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

Nice work. I enjoyed watching this. I must emphasize that overall this was a great entry. Certain parts worked very well for me, but others not so much. I REALLY liked the changes in the memory. I liked the blue screen stuff (even though it wasn't my favorite visually) because it was a cool concept. I liked the substitution of the characters in the cheating scenes, I liked the idea of trying out names or trying to remember names, etc. Didn't quite understand the whole brick thing and it wasn't as impressive dementia as the soundtrack may have indicated, but I DID get that it was a name thing he was working on and the camera movement was nice. I wasn't sure about how memory fit in with the end of the world. Was it the water? Why did the whole relationship with the girl matter at this point? I didn't understand the water logo and why it was significant. I felt like some of these elements detracted from what I thought was a beautiful thrust of a man trying to remember his life in a now very ugly world. Since it was all so arbitrary in his mind, I didn't feel like the water signs were anchors enough to give me an idea of what happened.

Again, I liked this entry a lot, just putting to words any questions or criticism I could think of. This was an ambitious undertaking that certainly works well as a short. Thanks for sharing it with us.

JC
 
King Cole, hope you don't mind if I tear your thoughts apart a bit, give you a little insight to where we were coming from/things you may have missed.

King Cole said:
I wasn't sure about how memory fit in with the end of the world. Was it the water?
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That's one of those "suspension of disbelief" questions. There is no answer, other than us asking you to believe that he doesn't remember anything and to run with it. Hence the line in the beginning "I don't remember why", frankly, we didn't think it was important enough to spend time on in the 6 min.

King Cole said:
Why did the whole relationship with the girl matter at this point? I didn't understand the water logo and why it was significant.
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The relationship matters because he doesn't remember any of the "big picture", he's trying to get the basics down first, what's my name, where did i live, what car did i drive, what did my GF look like? Like trying to jog his memory by visiting familiar places or things.

The water logo is important because it's his trigger. It's a direct lift from 12 monkeys or fight club. He was involved in a terrorist-like organization and that was their "mark". They left it wherever they did something bad. So when he sees the logo again, it all floods back to him.

King Cole said:
I felt like some of these elements detracted from what I thought was a beautiful thrust of a man trying to remember his life in a now very ugly world. Since it was all so arbitrary in his mind, I didn't feel like the water signs were anchors enough to give me an idea of what happened.
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I don't really think any of what he was thinking was arbitrary. Especially the water triggers. Like me running up to my computer and then forgetting what it was i was going to look up. Harold knows that what he is thinking/dreaming has to do with how the world came to be how it is. He narrates "I can remember a little bit, little pieces here and there, pieces that used to fit together, I don't have the box they came in anymore." So like I said, he's knows there's a big picture and knows that what he can remember has something to do with it, he just can't put it all together.

As far as "what EXACTLY happened" to the world, we just didn't have the time for all that backstory to fit in, we fast-forwarded to the present, the end. I commented before that Harold makes an overly dramatic statement - "I killed the world", this is mostly out of his guilt. He killed a lot of people, but in reality, was probably just the start, or the catalyst to the end of the world, he still feels responsible for the whole thing.
 
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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As far as that goes I actually grabbed some more POV "watching" stuff under a nearby loading dock, Tom wanted to do it and that played into what I wanted to do, so he and I sort of ganged up on Ben and got it before we switched sets. It was easy to get done quickly because it had natural lighting I liked (and all these super-cool support beams at odd angles) and the POV was handheld. As a filmmaker I generally like to use everything that gets shot, but I knew it was too confusing and beside the point to leave in so I didn't argue too much over not using it in the movie. But Ben might trot out some stuff like that if you're lucky.
 
great film fellas! Loved the shots and great to finally see the marketing of the water droplet come to life on screen. I'm not sure I understood the film the first time around, but hey... that's what twilight fest is for right?

congrats on entering and looking forward to your next film.

/j
 
Man I really love the shots you got, very clean, I agree with Edgen the water drops were amazing. I don't think I really get the point either, but I will watch it again. Congrats you guys, great job. :)
 
Harold allen cutting room floor.

Harold allen cutting room floor.

Guys and Gals, here's some stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor, some more "watching harold from a distance" stuff and the original ending we shot, it was good, too bad we ran out of light outside. We also decided that those train tracks were a little "too clean" since they had been recently used.



The MotionBox embed tool is really cool, the only issue I have with it is that you must upgrade to Flash 10 (considering it just came out, and flash 9 has permeated about 95% of the market). But other than that, awesome tool, thanks mods for putting it together for us.
 
