-- Pete's Sake --

Hoz, once again you're thinking outside the box. I really do like the way you think about your stories and I'm so glad that we can look at everything you've done and see your constant progression to being a better filmmaker... and still see the absolutely unique sense of story that you bring to each project. That is easily your biggest asset right there: that vision.

I wonder how far ahead of time you get the story and start scripting. Do you go through a massive amount of rewrites before you get to the script that is the one that is shootable? I'd love to hear more about your development process and see how much time you spend in pre-production. That's something that I felt this film could have benefited from and cleared up some of the script problems. Especially how to present them in an effective visual way.

I liked your lead actress. Excellent choice there. She's a strong one and you need to hang on to her, maybe even write your next script with her in mind. I'd still really like to see you not in front of the camera. This is where I think you will shine even more when you can fully focus on just directing, instead of doing both. You'll find yourself delivering a much stronger piece when you can focus all of your attention. It hard enough shooting and directing but damn... to have to act AND direct? Yowza.

Anyway, this was a fun piece and took me right in the story. Nice subtle dolly move at the start there, but then there was the one shot that took me out of if a little (just a little though)... the one where the vampire walks towards him... the door is closed and she's walking from the back of the closed door... it literally looks like she walked through the door. Just remember to set up the scene so you always know where your characters are coming from.... and where they're going to.

I'm going to stress this one with you one more time by the way. I know you had limited time, but you have gotta focus more on getting those closeups. Remember: the closeup will always save your ass in editing. It gives you something to cut to. You can break up a scene with a closeup, or even extend the scene... the closeup is your tool for pacing.

Okay that's outt my system. :grin:.

All in all it's a good effort and a huge improvement. I always want to watch your film cuz I know you wont let me down with your wacky ideas. Hell I may even want to pick your brain for ideas sometime.

Well done my friend. :beer:
 
Good job. My only complaint was that I didn't really understand how or why he turned into a vampire. I'll leave all the technical stuff to the experts.
 
I agree with Rod I would have come in with her already in step from the door, she looked posed. Also, when you freeze people, they really have to practice it to come off real. The first guy jittered, the girl friend kept blinking. You need to shoot while her eyes are wide opened and then keep reshooting to get the real effect.

It's hard and tedious, but it can be done. It was okay.
 
Chris_Keaton said:
Good job. My only complaint was that I didn't really understand how or why he turned into a vampire. I'll leave all the technical stuff to the experts.
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he turned into one when she kissed him. the couple had the spell all wrong.
 
hoz said:
he turned into one when she kissed him. the couple had the spell all wrong.
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See Hoz: we do think alike. My guys got the spell wrong too... but you got to get the special contact lenses. Those were supercool by the way. Good investment.
 
Charli said:
I agree with Rod I would have come in with her already in step from the door, she looked posed. Also, when you freeze people, they really have to practice it to come off real. The first guy jittered, the girl friend kept blinking. You need to shoot while her eyes are wide opened and then keep reshooting to get the real effect.

It's hard and tedious, but it can be done. It was okay.
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yep, i wanted to redo the door scene too except that i couldn't get my two actresses back on the same day to reshoot it. i did wish to see the vampire from far away at that point. i wanted her to be standing at the far side of the room with people buzzing in between her and pete. pete would be struggling to see her but he'd be captivated by her nonetheless. the next shot would be pete sitting on the couch struggling to see her and then cut to the vampire standing right in front of him, as if she floated on over. the fiance would then be standing behind the vampire and would look at the vampire with disdain. then cut back to pete as he "wecolmes" the vampire as she sits down next to him.

oh man, i did not plan on having any sort of problems with people freezing. it is harder than it looks. man that was a miss on my part. a big miss.

thanks for the comments, charli!
 
