Mi, RoBoT

Beat Takeshi

Beat Takeshi

Two-Hip Shakur
Hi guys,
Here is my and MsManhattan's little submission for your entertainment.
Enjoy!

EDIT:: Im posting some screenies until the short gets put up.

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Mi_RoBoT01.jpg
 
I just wanted to give Aram credit for all the heavy-lifting on our submission. We co-wrote it and mapped out all the shots and edits in advance. I conferred with him remotely on the shoot and the editing details, but he did all the hands-on work on this one while I was away over the Christmas holidays (see, sometimes it's good to be the producer...). Also, kudos to Chris Hurn on the score -- thanks, Chris! Finally, thanks to Jessie's Deli on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn for the location shoot; to Aram's daughters for their acting; and to his brother-in-law, Pat Ricca, for his uncredited cameo...
 
errrrrr...it seems thats our submission got lost or something. I re-uploaded a wmv file so hopefully you guys can check it out soon.
 
its not there yet i guess. I saw a post by Jarred asking if anyones was missing and left an FTP open so I uploaded a wmv file to it a little while ago. Hopefully when he gets back it will go up.
 
I just finished watching this so I'm posting without a great deal of thought. It took me a while to warm up to the story but I did. The cinematography was great...until you go to the convenience store. I'm not sure what you were using but I found the different layers of focus a bit distracting. It seemed that sections of the frame were out of focus but it didn't seem like straight DOF.

The shots in the girls' house were beautiful.
 
Thanks guys.
Blain, the store scene was hand rotoscoped to give it a stylized look. Its kind of distracting but the store as a background is soo busy with all the products and stuff. I just thought it would "soften" the blow a little with some suedo DOF.
 
Cool flick, Aram!
I agree with everyone here so far.

Man, do I wish I had one of those controllers when I was a kid.
 
Dug the premise, and I could... relate? Yeah, like Kaz said, I wish I had one of those controllers back in the day.

:)
 
Aram .. this was very , very good .
The opening scene I think set up this short as to what was to come . The shot of Olivia's Sister(?) in the room with the robots was Nice . I liked the way you did this .I also liked the shot of the Rock em Sock em Robots , well I think that's what they were , been a long time .lol.
The 2 girls did an excellent job here ..Kudos to them .
The ending was a total surprise . WOW!!! not only was this a SCI-FI but a great story as well .The music was right on the money.
Ian
 
Hey Aram!
Just watched this one a bit ago, and really liked it! Really cool simple story... really tragic too (in a great way). Loved the naturalistic lighting and cinematography. Also loved how you got the HVX shirt in there ;) hehe. I thought the acting sold fine for this piece, it didn't require a lot of diversity. Overall, very well done film! It will be in my top 10 list for sure!!
 
Thanks guys. Im glad you are liking it because yeah, its a really simple story because it was just me and the kids shooting since MsManhattan was away. Luckily we hammered out the shot list so it was a fast shoot.
I knew I wouldnt have time to do anything like your stories.
Here are some small things I wanted to point out just because they are subtle.
The table scene where shes building the remote, thats not a table. That was a piece of wood on top of a bed in a small room. She was sitting as still as she could so not to bounce the bed and I hid the headboard with the Japanese folding wall which shows up also in the morning scene.
The morning scene with the cat, that was shot 2am and it was dark out. I had to make it look like morning since that was the last day before editing that I had. Lighting tricks did that one. I dont think I had to CC that shot.
I had to hide all the times my younger daughter was laughing. In the store her head is always down because she was giggling her ass off. The crying scene is where I lost my temper a little. :( The 3 of us sat in that store for a few hours because it was a hell of a lot busier than expected Chrismas day. We would get one take and a crowd would come in and we would have to hide in the back until they were gone each time.
The cat... the cat was thrown in to have a reason for a smile on her face when she "woke up" because that was another time she was giggling.
Yup, they didnt have to act too much since thats how they act in real life so I guess it was easy to sell. :)
The truck scene, man... it took so long for a damn truck to come along. I originally shot that on a big street but the angle wasnt right when I truck came because I wasnt about to stand out in the middle of a big street just for a shot.
So i moved to that side street. By the time a truck came along cars had moved people was standing in the background etc. I had to hand roto out most of it to make the 2 scenes fit.
I like this story and I am going to redo this one the way it should be done. Too bad I just saw an Adam Sandler trailer for a movie where he has a remote that controls everything around him so its not feeling very original now.
 
Aram, I realized that I'd not seen this film yet, as it wasn't in my initial list of downloads. I went back and searched for it, as I really wanted to see your film.

Glad I did.

The FX that you had were spot on. I also really enjoyed the titling. Did Chris do the pop/rock song as well?? Cool if he did (I've not read the above posts, maybe you answered that already)!

The lighting and camera work in here were also very nice.

I felt that the animation of the sister/robot dragged on, and the building of the remote control could have been shortened some as well ... both of which would have allowed more time for actual STORY and perhaps some ramifications of her actions (sister getting hit by the truck) and her emotions through it ... really could have ended on a very powerful note. Don't get me wrong, there's still a gut wrenching feeling seeing a family member put in harms way like that, especially if we had something to do with it, but a little more closure (something else) would have been nice.

The only other critique would have been when she was trying to get her sister to respond, and all I really saw was her wiggling around in the shop owners hands, and/or him just shaking her. More dramatic movement/interaction could have been called for, and that could have been shaved down as well, to allow for more story.

Otherwise, I enjoyed this, and really love seeing film makers involve their family in stuff ... which when it's all said and done, that's what matters most. Family.
 
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