SHORT: H.E.P.

dude i loved it great concept. Only thing that turned me of was the end when you kept cutting back and forth to the wifes face, other then that its was awesome.
 
Stopped at 50 seconds? lol Any chance to start again but now after the opening credits? I know it's boring sometimes, but I wanted to do it almost like an intro to the kind of story I'd be telling.
 
I too was put off by the opening credits. I skipped to the middle of the film, found it very good, then went back and watched the beginning. Notes:

-Why so jerky on the opening camera move? This is a pretty key shot for the film.
-Acting: Excellent
-Language and subtitles: fun to watch, but why not proofread your subtitles? For all the effort you put into other elements of filmmaking, it's a pity to have sloppy text. e.g. complains/complaints...sorry, I forget the other one I noticed.
-The end I find less compelling than the beginning and middle. Why the lovemaking noises when he discovers them safely post-coitus? Why is the lover wearing pants under a bathrobe? Why her half-animated existence before and during strangulation?
-Crossing the line between husband and wife. I don't know if you broke this rule for effect, but to me it seems like a good example of why the rule is there in the first place.

All in all, really nice job. I enjoyed it.
 
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Great pointers Charlie.

1 - Opening camera move is jerky, I know. We did that on a hurry, it was the last shot, and when I was filming, it actually looked less jerky than it actually was. :(
2 - I was fortunate to have great actors.
3 - Definitely a great advice. My language is not english, so some errors might come through. I have to check it again.
4 - All of that is actually made on purpose. The whole house scene is kind of a dream, a special "broadcast" that the HEP TV generated for that customer. He didn't actually killed anyone, he just got in the TV and was forever stuck in there. So everything in there has its own reality "faults", like the wife not struggling while he was strangling her. It's not really his wife, just a TV generated figure that was standing there for him to do what he wanted. Maybe that didn't came through as I wished, but that was the intention :)
5 - I didn't understand this point, I'm sorry. Which rule?

Thanks for watching and having the time to share your thoughts. That is really important!
 
That was great. I see why you wanted to keep your intro but I only sat through it because of the comments here. It helps to make a successful transition to your world but without a captive audience such as in a cinema it is unlikely to overcome audience impatience. I am very patient at the movies but on the internet I'm all click-click-click. I'm not saying compromise your artistic vision, what you did is valid. I'm saying it's something to think about. The fact I sat through it did serve as a meditative boundary through which I crossed into your film and it did leave me in a better mental state to absorb it. At the same time if I had moved on quickly I never would have known this. You'll have to decide what that means and whether or not to make changes.

Once passed that hurdle I was almost immediately sucked into it. The salesman actor was hypnotising. That is a face made for the screen. Loved every moment of his performance. The camera loved every line in his face. The customer was solid too. The whole movie was not arty but artfully done. You used wonderful techniques that served the material, not just random technique for it's own sake. It resulted in a very cohesive and wonderfully stylised little film.

The jerky scene didn't bother me too much. It did stand out as maybe the only technique that was a little clumsy but it didn't detract from it at all for me. As already mentioned the spelling errors in the subtitles detracted from the final polish of the movie. Most subtitled independent shorts I've seen on the net have this issue but yours really deserves perfect subtitles because it is a good film which you can be proud of. Give it that final professional touch. I liked the part referred to in comment 4. I took it to mean more or less what you intended and thought it suited the tone of the piece perfectly. If crossing the line was unintentional you were lucky because it worked to add to the disconcerting effect you were otherwise going for.

Crossing the line refers to a rule that says the camera should never cross the line created by the eyeline of two actors looking at each other. It makes for more natural editing but in this situation it can be broken for a deliberate technique to disorient the audience.
 
cross.jpg Egg Born explained it well...you set up the shot with C, and then went to A. Unconventional but not necessarily wrong. I watched it again and realized that what bothered me was not the switch from C to A, but from A to B...because his eye-line seems off. If I had to guess, the actress wasn't sitting there when you got this close-up of him, and he was just guessing the point in space to look at. If I'm wrong, I retract the whole criticism.
 
Ah ok. Got it. I know that rule very well, I just got confused when you said "crossing the line between husband and wife" lol. I have to see the movie again to check out the shot you're talking about :)
 
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