DNS Filmworks - DreamCom

Review | POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT! I watch the movies first time around strictly for enjoyment, second and third for review.

Just had a chance to check out Dreamcom. Dream subjects are my favorite and I've studied lucid dreaming and the like in extensive. Such great subject matter to work from.

Script - The dream movie has been done into the ground. And it's not about how many times it's been done, but how it's presented when you do it. Going with the idea that you had, Dreamcom Technology, is okay. I didn't feel that the concept presented it in a way that hadn't been seen before. At the same time, the writing that backed it didn't present a strong enough case for it to be included in the short. It didn't really stand out to me as anything about Dreamcom itself, but a guy's dreams. You might've been able to exclude the entire idea about Dreamcom and focused on his dreams, which would've allowed you to round off an ending instead of delivering a hollow message to the leading male and no real ending. I think the script needed/needs more reviwing and work. It's really hard to pull a dream themed movie off, no matter what length, and requires an in-depth look at what you're going for.

Direction - I didn't see anything that really stood out to me as bad directing. There are a lot of ways that you might see you could've improved on shots when reviewing. For example: The opening scenes seemed less like a commercial for Dreamcom. It was flat and unsurreal. I'm thinking if such technology were ever pitched to me, the cheesy "fly in your dreams" wow factor should probably be in the commercial to help sell it. And as well, the office scene: The camera view was more like Surveillance camera. Maybe this was because he was in a dream already? I dunno. But it stood out as "Hmmm...".

Acting - Your lead actually didn't do too bad. A third watch allowed me to pick that out. He wasn't exaggerating things, which tends to happen in shorts. It was a subtle conversation on the phone, which was pretty much how people talk to each other about dreams.

Cine/Lighting - Didn't see much creative lighting going on here. And the footage seemed to be really flat, washed of it's colors. Was this a choice made by the production?

Editing - Don't know much what to say here. Which means nothing stood out as bad.

Sound - I lked the ambient score/soundtrack. I'm a fan of such things so it worked for me. Little additional sound effects were okay. I could hear everything pretty well.

Special Effects - Nasty stomach being ripped out. That's the highlight of your piece. Dude got his guts ripped out like whoa and it was kinda gross to see your actors putting that mess in their mouths. Good going on that one.

Scariest Moments - The stomach scene by far.

Overall consensus - Script needs some work. Could stand to be shorter, I really don't think the Dreamcom part is necessary at all. Everything after that can stand on it's own since Dreamcom doesn't come back into the picture at all after the beginning. Thanks for exhibiting! Great job on entering!
 
You definitely win for scariest monsters. You should put this on public access late at night, and it wlil scare the bejeezus out of anyone who is home alone with the TV on.

The video/promotion at the beginning was very creepy.

Watch out for that 180 rule, and you should also look after the framing of your subjects.

Sound wasn't very good - particularly, the volume was all over the place.

Again, the bellyeaters were SCA-RY.

Good work!
 
Not a bad movie!!! Liked your monsters a lot, they were SCARY! and the guts....oh!! niiiiiiiiiice!

Technically as Kholi said...I didnt find something that bothered me, ok IMHO it could have taken a different direction here and there and do something more original and creative with a few shots but it stood ok as it was.

Score/Sound left me unsatisfied. The sound leve l was OMG!!! You almost blew my speakrs in an orbit! You had a nice touch with sound fx and dialogue but your levels were not ok and I see that this has become a 'rule' in horrorfest.

Script - it was a clever idea, Vanilla Sky material more or less....had a beginning, middle, end???? what on earth just happened back there??? I guess that you cut from a longer version?? because even if the ending was what I would call 'the right one'...its too abrupt...no credits, no 'The end' nothing....it left me wondering if the file was corrupted....

Overall...nicely done, neat job..promising
 
Hey DNS Filmworks, nice job. I have a few comments that I would like to share.

First, the creatures are creepy! Very creepy! And the sound that they make is terrifying.

The sound in general wasn't even and level. There were times when you cut between scenes in the same room that the room sound changed. Particularly the office.