Excellent job Sliker! The editing is crisp, score supported the short without 'being the star' and
the sound design was spot on. Visually I felt the look of the short varied from shot to shot, but
the story was engaging. I missed something on the first go around, but caught it on the second
viewing. This is a solid top five short for sure.
 
Inexistence said:
Excellent job Sliker! The editing is crisp, score supported the short without 'being the star' and
the sound design was spot on. Visually I felt the look of the short varied from shot to shot, but
the story was engaging. I missed something on the first go around, but caught it on the second
viewing. This is a solid top five short for sure.
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thanks a lot, i think that may be one of the things i re-visit post-fest, giving the things that are real one consistent look, and giving the things in his brain another consistent look. (perhaps a yellow/orange look vs. blue) So, thanks for that criticism, I needed someone else to tell me that to make sure that it was important enough to re-visit. :beer:
 
I like seeing creative editing like with the memories swapping in and out. You get a better sense of what the lead character is thinking about, with all the disjointed imagery. This is among my top 5. Good job, guys.
 
the editing is modern and crisp..nice work! love the cinematography and differing images of water (it becomes a character), the scenes with the summer sprinkler and lifeless children laying in the grass are beautiful and tells a story that no dialogue could ever speak. i dug the fact that he searched his mind to just remember his own name, like a mental dog-tag that had been lost in his denial............overall.....i drank this piece in.....and stumbled away Happily intoxicated)
 
joeloud said:
I like seeing creative editing like with the memories swapping in and out. You get a better sense of what the lead character is thinking about, with all the disjointed imagery. This is among my top 5. Good job, guys.
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Thanks for watching!

DavisOsborne said:
i dug the fact that he searched his mind to just remember his own name, like a mental dog-tag that had been lost in his denial............overall.....i drank this piece in.....and stumbled away Happily intoxicated)
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Davis, you warrior poet you. Thanks for checking in on us :)
 
One of my favs this fest. Great cinematography, story, actors, everything. Awesome work. Nothing much else that I can really say. Amazing job! :beer:
 
Very cool. I loved the editing with the memory sequences... you really got across how subjective our memories can be. Awesome... with style.

Voiceover can also be pretty tough but I think your actor and your overall direction made it work.

And I loved the last line of the film. That made it for me.

Great work!
 
puckthemad said:
And you guys even warned us: Don't drink the water.

(and it's good water too)
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haha :) I'm glad our little viral marketing campaign paid off for someone.

Champloo said:
One of my favs this fest. Great cinematography, story, actors, everything. Awesome work. Nothing much else that I can really say. Amazing job! :beer:
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jojopop said:
Very cool. I loved the editing with the memory sequences... you really got across how subjective our memories can be. Awesome... with style. Voiceover can also be pretty tough but I think your actor and your overall direction made it work. And I loved the last line of the film. That made it for me. Great work!
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Thanks for the continued praise everyone. It's really nice to see the hard work everyone put into this connect with the audience. :beer:
 
I love all the pickup shots, it takes a lot to get so many, they're very well done. I also like the poisonous water montage, did you shoot that in 30p? High shutter? I like, it makes it different from the rest. Great locations, great lighting.

I liked the story, but I think it got weak near the end - you didn't need the last minute, we already knew what had happened. I think maybe you could have focused more on the poisonous water gang and less on the end of the world scenario?

I must say I absolutely love the - don't know how to describe it, the series of shots where we see the lead doing something that's opposite what the VO says, eg he's cheating on his wife / then she's cheating on him, I love all those parallel shots, really well done.
 
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gabrielflorit said:
I love all the pickup shots, it takes a lot to get so many, they're very well done. I also like the poisonous water montage, did you shoot that in 30p? High shutter? I like, it makes it different from the rest. Great locations, great lighting.

I liked the story, but I think it got weak near the end - you didn't need the last minute, we already knew what had happened. I think maybe you could have focused more on the poisonous water gang and less on the end of the world scenario?

I must say I absolutely love the - don't know how to describe it, the series of shots where we see the lead doing something that's opposite what the VO says, eg he's cheating on his wife / then she's cheating on him, I love all those parallel shots, really well done.
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Thanks for the lengthy review! The sprinkler was shot in 60p with a high shutter to get all that nice water in motion. It stinks that the story didn't pan out for you at the end, but I think it would have cheapened both parts if we tried to explain more about the water poisoning gang, cause for me, this is a movie about one man. I hoped that we at least gave a vibe that there was something brewing that was much bigger than this one man, the payoff at the end was showing what that big thing was. Was there any specific point where you knew what the ending was going to be? (excuse my director's neverending need for input) :) We're glad you liked it! :dankk2:
 
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