1930's Bank Robbery Short "The Headliners"

A good review from Kholi is worth its weight in gold. :thumbsup: He doesn't offer faint praise.
 
PaPa said:
acting is very important to filmmaking. It's not photography after all, its story, and without characters to hold up the story, no one cares. Don't ever underestimate acting, actors hold the strongest production value. Had your film been well acted, i think that alone would have brought it into another league.
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Me thinks someone needs to catch up on their film history. The acting style was deliberate as a throw back to old school stuff. The overexagerations, the sort of dim witted goons. The smaller but snappier boss.

It was all intentional, go watch a half a dozen of those classics and then come back and comment once you have a better foundation.

Kholi - I was pretty much just commenting on how some of the comments were detracting from the work basically by missing the point. Now i totally understand if they have issues with various points after all nothing is perfect, (i know that all to well), but its tough to see criticisms flying without understanding the context of the work.
 
Oh, trust me I DO understand where you're coming from. I knew from the moment the first character entered and his subtle "dance" what I was watching. I think it was spot-on, outside of the pacing/cut.

There're different ways to inform, though. Haha, but, sometimes it's hard to not just tell it!

Anyway, good short here.
 
jonE5 said:
Me thinks someone needs to catch up on their film history. The acting style was deliberate as a throw back to old school stuff. The overexagerations, the sort of dim witted goons. The smaller but snappier boss.

It was all intentional, go watch a half a dozen of those classics and then come back and comment once you have a better foundation.

Kholi - I was pretty much just commenting on how some of the comments were detracting from the work basically by missing the point. Now i totally understand if they have issues with various points after all nothing is perfect, (i know that all to well), but its tough to see criticisms flying without understanding the context of the work.
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Jon, first of all, if you are going to post works, get ready for criticism and lay off a little on the defensive side.

I have been a professional working actor in Montreal for years now (not a huge resume, but i digress) and have been studying the craft for 10 years, so when i say something is bad acting wise, throw me a bone here, i kinda know what im talking about. I have studied acting through the entire 1900's, written papers on it, etc.. There is such thing as deliberate, and i know the films of which you speak, do i think it was achieved successfully? No, clearly i didn't Otherwise it would not have been distracting. Problems with foundation and film history? My degree would say otherwise ;) Your supporting characters were decent, your male lead, awful. I understand when you say it's supposed to be "over-acted" but that doesn't necessarily mean bad, and in this case, it wasn't enjoyable for the most part.

You can choose to take the words i wrote and decide to help you in whatever you make in the future, or you can choose to take the defensive, begin telling others why their opinions are wrong or unjust.

As i said, i think your piece was very good, and i was being very blunt when i stated my opinions of your video. Filming was great, dug the art direction, editing was nice, but acting was the stinker.

'nuff said. Thanks for sharing.
 
Boys! Boys! :-)

I really appreciate all of the comments. Really. If you thought the acting was bad, I'm cool with that. I spent $1000 on the entire film. Not one cent on actors. I know what your thinking: "it shows", but they were my friends. And, despite what you all say, I wouldn't want it any other way. Had this been a client job or something I was planning on making the festival circuit with I would have done this much differently. But it wasn't... just for fun. Take it for what it is.

I take all of your critiques respectfully and appreciatively. I DO NOT underestimate acting by any means and I DO NOT wish to create any "disputes" within that. We are all friendly filmmakers here and that's what I appreciate. So thank you all again for watching and speaking.

Cheers,
Dalton Coffey
 
Fair enough papa, your certainly entitled to your opinion, and not all those comments were targeted just to you. I think its great that we can all come together and exchange ideas and films in a place like this, and even though I may not agree with some of your views, doesnt mean i dont appreciate them.

BTW, I am in no way affiliated with this film in any way, and aside from seeing it posted here yesterday I have had no knowledge of it or any of the people that worked on it. Just pointing out my observations of the work. But I digress.

Carry on.
 
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speaking of which, how did you guys get the amazing locations? I am absolutely beside myself as to how you guys either got access, or built this? Please give us some yummy details!
 
PaPa said:
speaking of which, how did you guys get the amazing locations? I am absolutely beside myself as to how you guys either got access, or built this? Please give us some yummy details!
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Thanks for asking. The locations were quite a bit of work. It is the result of three months of long and hard searching. But I will say they were all real. We did not build any of them. Just a lot of set dressing. Most thought I wrote the story around the locations. Not true. I wrote the script then started location scouting.

I found the bank in a little town about 5 miles from my house. No joke. It is in its original state from the 1930's. Virtually untouched. The bank was actually robbed by John Dillinger while he was with Baby-Face in 1934 when they robbed the bank in Sioux Falls(as in Public Enemies). Prior to doing this film, I had no idea the bank existed. It was a wonderful place to film.

The hideout was in a dingy, dungeon-like basement of an old building in Sioux Falls where I live. The exterior shots were all done in downtown Sioux Falls as well. Not much is left from that era so we had to be clever. I knew I was going to need a lot of cars to "sell it" visually, so I got several members from the local Ford Model A Club and they called their friends and their friends' friends and so on. Word of mouth is a powerful tool.

And there you have it:-)

Cheers, DC

p.s. I would be happy to answer any other questions about the shoot.
 
Kholi said:
Great project, great effort, worth the watch for sure and I definitely wanted to post and say "good show".

I think it could be a bit shorter, tighter cuts. I say this because a lot of the moments are drawn out in what seems to be an unnecessary fashion. They don't really enhance tension, and I think I spy comedic beats but they aren't really selling right now.

It really hits home when I get to the end and realize there's a punchline. It's actually a good punchline, but maybe it's not setup well enough to warrant the total runtime?

Food for thought, anyway.

I don't really comment on too many shorts and such, this one was well worth taking the time out.

Thanks for sharing!
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Kholi,


Here is a slightly shorter version if you so desire to watch it:-)

http://www.vimeo.com/11058155

It gets to the punchline a little quicker ;-)

Cheers, DC
 
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