Rodney V. Smith said:
See Hoz: we do think alike. My guys got the spell wrong too... but you got to get the special contact lenses. Those were supercool by the way. Good investment.
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thanks! they sucked to wear though!! they were too big and my eyes still don't feel all that great. Carla was such a good sport! the price for art! that said, i want to wear em out one day to work. nothing like freaking out people in public for no good reason. i once wore a large dirty mop looking wig around all these different public places. i looked homeless. the reactions i got... it was quite the experience. people literally ran away. it was quite sad in fact. come to think of it its great for getting to think outside the box. simply go outside the "box".

of course you got to put your brother through make up hell, that must have been kinda fun actually. and then you don't even show it! that must've been really fun!
" hey, brother."
" Yeah."
" look, um, that whole scene with you and the makeup, the stuff that took hours to put on ."
" Yeah?"
" Well, I had a problem."
" Yeah?"
" I couldn't use it."

must make for some neat times at the dinner table. shoot thats a movie right there. the makeup.
 
Rodney V. Smith said:
Hoz, once again you're thinking outside the box. I really do like the way you think about your stories and I'm so glad that we can look at everything you've done and see your constant progression to being a better filmmaker... and still see the absolutely unique sense of story that you bring to each project. That is easily your biggest asset right there: that vision.

I wonder how far ahead of time you get the story and start scripting. Do you go through a massive amount of rewrites before you get to the script that is the one that is shootable? I'd love to hear more about your development process and see how much time you spend in pre-production. That's something that I felt this film could have benefited from and cleared up some of the script problems. Especially how to present them in an effective visual way.

I liked your lead actress. Excellent choice there. She's a strong one and you need to hang on to her, maybe even write your next script with her in mind. I'd still really like to see you not in front of the camera. This is where I think you will shine even more when you can fully focus on just directing, instead of doing both. You'll find yourself delivering a much stronger piece when you can focus all of your attention. It hard enough shooting and directing but damn... to have to act AND direct? Yowza.

Anyway, this was a fun piece and took me right in the story. Nice subtle dolly move at the start there, but then there was the one shot that took me out of if a little (just a little though)... the one where the vampire walks towards him... the door is closed and she's walking from the back of the closed door... it literally looks like she walked through the door. Just remember to set up the scene so you always know where your characters are coming from.... and where they're going to.

I'm going to stress this one with you one more time by the way. I know you had limited time, but you have gotta focus more on getting those closeups. Remember: the closeup will always save your ass in editing. It gives you something to cut to. You can break up a scene with a closeup, or even extend the scene... the closeup is your tool for pacing.

Okay that's outt my system. :grin:.

All in all it's a good effort and a huge improvement. I always want to watch your film cuz I know you wont let me down with your wacky ideas. Hell I may even want to pick your brain for ideas sometime.

Well done my friend. :beer:
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first off, i will tell Carla what you said, she doesn't believe me in that she's any good. God, what kind of director am i, the lead doesn't believe me but nails the performance... hmm....

as for how i think or come up with a script... as for these shorts i first must see a scene that seems cool to do - for that i want something original, fun to see, and hopefully intelligent... hopefully... then i try and work a story around it. it is here i spend most of my time. and i do a ton of rewrites. for this one, my first few cuts were not nearly dark enough. i actually got a lot of help with critique from my crew and from fellow dvxuser jhoe davis. he was to originally help shoot my film with a gh1 but things fell through. that said he asked me to make it darker and then darker still. he was of great help!!

here the scene was the kiss- they kiss and time freezes. i thought that would be way cool. and i built around that. the vampire was originally not a vampire but Aphrodite, the Goddess of lust. as if she was really "alive" in the present day. but the back story got too big to shoot so i used the available monster the vampire.

i do try and keep things simple so i can shoot em. no good if i can't do it. but i suck at simple. as you see here, i get tangential. shoot.

we got to walk through the script before shooting it and we practiced it and worked on the angles that we could pull off in such a short amount of time. and without that we never would have finished.

that said i needed more time, more practice and more trial and error.

and i need more close ups!!!! oh man you are so right and i should know better and still, i missed it.

many thanks for the comments !!!
 
I said I'd watch again and come back and comment some more :)

I said before I liked your lead actress, but Rodney is right, she was very good.

