"MY NAME IS HAROLD ALLEN" - A Film By Ben Sliker and Justin Kuhn

I really liked this one it had a great story and a cool illusive quality that kept me watching it waiting to see if he caused all of this. Well shot great acting and good story. Well one.
BTW this is a picture of what my brother was trying to say about the wardrobe.
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Pauly
 
I got the payoff I wanted

I got the payoff I wanted

Two things are important with a short story like this. First, if there is some ambiguity about what led your protagonist to his current situation, there better be some decent payoff. And secondly, make it interesting along the way. I'd say you adhered to these principles closely enough to keep my interest. Personally, the line, "I killed the world" is good enough for a six minute film. I don't really need to need more. So kudos for that. I especially like the contradictory narrative. "She broke up with me"-"I broke up with her." This really works and I'll be thinking about it for a while. I like when you make me think!

You have also paid close attention to detail in this film. That is why it feels complete.

Overall, great film. I appreciate all that I suspect you went through to make it.
 
jefflebowski said:
You have also paid close attention to detail in this film. That is why it feels complete.

Overall, great film. I appreciate all that I suspect you went through to make it.
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thanks jeff, it's nice to know that our details shined through. I think the only thing I had to concede was having one rat on the spit instead of three like in the script. :)
 
I really enjoyed this film, great editing and visual effects. Awesome shot composition and good acting. It felt to me like more than a six minute short, almost like you fit an epic saga in there. I felt like I was watching for twenty minutes! I've enjoyed all the post-apocalyptic stuff in this fest (I'm not all about rebellious kids sneaking into the barn to commit the subversive act of dancing, see?), and this one was no exception.

Love to see you do an AIM session on this one...

Great job!
 
heccky said:
cool:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
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Glad you liked it. I'll take three thumbs up any day. Although, I'm curious how you got three thumbs.

John LaBonney said:
I really enjoyed this film, great editing and visual effects. Awesome shot composition and good acting. It felt to me like more than a six minute short, almost like you fit an epic saga in there. I felt like I was watching for twenty minutes! I've enjoyed all the post-apocalyptic stuff in this fest (I'm not all about rebellious kids sneaking into the barn to commit the subversive act of dancing, see?), and this one was no exception.

Love to see you do an AIM session on this one...

Great job!
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I have to get enough people on the horn who weren't a part of it, it's definitely a possibility. Thanks John!
 
Heavy Duty! Last man on earth stories are always high on my personal list and yours really made my day. Everything from pacing to production quality was very good. The score worked well and the ending was just right.

:beer:
 
i liked your film! very good use of imagination with all of the switching around. loved the plate of food scene and of his girlfriend scenarios. this is really cool and different! awesome touch!

liked the logo of the water drop and the ending was great. good switch on showing the end of the world through the eyes of the dude who might've done the deed.

don't know if i cared for the cooking the rat scene, not sure it helped the story along all that much, it looked plenty real but it was a little slow there, gotta see it again though to be sure.

this film shows a lot of work and effort and it does looks great!
 
DavisOsborne said:
can't wait to see what you boy's did with this one.......all my best)))......Rock It to the Top!!!
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Thanks Davis! We need to have a sit down about our next project.... :)

stinkpot said:
Heavy Duty! Last man on earth stories are always high on my personal list and yours really made my day. Everything from pacing to production quality was very good. The score worked well and the ending was just right.

:beer:
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Thanks for the watch!

hoz said:
i liked your film! very good use of imagination with all of the switching around. loved the plate of food scene and of his girlfriend scenarios. this is really cool and different! awesome touch!

liked the logo of the water drop and the ending was great. good switch on showing the end of the world through the eyes of the dude who might've done the deed.

don't know if i cared for the cooking the rat scene, not sure it helped the story along all that much, it looked plenty real but it was a little slow there, gotta see it again though to be sure.

this film shows a lot of work and effort and it does looks great!
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Thanks for the praise. As for the rat scene, a. that is a REAL rat. Justin picked it up from the pet store on the way to the fire scene. But before you call PETA on us, it was a freeze-dried rat, but that doesn't mean that it didn't bleed when I had to jab a sharpened stick through its side. Tom has a great picture of it, definitely top ten grossest things I've done. As for the motivation of the scene, we wanted to show an emotional transformation for Harold. In the beginning, he's at least hopeful he will remember his past, and that notion gradually dissipates until he's in front of the fire, and becomes emotional about it. I agree that it's a touch long, but the edit was hindered by a couple beats and a one take. (the one where Tom actually throws the book in the fire, that's a real reaction, it was just supposed to get close, but he went with it and it turned out awesome.) Glad you enjoyed the film!
 
Great flick. I’m a sucker for the apocalypse and this showed it in an different light. It was one of the more original takes on the last man senerio I’ve seen this fest. By the time it got to the last line, I knew what it was going to say and was happy when it did.

