Hitoribochi - "Alone"

A great effort.
There was some good shot comp, and REALLY great set design (maybe just a good setting choice) with the clutter and such. Perfect for this movie.

Here's my crits:

-Don't cut to a similar (in this case identical) angle of the same subject in a different position. It makes the audience very camera aware.

-imo fade out and fade ins are kind of out dated. I think its always better to think of a more creative way to symbolize passage of time.

-contrary to what alot of people have said, I didn't think all the acting was incredible. For these dramas impecable acting is a must. Its hard to explain, and this might not be entirely the fault of the actor but rather script/lines/direction, but I thought the way the kid transitioned between emotions seemed a little unnatural. Sounded kinda scripted. However I thought the dad (i think the dad?) was excellent. I think when its in a different language people pay less attention on the acting and more attention on the subtitles.
 
I went into this with super-high hopes. The concept had me since the day you announced the film.

I do like the characters, but I think this was so heavily laden with what others thought he should do, or how he should behave, or avenues he should seek, that we never really got a chance to see and explore just him. Yeah, we got a room full of models and assorted hobbies, but that's not so unusual.

Maybe him looking out a window, or looking at photos of outdoor places, and his longing for adventure is overridden by his fear. Something.

Never really got the whole dropping the box thing. What did I miss?

We didn't get any establishing shots of where this guy was tucked away. Small apartment in a concrete jungle? Farm house?

All in all it is a nice snapshot of an interesting character. Nice to have Japan in the mix!

alex
 
I got excited when I saw your opening into the room with the guy working on models. Great set design. But then things started to go south for me. It turned into talking heads and that got tedious.

It could be a difference in cultures but the acting seemed overwrought and melodramatic to me.

The other problem I had was with the character's breakdown and cry for help at the end. I would have like to seen some kind of lead up to it. As it was it seemed to happen just to quickly for me to find it believable.
 
Blaine said:
The other problem I had was with the character's breakdown and cry for help at the end. I would have like to seen some kind of lead up to it. As it was it seemed to happen just to quickly for me to find it believable.
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This is a common problem in this festival and a fundamental problem with short short films (not bashing your response, Blaine, don't worry). The relationship between the characters could have really been set up in a more fluid and crescendo-like manner, revealing more and more as time passes without cramming, if more time would have been allowed. The story presented is one that needs more time and patience.

Agreed that it was melodramatic and "overwrought," but because of the time limit, it had to get to the punch quick, which obviously is one of the reasons the blow-ups and tension can feel too fabricated and sudden.

With development and refinement, this could be a better short film than a short short film.
 
Lawsuit_Boy said:
This is a common problem in this festival and a fundamental problem with short short films (not bashing your response, Blaine, don't worry). The relationship between the characters could have really been set up in a more fluid and crescendo-like manner, revealing more and more as time passes without cramming, if more time would have been allowed. The story presented is one that needs more time and patience...
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I think the one place a lot of short films fall short is knowing WHERE in the story to begin. There's this whole universe and a bigger story outside of the film and for us, finding the right entry point is the hardest thing. Hitoribochi comes in at the end of the relationship, the possible turning point for the 2 friends, and so much could have been said with simple actions. All of the dialog was directly to the point and might as well have been between 2 strangers.

And this was due to the failure of recognizing the entry point and seeing all of the things that had happened before. Who were they yesterday? what did they usually do when they hung out? Apparently it was watching movie together... and that point was setup but never followed through on. If we had entered on the best friend coming over while the other dude was setting up to watch the movies, kind of in denial of the earlier rejection... that would have been a good way to create a sense of routine, character and ultimately history.

The ending and transition to that would have been a lot more organic... but it depended so much on where we came in to the story.
 
puckthemad said:
I think the one place a lot of short films fall short is knowing WHERE in the story to begin. There's this whole universe and a bigger story outside of the film and for us, finding the right entry point is the hardest thing. Hitoribochi comes in at the end of the relationship, the possible turning point for the 2 friends, and so much could have been said with simple actions. All of the dialog was directly to the point and might as well have been between 2 strangers.

