Everything Is Better

@Matt
Thank you for the compliments. I really wanted to do super long hold on those wide landscapes. Really uncomfortably long, but I dint feel the scene warranted it so I made a compromised an held them for a shorter period of time.
I didn't like the look of the flat landscapes in contrast to the distorted closeup wides, but I felt if gave this awkward feel to the scene. If I had shot them with my 28 or 50mm it might have felt too normal. So even though I didn't like the contrast from the 50mm landscape to the 14mm closeup, I thought it sold the awkward feel for each shot respectively.

For the VO. If your talking about his tone... That's his real voice, haha. But if your talking about inflection, yes, my choices of takes were varied. But it was a struggle to find good takes because of the last minute nature of the VO that we got. I had to custom tweak the EQ for each VO clip to remove a mid-hi buzzing. So it DID remove a little of his natural high tone, but generally it was his natural voice. I added a bit too much echo for some shots, but again time constraints made it difficult to get it exactly how I wanted.
Overall I was happily surprised at how well it all melded together. Again, thank you for the complements and criticisms... I need them.
 
My criticisms: I found the narrator hard to hear at times, especially at the end. I'm not a big fan of narration in general and I wonder how your story could have played out without it, relying on more internal dialog and visuals instead... but of course, that's really a personal preference thing... a choice you made as a director that though I disagree with, doesn't mean you're wrong. JTyner and I strongly disagreed on this film... he liked the idea of it a whole lot more than I did... he thought it was funny in a good way; I felt it was silly in a bad way. It is amazing how subjective our opinions on individual films can be.

My compliments: Your wide shots out in the field were amazingly beautiful... stunning. I never felt like you as the film maker were getting in the way of the film itself... the editing was mostly seamless and you did accomplish telling your story (even if I personally didn't like the story itself). You certainly came up with one of the most unique uses for the required prop! :)

Don't take my personal preference as discouragement... I think overall you did a good job telling your story!
 
lol, Josh, where did this come from? :)

Fun piece, and intensely amazing given how quickly you did it. You have real talent my friend.

Btw, LOVE that wide shot outdoors. Did you do sky replacement?
 
I didn't get the story. Sure the wide shot looked nice, but that's just a shot. I really didn't get the story. Wasn't drawn into the story. I wasn't rooting for anyone and I was left non-pulse. I don't think the story lived up to the poster. At least your bacon prop was used appropriately to further the story along.
 
Haha. This one was funny. It was more honest and true to life than Taco Bell's Bacon Club Chalupa commercial :smile:

The music was great. However I was having some problem listening to the voice over the volume of the music. In terms of cinematography, the cooking bacon and outdoor field scene were strongest.
 
Querky little film and a good laugh. (that bacon was making me hungry!) Wide shot ruled.
But MY favorite was the knife coming out of the jacket sleeve...too funny. The score pulled it
all together although maybe a bit loud in spots. Good work and an enjoyable film.
 
EditPhish said:
My criticisms: I found the narrator hard to hear at times, especially at the end. I'm not a big fan of narration in general and I wonder how your story could have played out without it, relying on more internal dialog and visuals instead... but of course, that's really a personal preference thing... a choice you made as a director that though I disagree with, doesn't mean you're wrong. JTyner and I strongly disagreed on this film... he liked the idea of it a whole lot more than I did... he thought it was funny in a good way; I felt it was silly in a bad way. It is amazing how subjective our opinions on individual films can be.

My compliments: Your wide shots out in the field were amazingly beautiful... stunning. I never felt like you as the film maker were getting in the way of the film itself... the editing was mostly seamless and you did accomplish telling your story (even if I personally didn't like the story itself). You certainly came up with one of the most unique uses for the required prop! :)

Don't take my personal preference as discouragement... I think overall you did a good job telling your story!
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EditPhish, thanks for your thoughts. I struggled with the sound level for the narration. I decided early on to do all the sound in SoundTrack Pro (as I have always wanted to conquer it) but found a few simple things like dynamic levels difficult to do. So my inexperience got in the way for that.
As far as my choice to do VO instead of dialogue, I knew going in to it that my "actors" were inexperienced and was wary of their ability to deliver. I made an executive directorial decision early on to do a complete narration so they could focus on "being in the scene". So, basically, I was uncomfortable with actually letting my actors speak. haha. But I felt it was the strongest way I could do it with my talent.

Thank you, I'm curious of the phrase "getting int he way of the film". I think I understand, but if you could explain that a bit more I would appreciate it. I really enjoyed the landscape shot myself, but was worried it was weak. I'm glad you liked it so much!
 
