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mj - I don't think the essence of a spy film is two people talking about spying.
Here is wikipedia's definition: Espionage or spying is a practice of obtaining information about an organization or a society that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information.
 
Yes that is the action of spying but being a spy has many other facets. One of them is dealing with handlers which is what this movie covers.

I was not able to shoot a film for this fest but if I were I would have shot something similar to this.
 
One thing I liked: The shots of the younger guy, not only were they lit really well, but coupled with his acting it looked absolutely Hollywood. Phenomenal.

One thing I disliked: The shots of the older guy, not only were they lit poorly, but his acting was unnatural, forced.
 
Very different from most of the films in this fest. It really has a nice look to it.
I also expected something more in the ending, but I didn't feel cheated.

Nice work.

Mike
 
I'm a sucker for foreign films. I liked the little slice of a story you gave here. I felt the acting was very natural and even though nothing really happened throughout the movie, I still was drawn in. The lighting was really nice on the younger guy but the older guy had that fuzzy magic bullet thing going on thats way over used. I understand the problems with strong back lighting but the fuzz made it worse.
Other than that I enjoyed this very much.
 
Nice. I really enjoyed the subtilty here.

The performances were believable and motivated and the cinema verite / dogma 95 approach only lent to the realism.

Particular rough edge favorite moments:

I liked the sloppy video zoom in on the kid.

I liked the Cu of the older guy when he is against the wall that crosses the line.

I wish there was a little more face light on the older guy when the strong backlight is behind him.

The only thing that worked against the believability for me was the costume design for the kid. The older guy I loved and he felt very real and authentic. The younger guy, especially in his costume, seemed like a non choice. He was neither a slick / or hardened assassin or spy that could escape through a laundry shoot, have a martini, and down a foreign official with a blow dart, nor was he a low level street informant kept on the job through his junk addiction. He just looked like a scrawny college guy in dockers and a tee-shirt. Since he is somewhat slight I might have pushed him towards being an almost completely burned out grungy, heroin chic shell. But either that or a slick suit or something. Just seemed like a college kid.

My only other ding was that I felt it ended, and then ended, and then ended again.

There were times I really felt like I was watching a pretty sophisticated feature length art film. I think due to the raw camera work and some of the subtleties you really captured quite exquisitely in the performances. Nice work.

I really appreciate the simplicity and honesty of this work. And your courage to rely on that and not try to wow us with exploding rockets etc.
 
Hey just caught the flick. Honestly, one of the better ones I've seen in this fest. Liked the acting. Maybe not all the way through (I thought there were parts where it waivered) but overall, really great performances.

Ditto on the dogme 95 thing. Also about the costumes.
Little too shaky for me, but that's personal taste. Overall, really enjoyed what you were doing here. Fine, fine work with the actors.
 
Good point with the costume. I think it could really be better, but i also tought about making him look more special. My argument against it was that maybe he would choose a different costume when he meets with the agent, that is more normal and inconspicuous, than what he is normally wearing, so he would not attrract any attention. But now i also think i should have choosen something different.

The fuzzy thing, yep thats magic bullet overused :) I guess i tried a bit to make up for the lack of lighting...

thanks for the imput guys!
 
I like this film a lot. I know Charli has a mantra going on in this fest about what a spy film should be, and she has a point with a lot of films in this fest, but I don't agree with this one. This is a film ABOUT spies, not so much about spies doing spy things. So maybe we have a European vs Hollywood film debate? Ha!

Anyway, I liked the pacing, I liked the characters. I thought the actors were great in their roles. Yes, we all knew who the woman in the picture was. Maybe you just needed to be a little more subtle. You can fix that. Just dub out the part where he says, "And who is this woman" or whatever and have him just say "And who's this (person)?" or something. I don't know.

Anyway, again, one of my favorites. I don't want to stereotype this as a foreign film, though. But there are a lot of elements, especially the character driven story, that cater to it.

Good job. Thanks for screening.
 
Wow!! I love this movie! Dang, very well done. Good plot, great acting, good mood. My only two faults were technical: the costume for the younger guy was all wrong. A t-shirt? Come on, he should have been dressed differently. Also the exposure seemed to radically change in certain shots. Still, one of my favorite films of this festival thus far.
 
I thought you did a good job of tellling your story. In a weak field, you were a standout. My biggest complaint was the blown out images due to the windows and bright light. I wished you could have done something about that and it would have definitely raised the production value.
 
I think you did a great job on this short. The acting was good. The audio and the exposure seemed to go in and out at times. Other than that I enjoyed this film. It's one of the better acted entries.
 
I thought this was well shot & lit, using existing/available light (or so it appeared). A little over exposed from the window, but also had a nice effect/feel to it. I noticed it wasn't delivered in the required widescreen/16x9, as presentation truly was a 4x3 ratio, since the subtitles appeared in the blackbars. Felt the acting was VERY solid, with great deliveries. Nice performing film.
 
I really thought the acting was the strong point in this film. You directed your actors well and got wonderful performances from them. The weaknesses have already been mentioned, but they're pretty forgivable weaknesses because the story works. It feels like it's part of a larger piece, but you gave us the right piece to focus on, the choice of this spy to get out of the game. Wardrobe could have been better but you already know that.

I won't repeat what could be improved cause people covered that, but I'll just finish and say that you got life in front of the camera, and that's the important thing. You can spend time on effects, wardrobe, angles, but without life in front of the camera it means nothing.

This was one of my favorites. :beer:
 
I remember this movie as having really good lighting. I wrote down in my notes that it looked really natural, so congratulations! A lot of the entries I've seen have had very "cinematic" lighting, but it was usually completely unmotivated and over the top. This was a very good looking movie. I also remember the sound being normal sounding (not harsh and hard to listen to), which is a rare treat amongst many of the other entries.

I also wrote in my notes that I didn't really like the ending. Since I can't remember it and have to rely on my notes to remind me, I'll have to believe what I wrote. I will say however, that with any movie (especially a short), your ending is often the only thing you're remembered by. So, if it's not action-packed, though-provoking or gut-bustingly funny, you might want to consider a re-write.

Thanks for submitting this, it's hard work making a film in 2 months, but you did a great job!
 
Thanks for the comments i am really happy you liked the acting and could forgive the other shortcomings :) I will definitely try to make it better next time, but i am quite happy with it considering it only took about ten day to make the whole film, from writing it to finish.

As for the 4:3 thing, i asked if i could deliver it that way and they said its fine as long as the movie is 16:9
 
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