S C H I T T E K A T T E R a Taylor Bryson Film

[Hootzie]

Awesome film. Great crime drama short. Only thing left to do with this one is get nitpicky.
The head beating wasn't as effective as I wanted it to be. I think it would have been great to just do it with sound and show the results. And the final blowing of the brains out was too much. The gunshot in a black screen would have been much more effective I think from a story telling point of view.

 

[Weston]

I thought it was great. One of the best in the fest.

The dialog was realistic....the shots, sound, and acting were really good.

The only thing i thought was a bit off was that Robbie didnt look banged up enough to "not make it".

 

[Keystoned]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I agree with pretty much all of the crits, and am relieved to hear the kudos when given.

This is a really good film. I really like it.

I thought the cinematography was fantastic for the one location. The angles were interesting and the shallow DOF was very filmic. Also the increased aspect ratio looked amazing.

The guy playing Robby can really act! The pacing of the dialogue was superb. The bookie was well cast.

I thought the story was simple but effective. It doesn't try to do too much and it effectively builds suspense. SPOILER I thought ... got off a little to easy.

Congrats, this one will be up there for me. Great Job!

Glad you liked it man. Regarding the spoiler, while it would be well within their code of "honor" to whack the individual you are referring to, the shrewd move would be to have him go on doing what he has been doing and for them just not to do anything that would incriminate themselves. But I get where you are coming from. It is a pretty violent world I have established and maybe they should have at least smacked him some, or given him some sort of formal punishment. They could have done that and still have him go on wearing the wire I imagine. Definitely a good note. I guess mostly I did not want to spend time on that after the reveal and wanted to move on to dealing with the more major characters.

Thanks for the honest feed back!

Wew hew! Congrats.. One of the better looking/story films I've seen so far. I really dug the shots as it set the mood of the film. LOVE shots where half the screen is filled with nothingness.

Music.. Herman and Sid... Damn fellas. Wonderful collaboration. Now to pick it apart to see who scored what The end cue was killer!

cheers Taylor!
/j

Thanks, I am glad you like the music. It was a challenging process to find the right balance of how much to score and how much to leave a lone. Herman and Sid were very easy to work with and gave me a lot of leeway to do what I needed with the time crunch to make it work.

I added the motif of a distant train as a type of sound design underscore element and tried to blend that with the ambient music they created.

Wow! Taylor.... well done! Shcit.... I'd work on a film with you anyday! That was great!

Nice, nice editing. Nice staging of the actors and action. Lovely camera work and cinematography.

Good for you! Can't wait to re-watch this!

-Ted

Thanks Ted. Glad you liked the staging and camera work. One thing I tried to do was establish a new AXIS line every time the scene took a major turn.

I liked the look and feel of the flick, though to be honest i saw it coming with the ending the first part, not the final part (sorta) *if you seen it you know what I mean* i think i just confused everyone including myself...anyways, good film, and I now know what a Schittekatter is thanks lol

Haha. I think I follow you. Thanks for the honest feedback Dustin!

Very well done; the acting really knocked my socks off! You did a damn good job keeping the emotion and suspense up. The only downside is that the ending seemed kind of obvious to me, although that’s a slight downside considering the suspense was in full gear all the way till the credits rolled. This is so far in my top 3! Damn good job.

Thanks Gary. I appreciate the feedback.

great music by sid and herman

cinematography was great, looked really good for just one location. I kinda missed the spyfest feeling though.

story was predictable but it it still kicked ass, it''s probably end up in my top 3 cause i already watched quite a few.

Thanks Wesley. Sorry it didn't feel spy-ish enough to you. Though, hopefully you can take it for what it is. There was a lot of talk about what SpyFest meant and that came down to having surveillance or covert information gathering being a central part of the story, not tuxedo's and martinis, so that's what I was going with. The latter seemed to production intensive for me. I haven't watched the other films yet (about to) but hopefully there are lots of spy-ish type things for you to enjoy.

Thanks for your feedback, and glad you liked it even though it was not what you were hoping for :beer:

Ok. So this is one fine looking film, I gotta say. Kind of felt like I was watching a crime-drama on tv.

Yeah I can see that. NYPD Blue is a huge influence for me. 2nd after that would be the Sheild. Movies are usually about something bigger and the bad guy is usually much more developed. I feel like this is approriae scale for a short, but because it is just these guys dealing with an internal issue, and it does not have a larger thematic argument, I can definately see where you could get a TV crime drama hit off of it.

Photography was absolutely beautiful and brilliant. Acting was top notch and what made it really cool was the casting of the characters. Each guy had their own distinct look and language/dialect/accent, and that really helps to sell the story.