The office scene was the weakest point of the movie. Necessary to the story, but the sound and camera work needs improvement. (I hope that you don't mind me sharing.) The framing could have been so much better. The c/u on the patient was almost center in the frame. I wanted him more to the right. Also, the 180 rule was broken and it ripped me out of the movie so quickly! I don't know if you are aware of what I mean, but when your c/u on the patient and the c/u on the Dr were going in the same direction. (Both were facing the left!)

Also, the high framing when the patient comes in was nice, but you left too much footage after the Dr. sits. He sinks to the bottom of the screen. A quicker cut to the head-on level shot of the Dr. could have solved this. (I'm being picky!)

The scene of him leaving the office was confusing to me. Why was that man there yelling those things? Did DreamCom eventually create the creepy creatures in the patients head? I was confused. I didn't feel that it was necessary to have this scene because we never re-visit the issue of whether or not DreamCom did this to him or if it was his own void.

And a particularly picky note is the boxes in the hands of the patient outside the office. They looked like they were from my basement! I felt that these should have been in prestine condition, not with black marker scribbled on them. Especially after seeing the expensive gear that came out of them.

Okay, enough with my pickiness.

I thought that you did a good job and I enjoyed your film. The creatures were the best! Nasty!

Good job and congrats!!

Ted
 
Thanks to everyone for the comments, now to address some of them in a general fashion :p

DreamCom: We wanted to do so much more with the company and it's relation to the movie but with the time allotted we decided to keep the main focus on Jeremy and his dreams. Some people found this good and others thought it was unneccesary. Ultimately I am still happy with our decision.

Infomercial: We were going for a surreal/creepy look. Supposed to be soothing and well... Informative. More so than driving the product down your throat. They have the technology, it's to your benefit to get it. If not, then some one else can have it.

Sound: Some parts were too loud, it played fine from my computer but I see it played louder for others. Reason for this is we're extremely green to a NLE that allows this much to do. This movie was a huge learning experience for us and I guess we screwed up on the sound :|

Disgruntled Man: The man that bothered Jeremy outside of the DreamCom facility is a doctor that used to work there, he say's that he used to work there until he was fired for knowing the truth. I think we got that point across pretty well but then again...

Boxes: Yeah totally our bad. Was running out of time on that shoot date (Filmed many scenes that day!) and just completely forgot about the boxes. So yeah, good observation... They were from my basement :X

Ending: The ending never sat perfectly still with me personally, but it pretty much does what a lot of endings here at HorrorFest did and leaves it to interpretation from the viewer. Is he in the Dream? Is it happening for real? Something else?

180 Rule: Not sure I understand why breaking this changed/ruined anything. Could someone elaborate further?

Thanks for the comments and critique guy's, keep it coming because it really does help us out!
 
I think about the fired doctor guy, it was pretty clear that he knew too much (we know too much...pablo francisco....always cracks me up) anyway , but still WHAT EXACTLY DID HE KNOW? ;)

the film ends with a 'you are alone'.....so what does that mean? is he Lost (TM)?
 
The ending is sorta different for everyone. I have a different idea of what it means and Ezexpress has a different view on it. I think for things like that it's better left unanswered from the source. However you can get an idea from the white noise at the end.

EDIT: As for the Doctor, he knows that people that don't remember their dreams, are better off not remembering them. That they're blocked off for a reason.
 
Dario Nieva said:
The ending is sorta different for everyone. I have a different idea of what it means and Ezexpress has a different view on it. I think for things like that it's better left unanswered from the source. However you can get an idea from the white noise at the end.

EDIT: As for the Doctor, he knows that people that don't remember their dreams, are better off not remembering them. That they're blocked off for a reason.
Click to expand...

now i see what you 're getting at.....ok....it makes sense but you had to point me to the right direction...so I guess you could have done that visually coz you wont always have the chance to share with viewers...I m telling you this coz it's happenning with my work as well....
 
