would have seemed fine with location audio.
 
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