WHERE THE HEART LIES ... Johnson, Hyten, Golden & Bullis

I had to pause WTHL after the first minute to tell you how much I'm enjoying it. You guys have upped your game so much it's not even funny. Super, super polished stuff..Gotta go finish it and then make my wife watch it too.
 
Very nice, guys. Very polished piece of filmmaking. I'll give a more detailed review in the future.

******* SPOILER *******























I thought the friend answering the door was a bit out of left field. I totally didn't expect it to be anybody else but the woman, which was good. But as soon as I saw him get his head blown off, I smiled and thought I'd see Sean behind the trigger. I think that would have been a better payoff and closed out the short. With the friend, it leaves it too much open ended for me.

Anyway, great job guys!!!
 
Guys...

Probably going to be the most professionally done, and most cinematic piece in the fest. It really is gorgeous, well shot, and appears to be well planned.

Looks like your actors in the opening scene had been doing a bit of drinking/smoking activities of some sort judging by the bloodshot in their eyes.... or maybe they were just really exhausted b/c of you cracking the whip on them for 15 hours or something (this means great compression on the film by the way:) )

I thought it was effective as a short piece. Doing something so episodic can be quite a challenge in such a short time format.

I would only suggest that the reveal of the shooter was a bit unexpected for me as well... I realize that this is the point, but as stated by John above, I totally expected it to be the girl anyways.

His suggestion about it being his college roommate is an interesting one.

Mainly I would just say, I feel there is something missing for me to be able to connect the dots after the fact as to why it would be the person it was that was doing the shooting.... If that makes any sense. I just felt I needed something else to make that seem at least a partly logical conclusion...

Anyways, that's the only thing I can comment on, which would be story based.

But, man... this was top notch delivery from you guys. Definitely going to be in the handful of films at the top of this fest.

Absolutely gorgeous, and extremely well-executed.

Just need a couple of more dots for the chosen conclusion to be one that I can say "works for me"... meh.

Thanks so much for putting in the work on this guys. I'm honored to have had the opportunity to watch it and share my humble feedback on it.

Later,
Jason
 
Wow, Nice work Monsters!!!

This is a beautifully shot and well executed short film. Geoff's work does not let me down, not one bit! Outstanding!

The editing was crisp and the shot selections were always fresh. I loved the framing of all of the shots.

The music was perfect! Love Justin's work, always.

The story threw me at the end. I didn't expect the friend to be behind the door. (Nice curve ball there, btw!)

I am really impressed with the work you guys have put forth here. Really top notch filmmaking!!!

Congrats, Boys!

-Ted
 
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Hey guys,

What a beautiful film you have here. Professional, polished with a very very interesting story line. Great work!

The cinematography goes without saying, and I'll leave it to other people here to remark on it (especially since they'll know much more about it that I will)

The one thing I wanted to comment on was the twist ending.
I knew it was coming, only because I had a chance to check out and critique the script... but the execution of it felt forced and confusing. My dad's band, by the way, gave it a viewing tonight at practice. A lot of them were confused and it required me to explain what was happening.

The room service man carrying the wine seemed like another important character that we were being introduced to. The first thing that I would've liked to see (or hear) would have been a line like "Room service". -- this would have showed us that it wasn't important to pay attention to the character, just realize that it ISN'T our man, it's just room service.

I did enjoy that you didn't take the EASY way out and have Sean pulling the trigger. That would have been a cop-out and I don't think it would've been as clever. The sequence of events you've got here is PERFECT... the only complaints I would have revolve around the clarity the ending shots. More light on our killer would have been a huge plus...

An idea I had for the gunshot sequence was... once he knocks on the hotel door at room 11, have it open quickly, cut to a dead-center shot on our killer, then back to our man and have him begin with a dialogue that gets cut short... "Jack? What the f*ck are you do--" BANG

Anyway, you really wowed me. This film is excellent in every other way and I can easily see it climbing its way to the top.

Great work!!!!
 
Thanks so much for the reviews guys. I'm sure you all know about the difficulty of telling this kind of story in a 6-minute cut. We had a lot of discussion about this and we did not want to spoon feed parts of the plot.

For what it is worth, the original concept was that Jack has been having an affair with Lisa for some time and Matt's little ploy gave them the opportunity to get rid of him. Of course, Lisa will likely throw Jack under the bus as soon as its convenient given who she is. ... sort of like the Kathleen Turner character in Body Heat.

