Hitoribochi - "Alone"

This was a very interesting subject to tackle, isolation, stigmas, and sibling rivalry. I thought the performance from the two leads were strong, but some of the conversation between the lead and the woman were a little forced, but still solid.

I feel that the music might be pushing for a little too much of a dramatic effect even though it's a fairly strong piece.

The sound and image were consistent throughout. That's a definite plus. :thumbsup:

It was nice to see the character make effort in the end to change his habits. I'm highly pessimistic when it comes to religion, but I don't feel that the film was "preachy" or over the top, so that's good. People will take it in many ways and interpretations.

Congrats on the film. Solid effort! :beer:
 
A strong effort for your first entry :thumbup:

The image was nice but you never gave it time to breathe, there was hardly any story told through visuals, mainly just dialogue, that much dialogue can become a bit much after a while.

Characterization was great except for maybe a very brief change in character that could be worked out. You had a good harmony with your audio and visuals though, it never felt inconsistent or changed, so well done.
 
Thanks for commenting guys! This has really been a learning experience for me. I will be thinking through a lot of these issues for the next one.
 
Norman, you did a nice job here. All the actors looked great, but their acting at times looked dis-connected. I think a lot more could have been said with fewer words. At times it felt a little repetitious, one or two lines could have been removed. The camera work is really good. Overall, a very nice first entry in a short period of time. Not an easy task.
 
Norman! You did it! This was actually quite good for a first attempt and you even made the leap outside the main location. Some of us would have cowered to the realtive safety of inside.

The story was conveyed very well, with conflict and a decision, so you had a definite arc for your characters. You had a definite sense of growth for ALL of the chracters and that is rare in a first effort, and in a lot of cases, even for a 3 or 4th film. You have the ideas and the story and you actually know how to shape characters and their development. That right there is HUGE.

Unfortunately it is overshadowed by the one flaw we've all succumbed to at one point or the other: they enter a room and sit down and talk.

Thankfully, this is an easily solvable problem. You just need to work with your blocking and give your characters something to do besides talk. Maybe it's a cultural thing where Japanese people don't touch their friend's stuff, but it gives a sense of familiarity and comfort if one friend is moving about the room, doing something other than confronting his friend. Movement within the scene also dictates camera movement and give us thing to look at, things that can inform us about the characters without having to say a word.

Add blocking, and informed camera movement to your shots and you have a much different film. It's already working on several levels so you've accomplished a bit.

If you hadn' told us, I wouldn't have believed this was your first short film.
 
Just watched it ... good message. I just read that this was your 1st film? CONGRATS! Solid outing for a 1st project for sure.

It was difficult for me to tell with the acting, because it was in a different language, but I got the impression that the supporting male lead was better or more experienced than the male lead ... the actual lead just seemed to yell his lines a lot, which may or may not be normal for the Japanese culture, I'm not sure, but from where I was sitting much of it came across to me like Samurai war cries. :)

If the room wasn't already dressed that way, good job on all the set design, and filling the frame!

One thing I've noticed, which is pretty natural for people newer to filmmaking, is the director also being the camera operator. Once you can find someone you really trust to work the camera, you're going to see directing in an entirely new light, and be able to focus on it more. Something I heard a long time ago, and try to stick by was this: "The secret to success is surrounding yourself with people more talented than you are". So as you can begin to delegate things out, the more you can focus on directing, while having people even more profiicient than you at certain things be able to bring a LOT to the table.

Good luck in the fest & thanks for making this!
 
Noel Evans said:
IMO you are correct, in addition I think the female was the outstanding performance in this piece.
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You both were very perceptive, particularly seeing through the Japanese! The female, Yuuko, is regular on the local theater circuit, the supporting male, Fumiyoshi, has appeared in several plays and in one movie. The lead, Kenichi, has done commercial voice work and DJ but limited acting.

I was happy with all of them, Kenichi's performance was hindered by my direction/ or lack thereof so I take full responsibility for any flaws there... as everywhere else!
 
Norm Sanders said:
Just watched it ... good message. I just read that this was your 1st film? CONGRATS! Solid outing for a 1st project for sure.

