Joystick Films Presents.......Hangman

Thank you for the critiques and compliments. For you to not think my movie sucks is a wonderful thing.

I totally agree. I wanted to go pulpish. And since I read your post. ideas rushed into my head about som other places it could have went. I will get better for sure.

Mark Harris said:
The actors were wonderful. All seemed to play off of one another nicely and be really really natural on screen. I don't know how much directing you did, or if they just got there and played off one another, but the end result was really nice.

I felt like I wanted something more out of the story though. Like you start with a really pregnant situation. .

You def have the chops and the talent on your team. Now just keep pushing yourself to get better, explore more, dig deeper.

Good work!!!!
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I enjoyed it. I think it could have been better but it was still fun. The opening held so much promise that wasn't quite delivered on. There were a lot of good lines of dialogue but this started to feel like talking heads as it went on.



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I think you telegraphed the ending the first time the friend was going to call her husband.

I think it would have been a great to explore how she dealt with the friend after the ordeal. She obviously knew and I would have thought she would have played that up.
 
This was a really fun film. Dark and funny. The three actresses are all great with some great lines.

There was some repetitiveness, with the one girl asking why she's got a dead body in her living room way after they've already been talking about it for several minutes.

I think it would have been cool if the shot of the three girls looking down at the dead body had from a low angle. I kind of saw the girls as the Macbeth witches. Is that weird?

The end was effective, especially the way the music comes in.
 
Thanks for checking it out. In hindsight and reading some of the comments, I could have done so much more with this film. Now if only I could go back in time.

jasonthewho said:
This was a really fun film. Dark and funny. The three actresses are all great with some great lines.

There was some repetitiveness, with the one girl asking why she's got a dead body in her living room way after they've already been talking about it for several minutes.

I think it would have been cool if the shot of the three girls looking down at the dead body had from a low angle. I kind of saw the girls as the Macbeth witches. Is that weird?

The end was effective, especially the way the music comes in.
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i enjoyed it..kept me intrigued all the way through...nice twist at end.
great opening sequence!

gooo Maryland! that's my home state.
 
Right on. I finally get to see some of your work, and I'm really impressed. Felt like an original voice. Great characters and great direction. Loved the choices of shots and what you choose to reveal/hide. I felt the subject matter was incredibly powerful (and I liked how you're using humor to explore it). It's topical and worth exploring, but the film let me down a tad in that the treatment of it all was a little bit superficial. And I don't mean the ending--that did surpise me--I loved it. What I mean is that you're dealing with an explosive topic, which is exactly what the art of filmmaking is made for. So you could have fine tuned the treatment of the topic so it had a more definite point of view that lived up to the strength of your direction. If you'd done that, this short would get quadruple the amount of attention! Because you nail the rest.
 
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There were some funny parts in this; I laughed at the interactions between the three ladies. Not sure about the ending - I understood it, just not sure about the motivation for the final action.

anyway, good work!
 
This film wasn't for me. I'm glad there are people out there who liked it though. Nothing personal, I like that it was made for friends who just wanted to swear a lot, I always support that.
 
Nice!

Good acting, that really helped with this, although SOME dialog bugged me.

Neat story as well, and I'm glad it ended off negative/sad.

I'll give a godo rating for this!

Robbie
 
Dude that was seriously screwed up.. I had to listen to that with my headphones on. My wife turned and gave me "the look". I see you let your actors go completely wild with the swearing. And now come to think of it, I really didn;t even hear that much swearing for the entire fest. Your actors may have more than made up for what the rest of us didn't get in.

This pieces wasn;t as bad as you let on. It was actually competent. It had a beginning, middle and and end, with a conflict to be resolved. Sure there were some technical and stylistic issues with it, but I watched it all the way through to the end.

and yes now that I have a kid i've turned into some kind of swearing prude.
 
I think I like this better than your other entry. :)

The story works for me, as messed up as it is. I could see the ending coming just before the girl went to take a look under the blanket but that didn't ruin it at all. The performances were also spot on. It just worked.

Get your blood looking real (in both entries) and you won't have me falling out of it.

Very nice work!

MAH
 
This film had me laughing from beginning to end. really well played out.. and the man being gay as the twist was great! my only concern is that im not exactly sure how the title plays into the actual film.

:)
 
Great story premise. I like the idea of doing something simple but high impact with a good twist at the end. Your choice of music at the beginning and seemed too comedic right after she kills her friend... Your actors did a great job, but they all seemed to have the same voice and the same set of rules that they were motivated by. The language is great... but the impact is weak when all the characters have that same voice.

I think its more interesting when each character have different rules that govern their behavior... like one of them stutters or one remains silent .. or only answers in one word responses.
 
This had some GREAT laugh out loud moments, especially at the beginning (heck, even the credit of ONE TAKE MEL got me). You actually had some good writing/dialogue in some of those spots, and I DO realize some people swear that much in every sentence, but I'm not used to it personally and so did find it disruptive.

I WONDERED if it was one of those women's husbands that was under the sheet, and knew it when she was going to make the call. Other than her friend being a complete lunatic, not sure why she called them over unless she was planning to kill them all anyway, since she was actually wanting their help with the body on the couch, etc.

Overall, I feel THE PUPETEER was a stronger film for you.
 
Wow man...lol...nice film. I laughed out loud a couple of times. You touched on a topic that isn't really seen that much. The three women did have some good chemistry. Are they friends in real life?

On the technical side, you got some good stuff going here. Nice shot composition and pacing and having seen the story, I see why you wanted to go with the 6 minute continuous take. My two nitpicks have been mentioned...get some real boom to the gunshots and some dark red blood...dude would have been leaking after two shots.

It seems to me like you kind of considered this your secondary short and I haven't watched Puppeteer yet but this one can stand on it's own. Good job man.

Oh, and Jace......oh yes.
 
Thanks for the compliments and especially the critiques! They are valued and taken seriously.

I really thought that EVERYONE would hate this film. My AD convinced me to actually send it in. I am glad some of you like it. There are plenty of mistakes on this one and some of you are very kind souls for looking past them.:Drogar-Evil(DBG):

As far as the cursing goes, I knew it could turn some people off but Me and my wife swear so much all of the dialog sounds normal to us. :) I really wanted to write something fun and raunchy that the girls could run with.
 
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Norm Sanders said:
This had some GREAT laugh out loud moments, especially at the beginning (heck, even the credit of ONE TAKE MEL got me). You actually had some good writing/dialogue in some of those spots, and I DO realize some people swear that much in every sentence, but I'm not used to it personally and so did find it disruptive.

Overall, I feel THE PUPETEER was a stronger film for you.
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I had never met Mel before that day. And had no idea what his last name was. He just kept getting everything in one take, and kept yelling "one take Mel"!! so I just ran with it.

Glad you liked it.
 
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