Broken Circle

your in my top three
sorry for another quicky sucky review, but I'm late to my screening.
i'll do a real one tonight or swallow 1000 crickets.
 
Very powerful. One shot wonder indeed.

I wasn't sure what to think at first, but I couldn't look away and genuinely felt scared for the characters. The makeup was excellent and concept very original.

BRAVO!
 
OK loved this one.

Since my only negatives are small I'll get them out of the way and end positive.

Sound distorted at times and I thought more could have been done with the lighting even though you were using the whole set all at once. I think our eyes get excited (dumb phrasing) when there is a full range of bright to dark, highlights to black on the screen and here we had only mid to black.

Final ding ... story trajectory was a little straight on for a short IMHO. I subscribe to the very specific opinion that a short film should end on a defiance of expectation, because unlike in a longer form where we get to make the audience think that things won't work out as expected for a while and then wind up in the inevitable end, it feels like less of an event in a short when you have "uh oh this might happen ... and then it happens" I'm very tired so I'm probably not making sense.

OK ... the good stuff.

Despite the overly straight trajectory of the story its solidly built and well developed withe the several characters well defined and moving along nice arcs.

Acting was top shelf across the board.

And here's the biggy, with those two strengths this third element separates the wheat from the chaff, your camera work is so embedded in the linear and emotional trajectory of the story that it is a part of the story - it is the story in and of itself and its so effin simple. This is the kind of camera work we should all be striving to achieve in every set up and shot of every moment of our films. This is impossible to achieve but here you have come as close as anyone ever can.

The characters are locked in a circle, bound to a fixed position and process that they cannot break from, and so you put the audience in their shoes buy using the camera as metaphor, we swirl around the table, perhaps at times wishing for another angle or to change directions, but like the characters we cannot, and yet the whole thing keeps moving forward and SPIRALLING (nudge nudge) out of control.

In Mckees story book he talks about the fact that Character IS story. Because what the character does is based on who they are and what they do shapes the story and the story then causes them to react as who they are and so on.

This is all well and good for writers. But as filmmakers I feel the ultimate goal is "mise en scene" IS story. Every aspect of the production can only be as it is in service of the story. And here we have a prime example.

In Broken Circle:
Camera movement IS story.

This has never been achieved to such a degree in our festival. And you did it with less is more while I'm dumping my whole apartment out into a basement and repainting my walls in an attempt to achieve roughly the same end you great poo pooing bastard :beer:
 
i'm shocked over the responses to this one. granted it one shot but its poorly lit and audio is distorted (at least here it is) and story is interesting but not something i really enjoy(IMHO). work on your lighting... you lost me for that. good job though, hard to keep actors acting for 6 mins.
 
greeches said:
Very powerful. One shot wonder indeed.

I wasn't sure what to think at first, but I couldn't look away and genuinely felt scared for the characters. The makeup was excellent and concept very original.

BRAVO!
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Greeches, appreciate it man.

J.P.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
OK loved this one.

Since my only negatives are small I'll get them out of the way and end positive.

Sound distorted at times and I thought more could have been done with the lighting even though you were using the whole set all at once. I think our eyes get excited (dumb phrasing) when there is a full range of bright to dark, highlights to black on the screen and here we had only mid to black.

Final ding ... story trajectory was a little straight on for a short IMHO. I subscribe to the very specific opinion that a short film should end on a defiance of expectation, because unlike in a longer form where we get to make the audience think that things won't work out as expected for a while and then wind up in the inevitable end, it feels like less of an event in a short when you have "uh oh this might happen ... and then it happens" I'm very tired so I'm probably not making sense.

OK ... the good stuff.

Despite the overly straight trajectory of the story its solidly built and well developed withe the several characters well defined and moving along nice arcs.

Acting was top shelf across the board.

And here's the biggy, with those two strengths this third element separates the wheat from the chaff, your camera work is so embedded in the linear and emotional trajectory of the story that it is a part of the story - it is the story in and of itself and its so effin simple. This is the kind of camera work we should all be striving to achieve in every set up and shot of every moment of our films. This is impossible to achieve but here you have come as close as anyone ever can.

The characters are locked in a circle, bound to a fixed position and process that they cannot break from, and so you put the audience in their shoes buy using the camera as metaphor, we swirl around the table, perhaps at times wishing for another angle or to change directions, but like the characters we cannot, and yet the whole thing keeps moving forward and SPIRALLING (nudge nudge) out of control.

In Mckees story book he talks about the fact that Character IS story. Because what the character does is based on who they are and what they do shapes the story and the story then causes them to react as who they are and so on.

This is all well and good for writers. But as filmmakers I feel the ultimate goal is "mise en scene" IS story. Every aspect of the production can only be as it is in service of the story. And here we have a prime example.

In Broken Circle:
Camera movement IS story.

This has never been achieved to such a degree in our festival. And you did it with less is more while I'm dumping my whole apartment out into a basement and repainting my walls in an attempt to achieve roughly the same end you great poo pooing bastard :beer:
Click to expand...

Jack I'm speechless, thanks a million. :thumbup:

J.P.
 
And I only saw the make-up artists's stuff once! ;-) I thought it was a waiter at first...and then I'm like, a waiter?! Who needs a waiter when you're summoning Satan. Very impressed by the single shot technique. Interesting concept. Watched it 3 times.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
This has never been achieved to such a degree in our festival. And you did it with less is more while I'm dumping my whole apartment out into a basement and repainting my walls in an attempt to achieve roughly the same end you great poo pooing bastard :beer:
Click to expand...


Jacks that's such a compliment, also by dragging your whole apartment down to the basement, shows how dedication you are. You moved it back up yet??:thumbup: :)
 
hvxabuser said:
hard to keep actors acting for 6 mins.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. :thumbup:

Sound, yeah ya got me couldn't afford to LAV it up, should have.

It's LOW-KEY LIGHTING, we did have a 2k hidden behind the clock to boost. Tis hard when your doing a 360! :)
 
Overall this was a genuinally scary film, I have worked with JP in a writing and acting capacity and I thought with this piece, he produced the best out of the actors, He is an actors director, so well done big boy!! I hope you win, VOTE BROKEN CIRCLE or else I will fight you. xx
 
ch072-sausage-rolls-22115.jpg


Told you.
 
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This was a movie that really didn't work for me. I appreciate the fact you tried to do this as a 1 shot kinda thing, but it kinda annoyed me after 2 minutes. I wasn't so happy with the sound editing either. The last minute I just switched the sound way down because the screaming was really annoying in the end. It completely kicked me out of the story. I think you could have made it a lot less annoying with a more balanced sound edit. On the positive side: the acting was reasonable and your story was a bit better than a whole bunch of other shorts i've seen in the fest.
 
Timur, Timur, Timur, whoooaaaa. Just relax it's a party man. We can talk about the $100,000,000 later. Try this. I brewed it myself. That's it drink it all down...:)
 
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