"I ****ING HATE YOU" – a film by SABI

Nice. I like that you’re taking some risks. It has a distinctive quirky voice and I appreciate that. I really enjoyed this one.

The actors were very good. Very Natural.

The concept / ending:
The song is weird and I’m not sure I get it, but I didn’t have a problem with that.

The ending I loved. Very simple yet profound Carveresque contemplative thing.
SPOILERS IN BLACK:



The meaning of the mug left behind. To me it said what they had mattered to her. That at the very least there was some connection, though miniscule, and maybe even one day another chance, though even more remote than the connection miniscule. His smile to me said he got that to or that things were left as he wanted them under the circumstances.



 The camera style?
Not sure it worked 100% of the time for me. It took me out some, particularly since it was such a simple domestic scene and not the diffusing of a bomb or something. I get that there may have been an emotional bomb in danger of exploding, but the style pushed me out a bit rather than pulled me in. I can certainly see going in the general direction you did, just not to such an extreme. I remember in your BTS that you talked about wanting a panicked camera man by forcing him to shoot with the image upside down. You certainly got that. I’m reminded of the French Connection where Freidkin would send the DP/Operator out of the room for rehearsal and then they would come back in and try to film the scene having not seen it. All to the end of getting a doc feel, but it wasn’t so over the top that it pushed me out. Here the camera did ... not all the way, but it was an obstacle rather than something that facilitated intimacy with the characters …. Ok now that I’ve gone on about it for a paragraph you will think I didn’t like the movie or was not into it at all. I did enjoy it and was engaged for the most part.

One thing that I hope you will change though is the camera drop at the very end. I wanted to kick you in the nuts there. :nads: :grin: You succeed in creating a believable and engaging world and then that camera move kills it for me. I’m sitting there ruminating on the two coffee mugs and how she left one and what that means and thinking it’s very cool and then the camera man drops the camera the way we’ve all seen hundreds of times at the end of a take. I can just imagine him saying “Was that good? You want another?” Arghhh. Destroyed the illusion and took me out of the cool contemplative place you got me into. I woudln't want to nads you if I wasn't into the story though, so that's a good thing :)

Small technical thing - Maybe need a shot of box? Wasn’t 100% clear what they were doing at top on the 1st time I watched.

Small thing that bugged me – no in focus cutaway of the other mug? It’s really hard to see.

Final thing. From your feature trailer this, and even your BTS it seems you are obsessed with orange … what gives?

So all in all really nice work. Engaging and very original piece of work.

Thanks sir.
 
Cliff Wildman said:
zak,

this was an excellent piece! i can see how you all were working collaboratively towards a final goal. That in itself is impressive. The fact that the final product is really good just adds more weight to what you accomplished there!

for me, the song wouldn't have worked AT ALL, if he hadn't of paused there after the first few lines, and again later. It was that spur of the moment feel that totally sold me on the song and the short. the lines were less important than your actor and how he delivered it. big kudos to him!

I really enjoyed it overall. loved the ending shots of her coming in and out of focus.

subjectively, i'm not a big fan of the camera work. what you did works and works well, but i think it might have worked a little better if parts of it were 'calmed' down a bit - at some points i want to really 'see' the actors. especially the girl. she had so few lines that every shot of her was incredibly important to conveying what she was 'saying' in the scene. at the same time, i got what she was saying, so we're talking about shades of differences really. you might have made a change like that, have me like it better, but you wouldn't at all.

if you have time, can you let me (us) know how much time you spent with the actors before shooting and how long the actual shoot took? if it's earlier in the thread my apologies!
Click to expand...


thanks, cliff! yeah, i'm sure i wrote about it earlier in the thread somewhere... but basically, Marion, John and myself got together on two occasions -- first, to pitch story ideas, then to have them flush out their characters, back story, and motivations for doing what they do.

we shot for only one day, and only a total of maybe four hours. from 11am to 1pm we did the first scene (which you haven't seen, i cut it to stay under 6 minutes) on the front door of Carol's apartment where Ron convinces her to go back to his place to get the mug. we did a little more than a dozen takes of that. then we had lunch. then we drove over to the second location that served as Ron's apartment. set up two lights as practicals and started shooting by 3pm and wrapped by 5pm. again we did 15 takes, usually running thru the scene beginning to end. some takes were pick-ups.

