THE BIG IDEA - New short film

K

Kent OGP

Active member
We shot, edited, and scored this in a week this December.

http://vimeo.com/8480600

Shot on a Canon 7d. Info about the making of the movie can be found on my website in my signature.

Special thanks goes out to Thisisapocalypse on here for help with revising the story.

Let me know your thoughts on it, I'd like as much feedback as I can get! And I'd be happy to answer any questions about the making of it.
 
Hey Kent...

I'm amazed at how fast you guys churn out movies. Kudos on all the effort and hard work.

First off, I think this is a pretty solid short. Per usual your acting is pretty good (some parts are a little weak, but for the most part I think the performances were solid). And, technically everything looked really clean and was edited well. Sound design is also good. I dug how the lightning changed from "happy" at the start and went to "creepy" as the conversation continued (don't know if you did that in Post or on set, but overall it was a nice touch).

While your story is told solidly, I must admit that it's not exactly the most compelling or original. The MacGuffin of the "Big Idea" felt lazy in a way...I get that it's not really important in regards to what the movie is about, but I'm wondering if there was a better way to have this type of confrontation/conflict between the two main characters play out. Not to mention, the wife didn't hear them screaming while upstairs? That's ONE hell of a shower she was taking!

I've come to find that the best short films are about larger things that are represented by something small. This is more of a cut and dry story from beginning to end...to be honest, it's lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on. And, I could be really dense (really, I'm pretty stupid a lot of the times) but I didn't get your ending sequence. So, does the tape recorder being empty mean that someone took the tape in it? Again, you can probably ignore this comment if you made it really obvious and I just "missed" something.

Anywho, keep on working. I really like that you and your friends are attempting to tell coherent stories. You'd be surprised how many short films are more just artistic showpieces with no plot or (worse) Zombie movies ;-)

Nice work!
 
Nice twist at the end. I was gonna say "No happy ending?" But I liked it the way it was.
 
Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback.

Yep Ikander I changed the white balance progressively during the movie so that it started with a warm golden look and ended with a sterile blue look. The 7d doesn't give a whole lot of room for color grading from what I've heard, so any color correction in post was very minimal.

And this is probably the most cut and dry movie we've made, but it was intentional. We made this movie mainly for a business-related film fest, and we figured for that audience it would be best to take a simple story and tell it as well as possible. I like to think of it as a classy short film, haha!

As far as the ending goes, a lot of people ask questions about it. There is a 50% divide between people who think Rob took the tape out, and people who think Ben forgot to put one in in the first place. The thing is, in the end it doesn't matter, Rob wins, and nobody will ever find out the truth behind the invention. But I like that it gets people talking after the movie is over.

You said the story wasn't compelling, but what I really want to know is were you interested/entertained the whole time you were watching the movie? Or were there parts where you got bored or wanted it to move along faster? My main goal with the movies that I'm making now is to get strangers to be interested enough to watch them from beginning to end. Mainly because I've seen SO many random short films on the web or at fests that I just totally lost interest in and fast forwarded or quit watching. I don't want to make one of those!
 
Ok, well first i must say its impressive how fast you guys are improving. I still like the energy of your first film the Salt Run the best, but the acting on this one seems to have stepped it up overall. Your main actor did struggle a bit here and there couldnt decide if it was the lines or the actor but still a step in the right direction, and so did the female, but the bearded guy was really exceptional.

Did you buy a 7D or rent? I reallly want one. I liked the score, simple and earie just as it should have been.

The beginning i think could use some trimming maybe, i found myself getting a little bored with the couple interacting before it gets to the story.

Once things get moving though, its much better.

One thing i did notice is you dont have a whole lot of camera movement, and you also seem to have a lot of mid shots. Not to many wide or establishment shots, and almost no closeups. I think you could have done well with a few of those sprinkled in. I think my fav shot is with the weapon in the face to the right as we see the weilder on the left with the DOF set somewhat narrow.

How long did this take you guys to write? Shoot?

Keep it comming, your headed in the right direction.
 
Thanks for the feedback Jon. I bought the 7d, and it's probably one of the best purchases I've ever made, I love it.

I really went for a different style with the camera choices on this one, but I don't think I quite achieved what I was going for. But it was good practice for future projects.

I can't remember how long it took to write this, maybe a month. But we shot it in three days, and actually shot, edited, and scored it all in a week, which I'm very proud of. I've got a funny short written out that I'll be filming within the next month or so, so keep an eye out for it!
 
I think you could get similar results with progressive 24p videocam because almost all shots are with wide lenses and theres no shallow DOF what isnt making whole piece interesting for my eye,if you wouldnt wrote that its 7D then i wouldnt know that.It looks like video cam on wide shots most of the time.
Some shots are ok but this kit lens is a "no no".Too slow.
 
I didn't want shallow DOF for a lot of the movie. Not all movies need shallow DOF all the time you know...
 
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