If the room wasn't already dressed that way, good job on all the set design, and filling the frame!
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Thanks! And thanks for noticing the set. We spent HOURS cutting out people from magazines to tape to the wall. The original idea was to show something about the main character through the photos on the wall, I ended up not getting most of those shots though, the ones I did get were mostly cut to hit the 6 min limit.
 
puckthemad said:
Unfortunately it is overshadowed by the one flaw we've all succumbed to at one point or the other: they enter a room and sit down and talk.
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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.
 
Lawsuit_Boy said:
It was nice to see the character make effort in the end to change his habits. I'm highly pessimistic when it comes to religion, but I don't feel that the film was "preachy" or over the top, so that's good. People will take it in many ways and interpretations.
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Thanks for your comments! It was interesting to see your response, I made it and am still not sure about the ending. I didn't have the time (filmmaking chops?) to really take the lead character through change and the inner struggle against change. So even I don't really buy the ending. But it was good practice and I have a few other ideas now, and that is really what this fest is about for me, learning and growing as a filmmaker.
 
when i started watching this movie i was expecting a great twist of events, although im sure your intentions of what came out of the movie were great, to me it felt cut short and gave no explanation to what was really going on with the main character.
 
Hey, pretty sad and touching here.

Acting was brilliant, probably the best in the fest so far, and it was in chinese!

Nice camera and lighting, and the audio seemed to be great in this piece also.

I'm a little confused as to who that guy was. A doctor?

Anyway, I gave a good rating!

Robbie
 
Nice work on your first film warau. Interesting subject matter. It's good to see that with each fest, everybody seems to be expanding their topics.

I had two shots that I really liked. The one when the guy dropped the box just resonated with me. The other is near the end when he was coming down the stairs and the woman stepped forward from the shadows. The expression on her face and the lighting worked really well. I don't know if it was your intent but it felt like it was an visual emphasis on the role that someone who cares for a hikkomori plays....waiting in the shadows...obscured because of the person's illness. Having watched a lot of Japanese movies, the delivery of the actor's dialogue felt pretty spot on. Their delivery of lines just seems indicative of the natural Japanese speaking patterns.

The image was a little muddy but I think that was more from compression. I know you had an extremely small space to work with so shot variation was limited but it also works because of the subject matter. My only other petty nitpick is that the subtitles were a little bit on the blurry side.

OK, I'm done rambling. Good first job warau, really. Looking forward to seeing what else you do.
 
Thanks for the comments guys! I am taking it all down and hoping to take things up a notch in the next fest! Your comments are really invaluable, it is great to have the perspective of a fresh set of eyes after watching it myself SOOOOO many times. At the end I only saw the mistakes, nice that someone else found something worthwhile in it.
 
I thought this was a really interesting and engaging piece. While I agree with puck about the blocking, I actually kind of like that the main character never really leaves the desk. It fits the theme quite well. However, if he got up and then end and moved, think of the implications...

This was a really great first film. I would be totally embarrassed to show you guys my first film from 12 years ago - congrats for putting out it out there and having such a successful first effort!
 
Thanks for the comments, Will. This has been a challenging process,to transfer an idea to paper and then to translate that into a short film. Watching everyone's films is equally valuable as I get to see how they approached the subject.
I must say I never really thought about the blocking during the shoot! (oops..) I was just focused and getting then main story told. Many shots were totally unusable so that limited my selection in editing. One step at a time, right?
 
First film? Excellent work based on that alone.

A little depressing and dark but the acting was good. The story seemed cut off though, like you ran out of time. Technically it was pretty good. Maybe just add a few more shots to shake things up. Helps while editing as well.

MAH
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
First film? Excellent work based on that alone.

A little depressing and dark but the acting was good. The story seemed cut off though, like you ran out of time. Technically it was pretty good. Maybe just add a few more shots to shake things up. Helps while editing as well.

MAH
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Thanks for the nice comments!
I did struggle with where to end it. I still don't have a better idea, it seemed to me if you went to far past a certain point you would have to go even further to find a good break , and there are only 6 min to work with! Aargh! It was fun to try anyway. Now I can't stop thinking about what I would do differently.
 
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