Mr. I, a film by Josh Chiara

Nice! I liked this one. Yes, some shots were really dark and grainy. Seemed to cut her head out of frame once or twice as well. Mr. I was cool. Loved his voice.

Found it hard to make out what he said during his last scene though, had to play that back over.
I also thought it was pretty obvious what was going to happen when she showed up at the guys house. Definitely saw that coming.

Still, many of the shots were really well framed and it had that "creep" factor.
Nice job.

Mike
 
I decided to go film by film this time, and your film, my friend, was the first I decided to comment on after Teacher's Pet.

I definitely like your short film. Mr. I has something unique, almost brand-like to him, perhaps the look, which you visioned and executed beautifully!

The story was good, it felt very real in a strange way, and through your film you made me feel exactly what Abby was feeling, from beginning to end, which I consider a great compliment for a filmmaker.

Cinematography was great, acting was fantastic (unfortunately I have to exclude Mr. Tzeiranakis here, who, I believe, could have done a better job in the short time given to him), the sound design was good as well and the ending titles were lovely!

In addition, the film, in my humble opinion, had two major downfalls: the music and the lighting. Sadly, the music, or in fact the short loop that you have wrapped for nearly two minutes, not only did not serve the film, but it has in fact damaged it. I was honestly wondering if I left a Flash-based site running in the background while watching the film. When I clicked the Pause button, I was surprised to see that the music came from the film itself! So that's one. The lighting, as I am sure you have noticed already, is overly dark in many shots to a point where a lot of details were lost. I have no doubt that a slightly better lighting would add a great deal to your film without affecting the dark tones which you wanted to apply to it.

All in all, my friend, that is a great film, one of the best I have watched from this fest, and I would like to wish you all the best!

:)
 
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I like this one a lot. Everything about it is very good performed, but Mr. I's voice is too quiet; I hardly heard anything the first time I watched.

Credits to the music and darkly footage, very nice one.
 
Mr. I was very creative and a compelling figure. I thought alot of the cinematography in here was pretty right on, especially the shots with Mr. I. There seemed to be a disconnect in the story from the time the main character is trying to find out about her sister and then gets the call from the detective. When she called the BF he didn't really seemed panicked and then it went from all that intensity to her coming home the next day. Maybe it's missing a transition shot here and there to let the audience know that this is a different day and time has passed. And you could probably add a sound effect with the cut at the end. Other than that, you've got a really good short.
 
A good short. Grainy, dark, spooky, with a slightly predictable turn but I thought Mr. I himself was incredibly creepy.
 
Really enjoyed this. Set-up was perfect, and I found Mr I pretty creepy. The opening dialogue was excellent. lots about this really struck a chord with me. I perhaps didnt feel the ending lived up to the promise of the start, but then again that same comment could be levelled at every twilight entry here inc mine.

I would love to see more of your work. The opening caught my attention more than anything I have seen here.
 
Loved this film! I'm thinking it might be the sleeper of the fest for me. Really, really good story...and creepy. I felt Mr. I's dialog could have come up in the mix a bit especially as effected as it was...I had trouble understanding it. It was also a little dark (grainy) in spots. I do have to say I was a little let down with the ending.

Congrats to cast & crew!
 
Thanks for all of your opinions. Now some more questions from me, for you.

Thanks for all of your opinions. Now some more questions from me, for you.

The story for this film was adapted down from a feature length idea, so it was difficult to pack in everything I wanted to happen and also keep it under the six minute length.

What in particular was predictable about the ending? That she was gonna die, or that he was the killer.

The Noah character was added on just for this short. He's not even in the full length script.
 
I don't know where to begin on this one. Some things I absolutely loved, some I absolutely hated.

Loved the way it began, felt very professional. The VO was well done for once.

Loved the lighting on Mr. I and the detective. Hated it on the indoor shots, we couldn't see a thing, and their faces were so dark. I wish you would have showed us more of their faces in closeups.

I guess my biggest problem was the story. It didn't make any sense.
 
