SHORT: Film noir short

Yes when I first came to the forum it was technically content heavy but it imo had nice balance of filmmakers at all levels trying to make films and impress buddies on the forum. All the dvxuser fests have sadly passed into history. Maybe it's threads ( not malicious, just very judgey) like this one that gives one another reason not to post projects here. Very little balance, now I'm the last one to advocate a trophy for everyone but maybe a little perspective. It's a four minute film shot in afternoon. If this film was posted ten years ago on this forum it would probably be a much more balanced discussion. Maybe it's just glut of personal projects floating around these days. If you're working in the media field for any amount of time you'll be bombarded with folks looking fir feedback and it's easy to become numb to them. I guess easiest thing to do is just look at technical problems. Sorry for the rant, I appreciate all who share their perspective on this forum.
 
Yup yup. It’s all true. But it seems universal...there’s a guitar forum I browse regularly and most of the threads are about...gear. Very little original music from members posted. More covers of people youve been hearing on rock radio for 50 years. But mostly stuff about which amp or guitar to buy and how to get this or that tone.
 
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I don't get some of the complaints here. I assume that we all live in the real world and are acutely aware of just how extremely difficult it is to get any feedback on your work. A screenplay you can't get anyone to read. A film you can't get anyone to watch. Music you can't get anyone to listen to. This short got several responses - and not just one word ones like "cool", "good", "nice" etc., but actually responses that are useful to the OP. HELLO??!! The OP should be down on his knees crying with gratitude that he got any responses at all! The vast majority of stuff posted gets ZERO responses. Do you really prefer that? Unbelievable. And one poster then remarks about how getting these technical responses but without an indepth critique of just the right kind was enough to discourage one from posting projects... LOL! I mean, if you don't post, you'll get no response, and you think that's better? Better nothing than a response to technical aspects? Wow. It's like that old joke about the woman on the beach - her kid was swept up in the strong current, drowning, a man risked his life to rescue the kid and the woman looks up and goes "my boy had a hat?! where is his hat??"

Here's the score. There's a tsunami of content produced every day fighting for exposure, or indeed any response at all. A threat not to post your content is laughable in the extreme. Nobody will notice the lack of your special snowflake in the ocean, trust me.

You post your stuff and you pray it gets any response, period. Someone taking time out of their day to comment - helpfully, I may add, in this thread - and you have a complaint about "where's the hat?" LOL! Talk about entitlement. Would it be nice to get more of a critique of the content in addition to technical remarks? Sure, and a pony would be nice too, with a nice bow please.

And more to the point. You want remarks about the content apart from the technical aspect? To be brutally honest - or simply plain as day realistic - deliver content that sparks the motivation to a discussion. That's on the artist or content producer. Why, oh why won't people talk about my piece? Well, maybe make your piece stand out? The majority of stuff that gets posted is too mediocre to give anyone enough of a charge to bother responding. That's to be expected, after all, it follows Sturgeon's Law - "90% of everything is cr@p". So the majority of stuff posted will not excite anyone to make a remark.

The other factor is that a technical critique is easier to deliver, because there is less of a subjective judgment. When you start talking about artistic aspects, people get offended and who needs a bunch of babies who can't take feedback even though they asked for it - and yes, I've had that experience more than once, as a result, I now have cut back dramatically on giving feedback - life is too short.

Bottom line - the OP got a ton of good, useful, actionable, educational feedback. The correct response to that is "THANK YOU VERY, VERY, VERY MUCH!", not complain about the hat.
 
I for one thought the feedback provided was very helpful. I agree with what OldCorpse said above, especially being thankful anyone commented at all. If you are going to post your content you have to have thick enough skin to take the feedback. No learns, or grows from comments like "Good, Nice or Well done".
 
I recently posted my first short here (created about 5 years ago)- got almost 1900 views and no comments (it even had A7S I footage with good skintones and a laser battle (GH4+green screen) lol)...

Agree with above post- most content here gets no response. Why? Because it’s not bad enough. Or it’s not good enough. To coin a new phrase, “it lives in Mediocrity Valley!” (related to Uncanny Valley). Make clear technical mistakes or hilariously bad content (like The Room) or something with a great story to get comments. Anything living in MV gets Yawns and Crickets.

0 = perfectly mediocre, +/- 2 sigma to get a response- stay out of the middle ;)
normal-curve.jpg
 
Appreciate the advice and the comments on here, guys. I'm always wary about crushing the blacks as when viewed on a bigger telly it really looks awful.

I used film noir for ease of conversation. What I was trying to do was subvert a few of the film noir tropes by featuring a femme fatale as the protagonist and heroine of the piece rather than the man. As for as the technical aspects of film noir is concerned, lighting was not in my control here so I did not have to luxury of creating hard shadows, however, there are numerous noirs with soft lighting and such.

Anyway, this was done within two hours and is being selected to be shown at festivals and film events, so while I understand that most people on here did not take to it, it has found somewhat of an audience, low black levels be damned :happy:
 
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