Shawn Philip Nelson said:
lol, Josh, where did this come from? :)

Fun piece, and intensely amazing given how quickly you did it. You have real talent my friend.

Btw, LOVE that wide shot outdoors. Did you do sky replacement?
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Shawn! I can do more than grip! haha. Thanks for the compliments.
I contemplated a sky replacement, but I was watching the horizon and saw that clouds were coming and shot it when I felt best. I had a secondary grade for the sky alone keyed to the chroma values. So I pulled as much contrast into the clouds as I could muster and still look good. I'm glad you liked it!
 
Charli said:
I didn't get the story. Sure the wide shot looked nice, but that's just a shot. I really didn't get the story. Wasn't drawn into the story. I wasn't rooting for anyone and I was left non-pulse. I don't think the story lived up to the poster. At least your bacon prop was used appropriately to further the story along.
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Charli, I'm glad you liked the poster at least. It's too bad you didn't get the story. But I didn't expect everyone to. In fact, I'm surprised that so many people have so far.
It was difficult to root for anyone in particular. I felt that in this instance you were torn to root for the main lead because, well, he was a dictator. But he appeared so hapless that it was almost pitiful. Again thanks for the thoughts.
 
Hitaish said:
Haha. This one was funny. It was more honest and true to life than Taco Bell's Bacon Club Chalupa commercial :smile:

The music was great. However I was having some problem listening to the voice over the volume of the music. In terms of cinematography, the cooking bacon and outdoor field scene were strongest.
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Hitaish, I'm glad you liked the bacon cooking. I was afraid that it was actually the weakest part in the whole film. I'm curious exactly which parts of that sequence made it so strong cinematographically for you.
 
ZazaCast said:
Querky little film and a good laugh. (that bacon was making me hungry!) Wide shot ruled.
But MY favorite was the knife coming out of the jacket sleeve...too funny. The score pulled it
all together although maybe a bit loud in spots. Good work and an enjoyable film.
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Ah! The knife! We had fun with the score at that point. We made it a bit playful, which is obviously wrong for a knife scene. Hehe.
Yes, the score was too loud at spots. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was having trouble figuring out SoundTrack Pro. There were some features I thought should be simple to do but couldn't figure out. Maybe I just didn't understand the programs workflow philosophy.
BUT my narrators voice and the cello shared very similar wavelengths so it was very tough to make it heard at all. My original submission (that failed to upload) was even worse, so I'm glad I got a chance to re-submit.
Thank you!
 
Joshua Brown said:
...Thank you, I'm curious of the phrase "getting int he way of the film". I think I understand, but if you could explain that a bit more I would appreciate it. I really enjoyed the landscape shot myself, but was worried it was weak. I'm glad you liked it so much!
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What I mean is that when watching your film, I wasn't thinking about YOU actually making it... I didn't notice the editing and the shots themselves seemed natural. You were mostly invisible in the process of telling your story (other than with some of the sound issues), which is a compliment. Does that make sense?

And I do understand about working with actors... it's an area JTyner and I are still growing in and with our MonsterFest film we stayed away from dialog at least partially for the same reasons as you. We had to stretch ourselves for this one trusting our actors more (and only two of them were what I'd call real actors). We know we have to really get outside our comfort zone if we're going to step up our game... we have to start to work with more people... not just family and friends - LOL
 
I actually thought it started a little slow, but once it got going I loved it! I thought it was very quirky and funny. Well done. I'm going to watch it again right now. Great play with the prop.
 
I won't touch on the sound mix as you've already explained your issues with it.

I liked the visuals. Nice mix of shots. Everything went together quite well.
The edit was smooth and nothing was jarring.

Loved some of the closeup shots. Very nicely done.
Quite a quirky little tale. Kept me interested throughout but may have started a little slow.

Solid entry overall.
 
Sound – I found the narrator’s voice and score really worked against each other, it was hard for me to make out either. That said, I liked both the score and the narrator. The outside shots looked great, but felt like stills – not sure if they were or not, but definitely felt like stills. I loved the punchline, and the joke with the gas range. The jokes were good, but I felt like there were not enough of them, so the film kind of fell between being a dark comedy and just being dark. Good effort, best use of prop I've seen so far - thanks for putting this in.
 
EditPhish said:
What I mean is that when watching your film, I wasn't thinking about YOU actually making it... I didn't notice the editing and the shots themselves seemed natural. You were mostly invisible in the process of telling your story (other than with some of the sound issues), which is a compliment. Does that make sense?