Thanks. Especially in a short film, that visual short hand really helps I think. I really enjoyed working with those actors. The Bookie character was a late edition. That actor and the actor that played the older tougher cop (Dane) are good friends. The actor that plays the bookie was there when Dane and I were going over early versions of story ideas. I had seen the bookie actor in ODD Squad and I kept thinking - man I gotta use this guy somehow, he is such a good character type.

As far as "seeing the ending coming", you know, as "obvious" as it may have been, I really wasn't 100% sure that the ... was the rat. I feel that your film kept up the suspense enough to say to myself, "Yeah, it's probably ..., but I'm not sure."

I appreciate that that element of the story worked for you. Who the rat is drives the story but it is more about how Robbie's character, as the cahrasmatic leader, handles the situatio, IMHO. And really it could easily have been at least one of the other character, the one that doth protest too much for example. I think the sustained suspense people are talking about comes less from "who's the rat" and more from "what will these guys do once the rat is discovered" or if person A or B turns out to be the rat. Anyway, glad you bought into the world and the characters enough to stay with it and keep guessing.

Ok. So, now I don't like how it ends. I felt the bullet through the head/explosion thing was little over-the-top for the piece. I would have liked something less definitive, so that the story could go on long after the curtain, if you know what I mean. Maybe the young partner could then prove himself by being tasked with eliminating the bookie and that's how it ends. I don't know.

Hey I like that ending :beer: I'm pretty happy with the ending we have, but not as happy as I would have been with the original ending that got robbed from us by homeland security. I don't want to make too many excuses for the movie because we all faced the challenges of the no-budget stolen shoot, but we were kicked off our location with two hours of sunlight remaining on the day we absolutely had to wrap shooting. After the cops went through all our stuff we had about 90 minutes to find a new location, cheat it for the pier, and come up with an entirely different narrative ending. The orginal ending could not be done without wide shots. Rene's line "Holy shi* Robby. They said it was ... ... ..." and the guys walking towards the kid at the ending are shot on a vacant lot nowhere near the water. You can't tell for Rene's line because it is a downward angle to a cement ground and you can't tell for the final shot because the DOF is so shallow. But we could not do much more than that. No closeups for dialogue etc. So it changed the hole narrative of the short. We came up with an ending together. Later we re-wrote even that ending, since their were no faces on camera, by making the dialogue different in the ADR.

Maybe I will post the original ending / script. Although the ending of the original script is almost as finite as the current ending.

Oh, yeah, and I REALLY wanted to see one of those pool tables!

Good job! Enjoyed it! An excellent film!

Thanks for screening.

haha yeah they must be something for that much money.

thanks for the VERY Detailed feedback!

The first thing I noticed when I saw this was WOW- listen to that sound! (WHAT MIC DID YOU USE?!) The second thing was- WOW, visuals. Just, aesthetically, a great film here. Some have had good sound but lacking in visuals, some have had mediocre sound but great visuals, but this was great in both departments. It was very dialogue heavy but that's the nature of it, but that's not to say the story wasn't extremely interesting. It took something trivial (the pool table) and made it an important matter of the film. And the ending was really great, I don't want to give it away for those who haven't seen it.

Cool so we have one all in favor of the ending. Really appreciating all the diverse and honest feedback guys.

The mics we used were the Sennheiser G1 series lavs. I am glad you liked the sound, especially the quality of the location sound. We worked very hard on it. Erik, Texture, did a great job of rolling off a lot of the low rumble of nearby traffic, then I spent about 50 hours after that EQuing it line by line trying to further minimize the noise and make sure it was clear with everything else going on. It was REALLY REALLY hard to get it to sound like it does and I still worry about how it would sound on a system with lots of low end.

I really like these lavs, but also the location sound works to the degree that it does do to lots of love in post. The basics of what we did can be found on this great link resource for EQuing :
Magic Frequencies

Visually, it was very nice. Great DOF!
Loved the fact that you shot this in one location. Great story and even better acting! Really, great acting!

The only thing I found a tad fake was the beating that the guy received. Other than that this movie was excellent!

Top notch!

Mike

Glad you liked the story. In terms of the single location, we wanted to keep this short manageable. We wanted to do something good and given the time and resources we had, that meant less is more. Also I wanted to explore a longer scene with actors playing objectives and through-lines from beginning to end.

As for the head beating ... I know. I edited 5 versions of it and spent two days on it. Unfortunately a reshoot was not in the cards for us. Just not possible.

Glad you really liked it otherwise.

Awesome film. Great crime drama short. Only thing left to do with this one is get nitpicky.

heheh.

The head beating wasn't as effective as I wanted it to be. I think it would have been great to just do it with sound and show the results. And the final blowing of the brains out was too much. The gunshot in a black screen would have been much more effective I think from a story telling point of view.