the song itself is constructed out of four different takes and the moment you noted with John/Ron pausing with that "just give me a f*cking second here" look in his eye, was something he just did in the moment... and only once.

the great thing about Marion and John is that they are always trying things a little differently. they listen to each other and allow the other person's choices to affect their own. they don't lock themselves into what they are "supposed to be doing". and even more impressive is that it's never out of character.

which is an incredible gift for the editor, who has seemingly infinite possibilities in the edit. in this piece, every time there is a cut, I'd say 9 times out of 10, we're cutting to a different take. that would have been impossible if not for John and Marion's immense skill and commitment to their characters and "the moment".
 
Last edited:
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Nice. I like that you’re taking some risks. It has a distinctive quirky voice and I appreciate that. [trimmed]

Thanks sir.
Click to expand...

hey jack, thanks for the wickedly comprehensive critique. i appreciate every word of it. wanted to clarify for you that there is only one mug in this story. it's funny how its significance evolved organically as we moved from take to take. Carol/Marion had left with the mug in the first 8 takes and then suddenly she felt like she needed to give him something, so she left it behind.

The "missing three minutes" from the 9 minute version will clear up a lot of details about the mug, the box he's carrying, and why the hell i have framegrabs on the first page of Ron in glitter-glasses, but i know a lot of questions are raised by dropping the first act.

1202108250.jpg


Jack Daniel Stanley said:
The ending I loved. Very simple yet profound Carveresque contemplative thing.
Click to expand...
it will come to no surprise to you then, that ten years ago I read every single work of short fiction by carver.
 
Last edited:
I F*CKING HATED IT!!!:evil:

(j/k)

I actually went into this with no idea what to expect. I love your color palette. I don't necessarily agree with all your artistic choices but that doesn't really matter as I am sure I'm in the minority on the whole handheld issue...:) And it was just that, a difference in how things are seen artistically, neither right nor wrong, just different.

Having an idea how you work with your "scripts" I wasn't expecting such a tight story. I thought it was very good and the song was definitely key to the story. I loved the fact that Ron was grabbing at any straw to keep her. And the song (very Loudon Wainwrightian - which is a very good thing) had that made up on the spot feel (perfect for the scene) but I know that a LOT of thought was given to the lyrics.

I never once lost interest in the story nor did I get fidgety waiting for it to end. In spite of the shaky cam, I really liked this one.
 
Last edited:
Yay! Blaine, that means a lot to me. And I should state here, if I didn't already say so, that the main thing I learned on this "experiment" was that the camerawork got in the way of a few things. I had no expenses on this, so we had a great opportunity to impose a bunch "rules" on the camera (like shooting exclusively with long lenses in a tight space) to "see what happened". So I could never be offended by a critique of the camerawork. I see the pros and cons of what we tried pretty clearly. And really, if i hadn't learned anything to take into the next one, i'd consider this a failure. but I don't; it was a great education in many respects. I have a whole bunch of new ideas I want to try on the next one.
 
Last edited:
there's still a chance for that while kholi is making the rounds. I'll get my raincoat. brb.
 
Last edited:
Overall Zak... I liked this so much that I want to kick you in the nuts... and that sir, is the highest compliment I give anyone. I mean it... this was so good overall that if we ever meet... you better be wearing a cup.

I don't even feel like criticizing any part of it... my mind is blown at the simple effectiveness of this. A proud work of art... man. Wow... I laughed hard when I should have and almost teared up... jeez... very good.
 
Zak. You and your team did a really good job on this. Your choices and the naturalistic performances made me feel like a fly on the wall during this moment between characters. The way the two interacted made it seem like they had a lot of history together. ("I probably didn't do a good job of hiding it." and the fact she didn't run away after he described killing her. She "gets" his sense of humor)

The song was great of course, the acting was pretty damn good also. The direction is so good it's almost invisible.

I like seeing the contrast between the photography in this and the photography in 6"45rpm. It's like seeing two sides to Matt's style.

Looking forward to Heart of Now.
 