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Really liked the Mr I character. Creepy out of place, but you didn't feel the need to justify the world you created and it worked. I knew she was getting knifed the moment she walked into the apartment but the video camera was a nice touch in a bit of a contrived moment. The female lead was good, nice sound design, great costume design on Mr. I, technically top notch. I wanted the the story to match the creative level of the character, maybe it didn't, but all and all a strong entry.
 
The funny thing about this short is that all of the crazyness, and I do mean all of it, had to be taken out for time. In the feature the world that the main character lives in is much more crazy. She has hallucinations much more bizarre than Mr. I. I'm working on getting the feature length script finished, and then I want to start to get in into production.

If anybody is interested when this is all over with, I can send people my script drafts, because i always need input.

In terms of the short, and it's predictability, I guess it was unavoidable. I did almost everything on this short, which i'm sure many of you guys did the same thing. And on top of that, the computer that i was editting on is pretty slow, and every half hour or so final cut would say "out of memory" and I'd have to restart the stupid program.

Although this has a great learning experience, and i absolutely can not wait until the newt one.

As far as the lighting goes, I can see what you're saying on some of it, but I wanted a very noir-style low key lighting setup, so in that respect I liked it, but the setups could have been better, especially in the end apartment scene. We ended up shooting until 4 in the morning that night.
 
Wow...nice film. Really liked the intro sequence with the slow pan in of Mr. I, who is a cool character. Nice story concept and some nice cinematography. Very dark film even during dusk and I'm not sure if it was a styliscitc choice or not but it kind of worked for the short. Liked the muted earthy tone.

The actress was good. She delivered one or two lines a little robotically but I think she did a good job. Oh, and Mr. I had really great facial expressions. :grin: I'm kidding. The performances came across nicely in this one. I really enjoyed your film. Good job!
 
Great movie! I really like that you made it on an HV20! I have a question where are you from? I see you mention the bear cat cafe in your special thanks. Are you from cincinnati? If so maybe we can work together on some stuff! I'm from the area, but I don't really post on DVX USER I frequent other filmmaking sites and am more involved @ them than DVX USER, it's a great site though and I have been tempted to enter in a few of the fests but have yet to throw my hat in the ring over here.... Any way great movie! Really dug it!
 
this was awesome! Everything in the story i thought was really well put! and you have to love Mr. I and his mysterious hood! I really liked the angles and the whole mystery of what was really happening. The only thing that i noticed was the audio on Mr. I seemed a bit low. All around great job! Definitely one of my favs!
 
I'd definitely be interested to see a feature version of this. Mr. I was creepy as hell. Didn't care quite as much for the serial killer aspect, but anytime Mr. I was back in it was great. Also really liked the cinematography of the night scenes, very dark and grainy. Fit the mood perfectly.
 
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Very David lynch-ian with the Mr I character. It creeped me out.

This one had best Death-by-knife-scene, I thought.

loved the end credits.
loved the subtle, yet effective and erie processing of Mr. I's voice.
The music was ominous and not too in-your-face.

Many excellent visuals and lighting throughout, although I thought you could've used a few key moments where we see the the face and eyes clearly, rather than always see shadows. The eyes are amazing things to show emotion.

One key moment that was glazed over in this fashion was the street scene. If a cop calls and says your sister was murdered, I think that's a pretty big emotional moment. It was played as if he told her, "It's 12 o'clock", and her response was, "Oh, ok" , no big deal.

My big criticism is that body acting and shadow acting is not as interesting as eye and face acting, other than that, I really enjoyed this piece, and it had an intense mood that kept it interesting.

I look forward to seeing more from you.
 
this has so much potential!!!!!

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i would love to see more. you have a tremendous idea with Mr. I. i really wanted to see more of where you were going to take this! yeah, the ending is flat and i wished you didn't kill her off because there is so much more you can do with her and Mr I. i thought the sister being killed off was way too fast too but i understand since this is only a 6 minute short. so, yeah, take the time to develop this idea! i'd keep it on Mr. I and what he tells her throughout her life. you managed to give those oddball thoughts and voices a wickedly twisted personification.

that being said, really good work with the picture. i like your style, its powerful. the lead did a great job too, she was seamless. nice work!

keep going with this!
 
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