There are some simple things in the editing that could have helped quite a bit. I kinda feel like you should have cut to the flashback right after the vampire touches her and says "this is your fiance ... you love her"... I think going to the flashback rather than him hearing his fiance's thoughts would have worked better (some of us during our watch-party were confused by the sudden voice of the frozen fiance). Coming out of the flashback, it would have been cool to stick with the scene a bit longer before she realized he had turned. Maybe a glimpse of the vampire with the stake in her chest?

The soundtracked worked for me, but sometimes the mix with other sound/dialogue was off. When you went to silence it was a cool idea, but I felt you held on them too long before revealing that time had stopped (I was right on the edge of saying "why did the music suddenly cut off for no reason?").

Overall it was an interesting story and you did a lot of things right (I liked that subtle dolly movement also). I look forward to your next film!
 
You did many nifty little tricks with the sound mix in this short. I really liked how the music stopped when the mysterious woman kissed the lead actor. Afterwords, you brought in a dramatic score at the right time. The reverse shot of the vampire eyes is great. You did work fast on this one. You used a bare minimum of shots to get your story told. This is not bad, but the lead woman's entrance was not dramatic enough with just the solitary wide shot. I can tell that you were trying to keep the story light-spirited by the way the actors adjusted their performances, but it came across a bit awkward. Overall, you manage to get this story told without confusion, and that is hardest part of storytelling. Thanks for entering.
 
Hey, man. Checked out the film! It definitely kept my attention and was entertaining. I know you had a limited number of people to pull of the party atmosphere at the house, but I think it actually worked for you. I thought the acting worked as well and you had a pretty good story. Maybe you could have added a few more close-ups and over-the-shoulder angles, but that's just my opinion. Also the scream at the end could have been more gut-wrenching, but overall you pulled it together and made a nice film. Good work.
 
This had some cool things going for it. Namely the time freezing, which was done really well, minus a couple of blinks that you could probably edit around. Also, the guy's eyes at the end are awesome.

I thought two things were particularly weak for me, the beginning and the flashback. I think there was too much headroom in the very first shot, and the second shot is awkward. I think getting some tight close-ups of drinks, people laughing, etc. would have helped to up the energy in the beginning.

The flashback comes too late for me. I would put it right after he says, "I'm going to regret this." Then we don't know who he's going to kill. As it is, the tension is lost when you go to the flashback, because we already know the outcome.

The performances were good for me, and there were definitely some cool concepts at work here.
 
The eyes were really awesome looking on her and him. The girl did a good job of acting. The time freeze was cool along with the music stopping when they froze. It was pretty good, just wish you could show a little more.
 
EditPhish said:
I said I'd watch again and come back and comment some more :)

I said before I liked your lead actress, but Rodney is right, she was very good.

There are some simple things in the editing that could have helped quite a bit. I kinda feel like you should have cut to the flashback right after the vampire touches her and says "this is your fiance ... you love her"... I think going to the flashback rather than him hearing his fiance's thoughts would have worked better (some of us during our watch-party were confused by the sudden voice of the frozen fiance). Coming out of the flashback, it would have been cool to stick with the scene a bit longer before she realized he had turned. Maybe a glimpse of the vampire with the stake in her chest?

The soundtracked worked for me, but sometimes the mix with other sound/dialogue was off. When you went to silence it was a cool idea, but I felt you held on them too long before revealing that time had stopped (I was right on the edge of saying "why did the music suddenly cut off for no reason?").

Overall it was an interesting story and you did a lot of things right (I liked that subtle dolly movement also). I look forward to your next film!
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many thanks for the detailed comments. most helpful. didn't think about putting the flashback anywhere but where i did. not against showing the vamp getting thunked and this would've been cooler but i unfortunately had no time to pull it off. sound was off all over the place, ugh.
i will pass on words to Carla. many thanks for sharing!
 
jasonthewho said:
This had some cool things going for it. Namely the time freezing, which was done really well, minus a couple of blinks that you could probably edit around. Also, the guy's eyes at the end are awesome.