Yeah, I won't I'll not use another sad face emoticon on the head beating but I hear you and think you are probably right. I am too close to it because I worked it to death in post. I did try a version where we did not show the head hitting the ground at all. But we felt it was better with one or two quick cuts of the head. I will keep working that section, not sure what to do. Another problem is we don't really have coverage of the guy doing the beating due to having to move locations with very little sunlight left and having to write a whole new ending. Again we had to wrap that day because a member of our team was flying out of state indefinitely after the shoot and for related reasons a re-shoot was out of the question. The footage IS mostly of the guy doing the beating. But that is from one short take where he is doing something else actually and it is blown up and resized and moved around and zoomed in and out of to make it look like different footage. Maybe I need to cut all but one head hit, really amp up the sound with a good head crack maybe, and loop the footage of the guy doing the beating another two seconds if possible to make it seem like it goes on longer. could try a version with no head hitting the ground at all as well. What do you think.

As for the end blowing the brains out ... I will re-examine that. I had thought that what I did was so fast, and stylized enough that it was more of a bookend than a literal blowing out of the brains. But every time I choose subtlety on this piece, I find that less is more, so you maybe on to something here. In fact you are probably right. I will try just a flash dissolver with no blood - this is how the movie starts as well.

OK marking you guys down to send copies of my NEXT short to BEFORE the next contest so I can get all this great feedback before hand :laugh: :beer: Loving the feedback though. VERY helpful.

 

[ripupthehwy]

Oh YEAH THIS ONE ROCKS!!!

ABSOLUTELY THE BEST ACTING IN THE ENTIRE FEST!

I also liked the shots and your creativity with the "half-face" shots when they were talking about the pool table he bought for him. NICE.


rich nation

 

[-zach-]

As for the end blowing the brains out ... I will re-examine that. I had thought that what I did was so fast, and stylized enough that it was more of a bookend than a literal blowing out of the brains. But every time I choose subtlety on this piece, I find that less is more, so you maybe on to something here. In fact you are probably right. I will try just a flash dissolver with no blood - this is how the movie starts as well.

I don't think you went wrong here - the shot, it's 4 frames. It depends on the viewer's perspective of it. Alot of the effect is what we fill in after the fact. I may be wrong, but I'd leave it.

 

[Michael_Petro]

dude you did more with one location than i did with my 87 great acting great camera work for that one location... just nice, kept me interested the whole way through.... gonna watch this thing again and glean a few things from your dialogue shots...

 

[Blake Balu]

Definitely glad to be aboard this ship. Taylor Rocks. Had a great time working with him and such a great cast. .. Even if he dragged me under the bridge at 4 in the morning and threatened to dump me in the river... The COLD COLD river ... and beat me till I took his direction properly....you grow to appreciate it though...as an actor.......he really takes you there.
This really was a BLAST!

 

[chris f]

Standard Disclaimer: I've yet to see a bad film so far in this fest. Congratulations to every film maker, everyone did a great job. All my comments and criticisms are meant to be constructive and helpful and in no way am I trying to take anything away from what you accomplished.

Good: Good story, good characters, good acting, good cinematography, good location. The blood looked very cool.

Not as Good: Another film that seems to be a little heavy on dialogue and light on action. Would love to see some flashbacks of what they were talking about (or something else to break up the single location).

 

[mjjason]

I put this film in my top 3. Very good acting and style. The story was somewhat here and there with the reveal and all but I really enjoyed it.

 

[JOE BLO]

Excellent Job. I thought the Acting was superior. The cinematography was great. Congrats.

 

[Keystoned]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Really appreciated all comments here, both kudos and dings. The first helps me have the confidence to make the next one, the latter helps me make a better next one. So again. Thanks :beer:

Just catching up to a few of these before beddy by time....

I thought it was great. One of the best in the fest.

The dialog was realistic....the shots, sound, and acting were really good.

The only thing i thought was a bit off was that Robbie didnt look banged up enough to "not make it".

Thanks Weston I appreciate the feedback :beer:

Oh YEAH THIS ONE ROCKS!!!

ABSOLUTELY THE BEST ACTING IN THE ENTIRE FEST!

I also liked the shots and your creativity with the "half-face" shots when they were talking about the pool table he bought for him. NICE.


rich nation

Thanks Rich, the actors will appreciate that.

I will post some grabs tomorrow that show how I added eye light for those half closeups in post

I don't think you went wrong here - the shot, it's 4 frames. It depends on the viewer's perspective of it. Alot of the effect is what we fill in after the fact. I may be wrong, but I'd leave it.