Yeah I totally know what you're getting at and beleive me I appreciate it. I don't want to be in the dark on faults that I could work on.

We do have plans to either make DreamCom into a series of shorts or an actual feature too :X
 
The 180 rule bacially means staying one one side of your subjects when shooting dialogue sequences. That way your two characters will be looking at each other on screen(i.e. one looking screen right, one looking screen left).

When you set up a scene of dialogue a basic rule is to imagine a line drawn from one character to the next character. Pick a side of that line and stick filming on that side - at least until they move into different positions or another person enters. Then you may go to a wide and re-establish a new line. The purpose is so the audience doesnt feel confused by the space and where people are looking.

In your short both actors were looking screen left in the dialogue sequence, which made it look odd, like they were not talking to each other.

Hey Im not teching you to suck eggs here - sorry if you already knew this.....You can break this rule - all rules are meant to be broken, but there are ways to go about doing it. you're quite within you're right to say 'its a dream so we did it that way on purpose'. it's the audience who will deicide whether it worked or not.
 
Oh well I guess the majority of you have decided that it was a no-no! Well we have multiple angles of that scene anyways so it shouldn't be too hard to fix :)
 
Matt Sconce's Review of DreamCom
SPOLIERS POSSIBLE!


Overall Impressions
Some pretty creepy things going on here! The acting was okay and the effects were really good. The scenes could be better lit and the script lost me a few times after the guy sees his dream. Congrats on Submitting to the Fest!
 
Dario Nieva said:
180 Rule: Not sure I understand why breaking this changed/ruined anything. Could someone elaborate further?
Click to expand...

You did this with the two guys (mr. no dreams and the salesman) talking to each other - it was disorienting, and made it look like they were on the same side of the room.
 
More responses for you fine people:

Lighting: As far as I see on our end the lighting is pretty spot on. I can only assume that it's the compression and (In my opinion cruddyness) of Quicktime that washed out our colors.

180 Rule Shenanigans: Like it was said, you can break this rule and things can be fine. Someone said it was left up to the audience and someone a little while back suggested watching movies for movies and not as a DP. Well when we showed this movie to people they never picked up on the 180 thing because in my opinion they never had any prior knowledge of the rule.

I figure it's disorienting to people who are looking for it.

Once again thanks for the opinions, keep 'em coming!
 
This was one of my favorites,

The monsters were scary as sheeite and the editing was good.

My gripes are:
the story didn't build much, just kind of went up a little, then ended. Wanted to see more build.
The lighting wasn't very good and for a short that relies on creepy monsters, I think the lighting needs to be there.
Also, the breaking the 180 rule sticks out to me, I hear what your saying and not everyone will notice, but its obvious. ( I broke this rule in my short, so keep that in mind, but I thought yours was distracting.)
Very good work, my friend. Kudos
 
Acting: Loved your lead, use him again and agin. The Doctor at the start was cool too, some of the other acting was a little choppy.
Script: Great concept love how you started this. Wanted a little more development
Direction: Some really nice storytelling techniques going on. Get the 180 rule sorted!
Music: Proper horror.
Editing: Some nice ideas going on with the in-dream/ out of dream.
Lighting: The framing and lighting was the only area that let me down a little, I loved that sun flare outside but some of the interiors were flat.
Loved: The start, the scanning, Goblins, that shot when he comes out of the dream and the goblins behind him (ACE), ending and overall concept. :thumbup:
Hated: The title font, some of the framing – too much headroom in the office shots, how quickly that guy fell over, the first scene in the office (felt a little rushed for me)
Overall: Dude’s you’ve got to make this into a feature, your leads ACE, your concept’s GREAT and I loved your goblins. Do it! Do it, do it. Your not alone.:)

Wish I had seen this earlier, I think if you sort out some of the basics, you could be onto something here. Well done.

PLEASE COMMENT ON BROKEN CIRCLE (THANKS)
 
DNS, thanks for sharing your film! I really did enjoy wathcing... Creepy Creatures, man!

Congrats and good luck to you!

Ted
 
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