The opening got me off on the wrong foot. I was worried about the direction, because fo the lines used. We’ve heard them before (then again maybe that’s what you were going for). But the structure and reality of the film (as his memories) soon came in and put it on the right track. I wrote a film for lovefest that dealt with similar ideas of remembering what you want, not necessarily what was. That said, it was fun seeing it applied into the mind of a man with the world on his shoulders.

My only real cons were the close ups of water. For some reason they just bothered me. Maybe I don’t feel like they match the rest of the film? I’d also say the score was a bit over dramatic at parts. I’m not saying the score was bad (it wasn’t). I just thought often put A LOT of emphasis on how crazy something was. i.e. the brick names, water drop symbols. Camera work at those parts for that matter.

All in all, great work.

Placement of water drop symbols was fun too!
 
Just averything about this felt big screen. I love the way the confusion of his life played out - name, who did who - a great and playful execution.

Nicely filmed - like you have both the tech and the artistry thing down. Left brain and right brain.

I didn't care for the breaking of the forth wall.

Also, your poster shows a nuclear mushroom, but according to this, it's the water. Did I miss something?

Love the small clues with the water drop. Very clever.

If I had not read the tag line, I may have missed the depth of the payoff. Also, he killed the entire planet?

Little Tom Hanks-ish with the stabbing of the fish, but excusable. MAkes up for it with the rat skewer.

Really enjoyed this one.

alex
 
Bryce A said:
Great flick. I’m a sucker for the apocalypse and this showed it in an different light. It was one of the more original takes on the last man senerio I’ve seen this fest. By the time it got to the last line, I knew what it was going to say and was happy when it did.

The opening got me off on the wrong foot. I was worried about the direction, because fo the lines used. We’ve heard them before (then again maybe that’s what you were going for). But the structure and reality of the film (as his memories) soon came in and put it on the right track. I wrote a film for lovefest that dealt with similar ideas of remembering what you want, not necessarily what was. That said, it was fun seeing it applied into the mind of a man with the world on his shoulders.

My only real cons were the close ups of water. For some reason they just bothered me. Maybe I don’t feel like they match the rest of the film? I’d also say the score was a bit over dramatic at parts. I’m not saying the score was bad (it wasn’t). I just thought often put A LOT of emphasis on how crazy something was. i.e. the brick names, water drop symbols. Camera work at those parts for that matter.

All in all, great work.

Placement of water drop symbols was fun too!
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bryce, thanks for the nuanced and well thought out review. I always love for the score to become a character in the film, and sometimes the feel is different for the viewer than it is for me, so I can understand what you mean. As far as the water shots go, I CC'd them to be a bit jarring and over-saturated, whether it's for his dream or flashbacks, it's a reminder for him. He doesn't quite know what happened, but there's a strong chance it had to do with water, cause that's what he dreams/sees when he tries to remember.

alex whitmer said:
I didn't care for the breaking of the forth wall.
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I don't quite get what you mean here. more explanation please!

alex whitmer said:
Also, your poster shows a nuclear mushroom, but according to this, it's the water. Did I miss something?
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It's a metaphor for 2 separate worlds, you'll see that the tree is perfectly healthy in the "water" half of the poster, representing the world he once lived in and the world he had a hand in destroying.

alex whitmer said:
If I had not read the tag line, I may have missed the depth of the payoff. Also, he killed the entire planet?
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Harold makes what you can call an overly dramatic statement at the end of the film. Since he had a hand in it, the weight of his guilt makes him feel like "he killed the world", when in reality, he was probably more like a catalyst in an escalating conflict.
 
Okay, that clears up the poster.

4th wall - when a character looks directly into the camera - sometimes speaks.

Malcomn in the Middle used it effectively. Usually I don't like it. The audience is supposed to attach themselves to the MC, and when the MC stares right back at you, that is called breaking the 4th wall.

a
 
oh yeah, for sure. the misspelling got me, i was like, forth wall, wtf?

needless to say i don't make connections with homonyms very well ...
 
I was watching this a couple more times and I always wonder about those brick names. It's a cool idea and shot, but what are they?
 
yeehaanow said:
I was watching this a couple more times and I always wonder about those brick names. It's a cool idea and shot, but what are they?
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There's a few ways that I could answer this, so i'll just give you them all.

1. They were from a pile of bricks sitting next to a destroyed building.

2. It's a game that's he's playing to A. waste some time, and B. perhaps choose a new name for himself, like a little single elimination tournament. He throws a rock, if he breaks part of a window, he makes a mark under one, if he misses, the other. As you can see, "TOM" won out 4 times in a row.

3. Originally, the concept was to just draw a large bracket of names (perhaps 30-40 names) in the dirt and pan up, but as you can tell from the marks, it didn't show up clear enough to play. The idea there was to show that he's been doing this for a LONG time.

Marlon Ladd said:
So, are you guys gonna' add the mutants back in for the Director's Cut? That would be cool.
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We didn't really shoot any of that stuff. Justin originally came to me with this concept and also ponied up most of the $$ to shoot it, so the intellectual property is his. I really don't know what his plans are with it.
 
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