What i Like about this film is the image quality, one of the best films i've seen so far. You have great actors too. I also like the color, more orangish look which is really cool. Can't wait to see more. Cheers!
 
i really enjoyed this, the acting was great. at times it was a little too greengrass-y, but i could roll with it for 6 minutes no problem
 
Handheld with long lenses in one room for 5 minutes! Personally, I loved the look of this film. The acting, story and song all worked for me. I haven’t seen anything else you’ve done, but you have a lot of talent. Great job.
 
thanks for this zak, your work is real solid. i don't have much to add to all the great things that have been said. beautifully shot, top notch direction and acting and the biggest part for me was the selections in the editing process and how you made the re-adjustments of the upside down handheld just work. one of my favorites of the fest for sure!

i love the little moment when he's holding the sword at the beginning, "remember this...that's cool." it's moments like these that seem totally real that makes your work special for me.
 
As promised I'm watching the entries at least twice, and some of them many times... so if I'm to offer some real criticism beyond "I loved it"... which I still did... I think you almost crossed the line a few times... I mean cinematic-production wise. He comes out of the kitchen camera right, but she is already camera right and needed to land camera left... like a pan and turn to face him, but she stays mostly cam right and he comes out cam right, so to get the two shot you have to jump him over. In that midsection there are a few cuts where she doesn't seem to be looking in the right direction... because she has sort of an aloof nature it still works but my perception within the script was that she was looking at something specific, and logically that would be him, but with the cuts she doesn't really appear to be looking at him. Am I making sense? No matter... I loved the flick.

The fencing epee was a great little touch... I like the various ways you made him appear immature but by the end he was also fun and charming... which sells the caring looks from her.

I loved feeling the desperation in him... I found the woman captivating and attractive... with her big eyes emoting so well. The two looked appropriate for each other... I just really enjoyed it. So take my "criticisms" as a sign of respect for your work... I'm going to try really hard to leave everybody something meaningful which means looking for something to criticize, but I love this entry.
 
Zak,

I keep coming back to this film because I have a love hate relationship with it. I think it's brilliant in many ways because the sheer reality and believeability of it really works for me. The constant dropped jaw of the actress was almost funny but in a sad way. There were many elements in the atmosphere you created. In some ways, I didn't feel like she was safe in that room and that the guy was going to possibly seriously hurt her or even kill her. He seemed either completely unbalanced or just a complete a*shole, I couldn't tell which but that added to the fascination for me as a viewer. I think it's a real skill to be able to convey an extremely tense situation that's on the fringes of comedy. Even in the last scene, I was expecting the guy to throw something at her or do something drastic.

The whole film had a "21 grams" feel for me in terms of the look and partly how it was shot. Even though you didn't really have an overall POV, I felt like I was watching the film from the side of sanity, in other words, I was seeing it how the female character was processing the absurdity of this guy.

What I didn't like about it was the camera work. It felt to me like it was shot by someone who didn't know how to properly operate a camera. The frenetic aspect of it seemed over the top for the situation. The constant jerkiness definitely added to the tension and I really do understand what you were going for but it was too much for me. The other thing that was irritating was the constant focus searching. My feeling is that about 80% of the shots were out of focus and it was distracting rather than stylistic. My point is that I was too focused on what the camera was doing rather than concentrating on the story itself.

The performances were excellent and I have watched this three times just because I enjoy the acting so much.

I think you did an admirable job and, having watched everything else at this point, your film is in the top three for me.
 
wartez said:
thanks for this zak, your work is real solid. i don't have much to add to all the great things that have been said. beautifully shot, top notch direction and acting and the biggest part for me was the selections in the editing process and how you made the re-adjustments of the upside down handheld just work. one of my favorites of the fest for sure!

i love the little moment when he's holding the sword at the beginning, "remember this...that's cool." it's moments like these that seem totally real that makes your work special for me.
Click to expand...

when i was first trying to cut this down to a six minute version AND incorporate the scene that comprises the first act, it was little moments like this that were getting lost. but for me, these little things were the heart and soul, the color, and without them it just kind of laid there. it was lifeless. so i said f*ck it, lopped off the first three minutes and left this scene intact, knowing the audience would fill in certain gaps on their own.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top