We wanted to 1) surprise people and make it truly unexpected that Jack was behind the door and, 2) let people figure out for themselves what the motives were as sort of a little noir puzzle.

Anyway, it was a blast making this and the best thing about it was that our original script is really a lot different but Tim, to his credit, suggested we think out of the box and recut the film in its current flashback framework. You should see the original cut and I think you'd be surprised. The power of editing is amazing.
 
man, this thing sparkled. so polished on all levels. top-notch entry guys! i understand that there were some structural changes to fit it under 6 minutes. any plans for an extended cut?
 
My reviews will be made up of three separate categories. One for technical, which includes cinematography, lighting, editing, sound mixing, and score. One for performance which includes the acting. One for writing which includes the script, and story. And then I will summarize up my thoughts in the overall section. I plan to do my best to review each film like this in detail.

Where The Heart Lies

Writing
In my opinion, the script needs some work. The idea that the other friend is in on it the whole time kind of threw me. It felt very contrived. I also thought that some of the dialog could have been a bit better. Sometimes I think writers use curse words to hide poor dialog writing, and I felt that the case in this. The story had some real potential, but by the time I saw it all together, it didn’t feel very believable to me.

Acting
Your actress was amazing! I had to say it. She really did a wonderful job! I believed her every second. Your lead man on the other hand wasn’t very good at dialog delivery. His facial expressions were awesome, but somehow his dialog delivery didn’t work for me. I felt it lacked the genuine feel of Ana.

Technical
Wow! First, Geoff shot this thing wonderfully! As you know I’m a huge fan of Geoff’s and have worked with him in the past, and in the future with the upcoming feature. To get him on board was huge for this film! He had a beautiful polished look throughout! It looked like a Hollywood film! The score was wonderful as well, and Justin did his thing! The editing was actually really well done too! I’m a big critic on editing, but I felt it flowed quite well here! The montage sequence was fantastic! Technically your film was solid! Real solid.

Overall Thoughts
Though this was a nice film to watch, and kept me engaged it’s not something I’d necessarily watch again and again. I think you’ll place very well in the festival, but I do think the script needed some work at the end of the day, and that you needed to either cast someone else as the leading man, or work with him more in his performance. I know almost everyone who worked on this film, and I want to let you all know that I don’t mean any of these critiques to be offensive! On the contrary… my hat’s off to you guys for pulling this off, it’s very well done!
 
Nice job guys! Probably going to be one of the best shot of the Fest. Man.... she was good! Came off as a real *****! Great acting.

I too was a bit thrown by the ending, it seemed a bit over the top.

It would have caught me by surprise either way seeing him get his head blown off, but it was who did it that really seemed wrong. It just seemed without merit.

Maybe after I watch it again (and I will) I'll feel differently.

Hats off to you though, overall this was a real nice piece of work!

Cheers!
 
Jared Meyer said:
I had to pause WTHL after the first minute to tell you how much I'm enjoying it. You guys have upped your game so much it's not even funny. Super, super polished stuff..Gotta go finish it and then make my wife watch it too.
Click to expand...

Don't give your wife any ideas!!!!!

Kidding.

Thanks so much man. We worked hard on this one and are glad you enjoyed what you've seen!
 
Congratulations! Very well made "film noir." High production values.

Re the story, film noir is tricky because you want to be faithful to the conventions, but avoid the cliche. The Femme Fatale element was made pretty obvious early on, with the flirting, and the more direct, "**** you, Matt." If she had been less fatale early on, perhaps the ending might have been more surprising. The jealous husband getting shot in the back of the head was a nice twist, but I was a little confused as to who her secret lover was at the end. For a moment I thought it was the little guy with the flowers! That would have been a real twist!

Overall, very impressive.
 
Maximus said:
The jealous husband getting shot in the back of the head was a nice twist, but I was a little confused as to who her secret lover was at the end. For a moment I thought it was the little guy with the flowers! That would have been a real twist!. ....
Click to expand...

The guy with the champagne is our new favorite discovery. Oliver appears in Matty G's film too and is a real find, indeed.

Thanks for the kind words. Having you guys enjoy something we shoot is worth more than anything else.
 
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