The Karma Police - Short Film

rhandomskate

rhandomskate

Active member
Alright, heres the short i had to make. We ended up shooting it over a span of 2 days. I only had one day to edit. It should have been much better than it was, but whatever, we got it done, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Acting is horrible, but these were the only kids willing to shoot between 1 and 7am... so just bare with it, whatever. This was the most run and gun project of my life.

http://vimeo.com/2571148
 
I didn't have a problem with the look of the film. I think it looked pretty good and the score was pretty out there, but I mean that in a sense that it elevated the freakish atmosphere.

SPOILERS for Karma Police follow:

What I didn't like dealt with the script and, as you noted, the performances. The guy with the hat was especially terrible. That line about leaving the door open was hard to hear and lines like "you're the problem with society", or something to that effect, wouldn't have sounded any better if the guy had talent. It was sort of forced to fit the message of the movie.

I also noticed a hiccup. When the killer is in the house and finds the first kid, he raises his knife and makes it seem as if he is about to kill him. We the audience assume he stabbed the dude since the camera moves out in a violent way. Later, we see the scene play out and the guy lifts the knife and then puts it back down, only to push the kid, who we realize is his accomplice, to the side. Why'd he raise the knife? It appears as if he raised it simply to trick the audience.

Other than that, some of the editing was off. I'm thinking again of the scene where the hat guy tells his buddy about leaving the door unlocked downstairs. When he gets up and tells him to check, it comes off as really rough. There's a few moments like that which came off as a little jarring.

And you might have built the suspense for too long there. The movie was well made otherwise considering the circumstances. Good work man.
 
Thanks a lot man. Much appreciated. You caught some stuff that I didn't catch, but yes ahha I noticed a lot of that. As for the dialogue, well, those were my only friends I could get to be in this, and they didn't want to say my original dialogue because they're really picky, so i had to reason with them and cut a lot out/ rewrite whole scenes right there with them on the spot :( It was so unbelievably run and gun. My biggest concern was it building up too long as you mentioned, I kept wanting to try out these ideas as kind of an experiment, instead of having the scary moments more spontaneous, I just couldn't bring myself to not do that though haha. Thanks again though, I appreciate the cc. I will definitely keep it in mind for my next "more organized" shorts.
 
rhandomskate said:
Thanks a lot man. Much appreciated. You caught some stuff that I didn't catch, but yes ahha I noticed a lot of that. As for the dialogue, well, those were my only friends I could get to be in this, and they didn't want to say my original dialogue because they're really picky, so i had to reason with them and cut a lot out/ rewrite whole scenes right there with them on the spot :( It was so unbelievably run and gun. My biggest concern was it building up too long as you mentioned, I kept wanting to try out these ideas as kind of an experiment, instead of having the scary moments more spontaneous, I just couldn't bring myself to not do that though haha. Thanks again though, I appreciate the cc. I will definitely keep it in mind for my next "more organized" shorts.
Click to expand...

Oh definitely man. I can tell you wanted to try out some new tricks and they all came out well. Practice makes perfect right? :beer:

Can't wait for the next one.
 
You may also want to make the part with the Karma definition longer so people have time to read it.

I thought the idea for the story was good but agree that the script, editing, and acting needs a little cleaning up.
 
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