And this was due to the failure of recognizing the entry point and seeing all of the things that had happened before. Who were they yesterday? what did they usually do when they hung out? Apparently it was watching movie together... and that point was setup but never followed through on. If we had entered on the best friend coming over while the other dude was setting up to watch the movies, kind of in denial of the earlier rejection... that would have been a good way to create a sense of routine, character and ultimately history.

The ending and transition to that would have been a lot more organic... but it depended so much on where we came in to the story.
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This is all very true, but depending on where the story comes in, with the six minute limit, the filmmaker is still going to have to chop much out and make compromises. Sure, this film could still make the six minute marker and give more to the audience by making some changes, but if you come in at a certain moment, you're still not given a tremendous amount of time for development of situations, character motivations, and consequences with such a time limit.

I think you're absolutely right that the starting point changes everything, but I contend that the time limit, with this filmmaker's style, does not yield enough opportunity to really make memorable situations or characters.

And if the filmmaker wanted to squeeze more development into the six minutes, he would have had to result to hackneyed techniques that work well only in the most skilled of hands, such as consistent (temporally) voice over and flashbacks/flashforwards. Unfortunately, a lot of the time they're used for covering poor writing or directing and need to be used for expository purposes.
 
You're right. With Norman's current style it certainly isn't possible to put this much into the story. But any script can be developed and tweaked to get all of this information in without exposition or voiceover. It might not be a six minute script, granted... but it can certainly fit an 8 minute or 10 minute script.

Besides, you gotta admit that with that amount of history, conversations would flow so much easier. Hell, if you're Zak Forsman, you can do it with 2 lines of dialog... (damn you Zak! damn you to heck!)
 
Hey my ears have been burning!
But while you were all figuring out what was wrong with my script, I spent most of the last 24 hours on the set of another short film, directed by Koji Nishiyama. If I had had this opportunity BEFORE lossfest, I would have had a better film for sure, I have learned a LOT in the last 24 hours!:beer: We will finish up later this week. I am thinking I still have more to learn before he is done.

Back to Hitoribochi - I agree, I had real trouble deciding where to begin AND end the story (the middle part was a little muddy too..:(.). This was my first script in addition to first short film. 6 minutes seems awfully short to tell much of a story with my current knowledge of film techniques ( I don't really think you can say I have a style yet!:Drogar-Dum(DBG):). Part of my desire to enter these fest is to learn and practice so that I CAN tell a story without resorting to talking heads.

Thanks for all the comments on set design, it was intentional and took about 5 hours to do so I am glad it was noticed!

Blaine, you are probably right about the melodramatic acting, which would be my fault as a director. They first takes were all so emotionless and low key that I couldn't imagine that they would work. My mistake...:(

Alex, the dropped box was part of a longer scene that showed him as a busy "salaryman". It was cut down and I left the dropped box in because it is the only scene where anything was happening! Oh, and "establishing shots", hmmm, yeah, I have heard of those... (oops... it was on the shot list...which was put down and forgotten within minutes of the first day of shooting).

Thanks for all the comments, man, this is like a filmmaking cram school! I love it!
 
warau said:
If I had had this opportunity BEFORE lossfest, I would have had a better film for sure, I have learned a LOT in the last 24 hours!:beer: We will finish up later this week. I am thinking I still have more to learn before he is done.
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I agree with a lot of the other posts in this thread, so I won't rehash anything. I did like your film very much. Good job.

I think we all have a lot to learn......perhaps the beauty of this site and it's "fests".
 
Don;t you just hate it when we talk about narrative and style while you're gone?

I take it you're enjoying your experience on set?
 
puckthemad said:
Don;t you just hate it when we talk about narrative and style while you're gone?