More to consider. I'm finding on this short is about small little choices. Will have to mull it over. Thanks for coming back to share your thoughts on the matter :beer:

dude you did more with one location than i did with my 87 great acting great camera work for that one location... just nice, kept me interested the whole way through.... gonna watch this thing again and glean a few things from your dialogue shots...

haha, thanks, man. I tend to not have enough establishing or wide shots though. When the Book Shows up I should have cut to a long reverse there so you could see the three guys from a far from the other side. But no coverage. Since the actors did not really have time to learn the scene and I did not have time to story board or block, we had to do that on the fly. So we were getting close-ups and mediums first. I thought by the end of getting through shooting the whole scene we would all know it well enough to shoot some long shots all the way through -- but if you've been following along at home, we got kicked off our location before we could do that.

Not that I really know what I am doing, but if you are serious about taking a look at the dialogue coverage and closeups, take a look at how the shots move closer to the eyeline as they get closer.

Thanks for the feedback man. Maybe on my next short I will pull out all the stops and have hot chicks in planes and stuff like you did :thumbsup: still love that purple mural shot.

.....

Looking forward to responding to the rest miñana. Good night all, and thanks again :beer:

 

[abalex]

Great short my friend! great acting, very believable, one of my top 3!

G.

 

[Matt Harris]

i love this film. flawless. start to finish. Congrats.
-Matt

 

[Danielleus]

Hey just saw the piece. Liked the dialogue. The acting was really, well, ditto on what the others said. They nailed it. Really great there. Camerawork, great (would've liked a little more face on the XCU, but personal taste, eh). This one felt cinematic to me. Kept me in. Felt complete in itself but also like a larger tale that should be turned in to for later stuff.
Didn't buy the guy with the accent. His acting was good but his accent was not doing it for me. If that was his real accent, I'm sorry. Where is he from?
The violence was hit and miss for me. The gun to the head near the end was great. The Gunshot to the head was great for me. The actually beating of the guy, maybe not so much. And ditto on what the guy said about not making it. Maybe have him shot a couple times. Also, I thought the movie would have helped if we didn't ever know what the Mcguffin was. Just let them talk about it, around it, have them understand each other. Explaining it was a little weak. Loved the rationale for why he was doing it, etc. Still, it's a pool table.
Loved it. Love to see more. Good work and good luck.

 

[Norm Sanders]

Don't change a thing. Not a frame. More to come later ...

 

[Herman Witkam]

Music.. Herman and Sid... Damn fellas. Wonderful collaboration. Now to pick it apart to see who scored what The end cue was killer!

Thanks Justin! Sid initially came up with more of the ambient stuff, and I tried more percussive stuff, but we both mangled each others' work as well

great music by sid and herman

Thanks Wesley! Looking forward to possibly working on your next film :beer:

 

[Mike@AF]

Probably a repeat of what's already been said. Great cinematrography and the acting was excellent. However... I thought the story was predictable as soon as the bookie showed up. I though the beating was unrealistic... I would have shot the smashing his head into the ground undercranked so it played faster. It just looked fake. I thought the gunshot at the end was over the top... especially for the amount of realism in the rest of the film. Aside from that I thought it was excellent!

 

[Noel Evans]

Im going to try and be very picky here, as everyone already knows this is a great short. Really well executed. The type of short that really gets me excited to do more and more narrative.

One location? The script was very well written and coupled with the dynamic pacing and composition thats something I never even thought about while watching.

Audio was probably the best Ive heard yet.

Very well acted. Now this is where it gets serious - you cant have good acting without solid dialogue and direction - congratulations on getting it right.

Now to the picky part and this first one is very picky. Your light changed direction in some shots. I assume due to the sequence they were actually shot.

Second at 3.20 you start a small sequence of CU OTS shots, I thought the angle wasnt quite right. As in there was too much face cut off.

And lastly; someone already mentioned. Robbie didnt look quite bashed enough to be done for at the end.

The picky ones are just IMO so you can take it or leave it. For such a great short I wanted to try to be as constructive as possible.

 

[Ralph Oshiro]

EXTREMELY COMPETENT FILMMAKING—WELL DONE!

I felt like I was watching a "movie." Best actors and performances I've seen yet. Great dialogue writing. Although I wish there was more action, and more than one location, it's still the most "movie-ish" of the bunch! This may be the only entry I've seen so far where I thought for a moment that your actors were not actors, but real people, spurting spontaneous, unscripted conversation. Also, well-shot, and some interesting over-the-shoulder compositions. Loved the shallow depth-of-focus as well. Mission accompished!

 

[dvpixl]

I was impressed with the blocking and the cinematography going hand in hand. It was well thought out. Superb dialogue. Also, it's great when you can watch something and you look for emotions in the character and forget everything else.