And I do understand about working with actors... it's an area JTyner and I are still growing in and with our MonsterFest film we stayed away from dialog at least partially for the same reasons as you. We had to stretch ourselves for this one trusting our actors more (and only two of them were what I'd call real actors). We know we have to really get outside our comfort zone if we're going to step up our game... we have to start to work with more people... not just family and friends - LOL
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@ EditPhish: Ah yes, that makes sense. Quite a compliment I think, actually! Thank you!
And yes, next time I have time I will be incorporate more actual acting. haha.


hansel960 said:
I actually thought it started a little slow, but once it got going I loved it! I thought it was very quirky and funny. Well done. I'm going to watch it again right now. Great play with the prop.
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@Hansel960 Awesome! I'm glad you liked it. It was supposed to start just a little slow so that by the time you got to the meat the story felt more played out. I just hope it wasn't too long. :p


Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
I won't touch on the sound mix as you've already explained your issues with it.

I liked the visuals. Nice mix of shots. Everything went together quite well.
The edit was smooth and nothing was jarring.

Loved some of the closeup shots. Very nicely done.
Quite a quirky little tale. Kept me interested throughout but may have started a little slow.

Solid entry overall.
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@MAH Thank you very much for the compliments. There were a few shots (in the cooking scene) that were a bit jumpy but because of time I couldn't really re-shoot them. But I didn't feel they were too bad.
You're the second person now to say it started a little slow. At which point did you feel it picked up? I'll re-evaluate my pacing.


4100xpb said:
Sound – I found the narrator’s voice and score really worked against each other, it was hard for me to make out either. That said, I liked both the score and the narrator. The outside shots looked great, but felt like stills – not sure if they were or not, but definitely felt like stills. I loved the punchline, and the joke with the gas range. The jokes were good, but I felt like there were not enough of them, so the film kind of fell between being a dark comedy and just being dark. Good effort, best use of prop I've seen so far - thanks for putting this in.
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@4100xpb Your absolutely right, they did fight each other for presence. I'm going to see what I can do in the future to make that better.
The outside shots were live action, but at that distance, most stuff feels practically still. In many older films where long holds are more common, I am often left with the same feeling. I don't know if it's our conditioning to fast paced films these days, but given the precedence of some of these great old films, I wasn't worried about a static feeling shot.
Glad you liked the punchline and jokes. Your right, there isn't more than two jokes really other than the overall feel of the film which is a bit of a joke as a whole.


Thank you everyone for taking time to review my film. I really appreciate it. If there are more of you who had a few thoughts outside those already expressed, I'd love to hear them!
 
I DID understand the story and found it wonderfully wacky. I like how the main character talks about power but then admits to having no... charisma. Charisma can mean many things, but for this character, it means people being attracted to him. He loves bacon, he knows everyone loves bacon, so he created a perfume of bacon scent.

Side note: go rent the movie PERFUME - very creepy movie about a similar concept.

He applies the scent, and sure enough, people are attracted to him. But the twist is, they attracted to him TOO MUCH. They now want to eat him.
I loved this!
 
I loved this. Very funny punchline although by the time it was delivered it was kind of inevitible.

Well done.
 
Matt Harris said:
I DID understand the story and found it wonderfully wacky. I like how the main character talks about power but then admits to having no... charisma. Charisma can mean many things, but for this character, it means people being attracted to him. He loves bacon, he knows everyone loves bacon, so he created a perfume of bacon scent.

Side note: go rent the movie PERFUME - very creepy movie about a similar concept.

He applies the scent, and sure enough, people are attracted to him. But the twist is, they attracted to him TOO MUCH. They now want to eat him.
I loved this!
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Matt, you hit the nail on the head. Pretty straightforward. No real twists... sort of a Grimm bedtime story style. Thanks for the comments.


Susanne G. said:
This was a funny story and a funny film - I enjoyed it in a certain way.

Susanne
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Awesome! I love that you enjoyed it "in a certain way". It certainly isn't mainstream comedy. :D


MrFluffy said:
I loved this. Very funny punchline although by the time it was delivered it was kind of inevitible.

Well done.
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I was hoping it was "inevitable" sort of like the character is the only one who doesn't see it. Thank you!



SideNote: don't believe I've made this clear yet. But the sound was complete Foley. Nothing in here is real (as far as sound goes). Hope you enjoyed it. It's my first try at complete ADR/Foley/SFX.
 
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