I thought two things were particularly weak for me, the beginning and the flashback. I think there was too much headroom in the very first shot, and the second shot is awkward. I think getting some tight close-ups of drinks, people laughing, etc. would have helped to up the energy in the beginning.

The flashback comes too late for me. I would put it right after he says, "I'm going to regret this." Then we don't know who he's going to kill. As it is, the tension is lost when you go to the flashback, because we already know the outcome.

The performances were good for me, and there were definitely some cool concepts at work here.
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thanks for the detailed comments! good pickups too. after seeing the beginning to the other party vampire movie i am almost embarrassed to show my flim's "party", that film nailed it!

thank you for the words! they really help.

Marlon Ladd said:
Hey, man. Checked out the film! It definitely kept my attention and was entertaining. I know you had a limited number of people to pull of the party atmosphere at the house, but I think it actually worked for you. I thought the acting worked as well and you had a pretty good story. Maybe you could have added a few more close-ups and over-the-shoulder angles, but that's just my opinion. Also the scream at the end could have been more gut-wrenching, but overall you pulled it together and made a nice film. Good work.
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thank you for the comments! yeah, i missed out on getting enough close ups.
glad you liked it!

Sprocketboy said:
You did many nifty little tricks with the sound mix in this short. I really liked how the music stopped when the mysterious woman kissed the lead actor. Afterwords, you brought in a dramatic score at the right time. The reverse shot of the vampire eyes is great. You did work fast on this one. You used a bare minimum of shots to get your story told. This is not bad, but the lead woman's entrance was not dramatic enough with just the solitary wide shot. I can tell that you were trying to keep the story light-spirited by the way the actors adjusted their performances, but it came across a bit awkward. Overall, you manage to get this story told without confusion, and that is hardest part of storytelling. Thanks for entering.
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thank you for the detailed comments!
they definitely help!

ramsaur said:
The eyes were really awesome looking on her and him. The girl did a good job of acting. The time freeze was cool along with the music stopping when they froze. It was pretty good, just wish you could show a little more.
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thank you for taking the time to comment! i think Carla did great too.
 
I love your actor. He has a fantastic presence and he also show this lovely naiv character. After some of your films I get the idea that he is you and I think: hoz ......this actor......John Jacob Smith! Probably I would love a sequel of 'John Jacob Smith'. The film is still im my mind and this is a good sign. I am not sure how good worked this story. I didn't really get it, if you did a serious monster film or you was kidding the theme. The actress (which played the monster) was for my taste a bit rigid, but I loved the frozen scene.

Susanne
 
Susanne G. said:
I love your actor. He has a fantastic presence and he also show this lovely naiv character. After some of your films I get the idea that he is you and I think: hoz ......this actor......John Jacob Smith! Probably I would love a sequel of 'John Jacob Smith'. The film is still im my mind and this is a good sign. I am not sure how good worked this story. I didn't really get it, if you did a serious monster film or you was kidding the theme. The actress (which played the monster) was for my taste a bit rigid, but I loved the frozen scene.

Susanne
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many thanks for the comments. i do appreciate them very much and thank you for taking the time to always leave your thoughts. :beer:
 
I have to say, Christian Hozven's films are a kind of guilty pleasure to me! They have a kind of American suburban camp to every tale that seems so community inspired. I almost wonder if those who get involved in these particular films don't actually have a lot of fun - and thats not to suggest we don't but these films are obviously not intending to be technical masterpieces.

Yes you could push yourself hoz to better production standards, and i think more exploratory stories that go beyond the 'quaint, comedic, charming, soft' elements you have often on display. There not bad qualities whatsoever - they make your films endearing.

But i wonder if the next festival might not be a great chance for you to showcase something 'dangerous' in both film and performance.

The performances in this were a little wooden, the atmosphere hardly terrifying, but its a kind of fun light hearted adventure. All of your films seem to be hoz, and you as an actor are a kind of character (the same character almost) which is a likeable character in fact!
 
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