"The Dingle," my first DVX short film

Bryan

Bryan

Well-known member
Greetings folks. This is my latest short film and my first with the Panasonic DVX100a.

The Story: It's the beginning of a new year at college and Dan Hamlin is excited to move into his new dorm room. Imagine his surprise when his new roommate turns out to be Alyson Bartley. When Dan and Alyson try to fix their housing arrangement, matters just get worse. The tyrannical housing director Silvano De Luca and Reynolds, his skiddish, but loyal, office assistant, remove Alyson from the dorm room and give Dan 48 hours to find a roommate...or else.

"The Dingle" http://dingle.amfproductions.com/dingle_movie.mov (136 MB, 23 minutes)

Happy watching!
 
though I can't understand all the words,but I like the feeling in the movie,It's feeling good.What microphone do you use?Dana is lovely.Why the sound is so strange after 21:06?
 
Did you get the same composer for Napoleon Dynamite to do your soundtrack? Haha.


Good movie. I liked it.

Wasn't this concept at the end of Eurotrip?

You know - guys name accidentally misspelled, equalling girls name?



It was a funny flick.
 
Wow. It's really really good. Great cinematography. Great performances. Funny too, and that ain't easy. You will really have to edit it down, mind you (you'll find you'll be losing about 1/4 to 1/3 of it and still have a tight, clear story). But you have so much good stuff to work with. Wish I knew actors as good as those!
 
Overall I thought this was really strong (especially for a first film). The acting was good, the script was good, the concept was fun and the ending was strong.

I think the drawbacks are really in the editing. It's a much longer film than it needs to be. At this length, it drags in the middle. It's common for a first time film maker to want to stick really close to the script in the editing process. But a script is the foundation of the film and not everything has to stay in the final cut. There's a number of scenes that can be cut down and a few that can be cut out to give a greater impact of the overall piece.

IE. The lead running around looking for a room mate can be chopped in half. The scene of your lead doing his victory dance around in his room can just go. Instead, at 19:49, if you cut right after the line "your system failed you" to a silent reaction shot from Silvano, then cut straight to the conversation with your lead and the girl, it would have a greater impact and improve the flow of the third act. Its especially important to do this (I think) because your lead says "the first thing I'm going to do is go home, relax and think about how I'm going to decorate my apartment" (which implies he came to see her before heading to his room). But we saw him at home before he spoke with her so thats a plot hole (a small one, but still a plot hole and one that can be corrected with the editing).

Again, you did a really good job. That counts triple considering its your first film. Well done.
 
great story. great casting, i loved the silvano de luca (old guy) character. its hard to critisize anything except maybe some parts of the sound, and some of the outdoor scenes are overexposed.
great work!!
 
What a cool film. The acting was very good (except for a few awkward lines at the beginning), Mario who played Mr. De Luca was really entertaining. I agree with the comments that it could be tightened a little bit, but overall a very good short.

I quite often find myself not being bothered with watching short films longer than 10 minutes, but this one kept my attention and entertained me for the whole time. I look forward to your future work.
Congratulations :)
 
I agree with everyone that the cut could use quite a bit of tightening, other than that, I think it's a good short. I've been watching your stuff for a while now and I enjoy watching you progress. Looking forward to seeing what's next. Good luck.
 
most of that available lighting? Or at least minimal? If so thats got me a bit sold on a DVX. Cant wait to get working!
 
Bryan, that was some really great work. The audio was very clean (except for the very ending) and I thought the dialog and the delivery was very well executed, very professional and very convincing. This felt very "seriesish" to me, in a good way. I guess first becuase of the length of the film, and second the subject matter, the actors and the whole style of the film felt like a good pilot for a TV series.
I have one qualm with the plot however, what happens when "DANA" doesn't pay his half of the rent. Does that mean that DAN has to pay for the whole room? Just thought I would throw that out there, although that to me really does not distract from the film at all, just something it made me think about at the end.
 
Once again, thanks for the comments everyone. Perhaps I'll go back and see where I can tighten up some scenes. I would agree that it does seem a little long. And yeah, the audio at the end needs to be cleaned up a little bit more. I was messing with it in post because I had some wind noise in there.

juvi131 - It's actually ALL natural lighting, except for a couple shots outdoors when I used a reflector board. Turns out I just didn't have enough time to light anything, I was rushed to finish this for my university's media arts festival. The DVX is just awesome though, and I was really happy with the image quality. I can't wait to shoot more stuff with it.

scharky - The plot question... that's kind of explained at the end when Dan is talking to Reynolds. He explains that the payroll department doesn't have a "Dana Hamlin" in their records, so they wouldn't have anyone to bill. "Dana" only exists to the housing department. I'm sure somewhere done the line the school would've figured things out, so maybe Dan would end up paying for the whole room himself. It's a little far fetched, yes, but hey. :)
 
It wouldnt make sense to bill him for the whole room. You pay board and tuition, and thats what he paid for and got. Trust me, schools that big dont catch on to anything. I went to a school for my freshman year in college and than transferred. The school kept sending me mail and congratulating me on my graduation and they were telling me the details for the graduation at their school which I didnt go to anymore. Than the next year they sent me all that stuff again. They actually thought I was still there.

I thought I already commented on this movie but I guess I didnt. I liked it alot and it was really nicely done. Looked professional with some good actors. It would have been funny if the girl was really hot and he tried to keep her as a roommate and she was trying to get rid of him. Really good stuff.
 
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