I take it you're enjoying your experience on set?
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All the best conversations happen without me:crybaby:

I am loving the time on set with someone who knows what they are doing in charge!
I am also realizing that working with actors is a talent all to itself. I am starting to agree with the opinion that casting is a MAJOR point in having a good film. In our area there are very few actors to chose from so it is a struggle when you have a small budget.
 
just saw your film and liked the effort that went into it, you tackled a huge story line. i thought the friend was good with his acting i liked his exchange with the sister about who failed who. if only the entire film played on this level, this would've been awesome. as it is, i still liked it but the exchange between the friend and the lead seemed forced. too much talking maybe or maybe the lead was too full blast all the time. the lead seemed so spoiled in his responses to his sister that it made it hard to root for him, but this might be a cultural thing so i don't know.... good work!
 
hoz said:
just saw your film and liked the effort that went into it, you tackled a huge story line. i thought the friend was good with his acting i liked his exchange with the sister about who failed who. if only the entire film played on this level, this would've been awesome. as it is, i still liked it but the exchange between the friend and the lead seemed forced. too much talking maybe or maybe the lead was too full blast all the time. the lead seemed so spoiled in his responses to his sister that it made it hard to root for him, but this might be a cultural thing so i don't know.... good work!
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Thanks for the comments! About the lead seeming spoiled, that was the point of that exchange with his sister, to show how spoiled that he is, with no real motivation to change anything. You weren't supposed to be rooting for him at that point so I did something right!
 
I was more engaged by this piece than I originally thought I would be. I think it's a pretty good story and I thought the acting was pretty good, although if you don't speak the same language as the characters it's not always easy to gauge. Regardless I thought the main character turned in a pretty good performance.

The sound wasn't all that good for me for some reason, sounded very metallic, perhaps it's a technical problem on my end since others think it's pretty good.

warau said:
The original idea was to show something about the main character through the photos on the wall.
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Ah, that explains the dolly shot at 5:10. I was wondering what that was doing in there; it didn't seem to fit and struck me as a shot that was supposed to be trimmed out but was forgotten about.


warau said:
Thanks for the comments! I enjoyed making it. You know, I didn't really think about this until editing, then it was too late, I had 10 minutes of people talking to edit into a 6 minute film... of people talking. Who knew?:crybaby:

I think I will post a big sign above my computer while writing the next script, SHOW, DON'T TELL.
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A problem I succumbed to in my entry and it was a lesson I won't forget for next time. One thing that I think will help me in the future is really cutting down on the amount of dialog.

All-in-all I was more impressed by this film than I thought I would be when I got to the end. Nice job. Looking forward to your next entry.
 
warau said:
HOh, and "establishing shots", hmmm, yeah, I have heard of those... (oops... it was on the shot list...which was put down and forgotten within minutes of the first day of shooting).
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In a short I wouldnt worry too much about those. Tell your story. Cut the junk.

Look at the top 8 - count the establishing shots.
 
John LaBonney said:
The sound wasn't all that good for me for some reason, sounded very metallic, perhaps it's a technical problem on my end since others think it's pretty good.
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Thanks for your comments, I am glad you got something out of the film. The sound IS bad:beer:. It is metallic in the scene by the doorway, I think the metal door and tile floor caused an echo that sounded funky. I should have put some carpet or a blanket on the floor, I think?:undecided

Part of the leads dialogue was shot with no help so the mike was on a stand, and obviously not in the best location, so poor sound once again. :(

The good news is, I think I have learned enough to keep from making the same mistakes next time! I will get to make all new ones! :)
 
Noel Evans said:
In a short I wouldnt worry too much about those. Tell your story. Cut the junk.

Look at the top 8 - count the establishing shots.
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Good point. But I still would have liked to at least get the shots so I have the option o fusing them. Or at least to show that I used my shot list. :thumbup:
 
Hmm, so he's just sitting around feeling sorry for himself? the performances seemed genuine, and I always love a "...done that himself" line. ST;E3:ROTS "You have done that yourself!!!", Obi Wan Kenobi.
 
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