The Last Kiss - hienben

Having watched this a second time I had some things I'd like to add. I've come away with the feeling that I've just eaten a great looking meal, but a little light on the substance. I'm still hungry. You have created some of the best images in the fest. Your locations were visually astounding. The night shots across the water can't be touched.

My only complaint about the film is the story. I loved watching it but just didn't get much out of it. I've read all the posts here so I understand what you're trying to say. The only problem I have with it is I need you to tell me that to get it...it's not on the screen. But, oh, is it nice to look at.
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This is the kind of piece that I would love to see re-done in a longer format so the story would have the time it needs to unfold.

With everything taken into account, I still love this entry because of how it looks.
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Think I'm in the minority again :)

The first live-action shot with the guy mopping the floor was great... loved the tone and lighting. But you took a full minute to narrate/explain the story to me, and it was all 3D animation, so I was a little turned off right from the start.

Don't get me wrong, I thought the CG looked pretty darn good... though something about the robot's head bothered me, and it was a little too Robocop for me. I also felt it was of great quality for a video game, but not so much for a movie.

The shots of the woman towards the end are beautiful, but I didn't feel drawn into the story, so their "last kiss" didn't touch me in any way. I felt like I was watching a video game through so much of it that the story was lost.

I think you did outstanding work... IF that had been a 3D/CG contest... there was just so little live-action footage for me, and like I said, since it seemed more video-game like, it just didn't feel like a film. The story felt cold, and the characters too detached for me to get any sense of emotion out of it.

Thanks for sharing it... you obviously have some mad CG skills!
 
Thanks for taking the time and effort to watch the film and make comments, it is very much appreciated. I hear what you are all saying and to me it's all part of the learning process.

I agree that the cg and live footage don't mix together that well, that's just down to my cg skills. The animated robot was really hard to pull off but I felt it looked quite good in most places.

' there was just so little live-action footage' ... well the 1st minute was almost pure cg but the rest (4 mins) was either straight DVX or DVX/cg mix.

I never expected to win any prizes so people's comments make it all worthwhile... thanks!
 
I, too, thought the shot toward the end with the girl was incredibly beautiful, really amazing. But I sort of felt like, Oh, he had this image in his mind and he built his whole film just trying to get to a point where he could put that image in. Like you started with the image and then built everything else around that,. And I'm sure that approach can work, but in this case, the story did not build up to that scene for me. In fact, I felt like I was watching tow different films that somehow got pushed together. In any event, that last section was worth waiting through the rest of the story for -- it looked incredible.
 
My last post for the night
Nice opening shot. Vo was great.
I really wanted to see another 1:15 secs more . Not complaing though.
I didn't really understand the relationship between the 2 BUT you have answered my question..see below

Another one of my favourites .Nice work.

Ian

hienben said:
The guy threw down the mop because he felt resentment towards the system that had given him a dull job and taken away his girl. This set off the alarm and activated the sentry droid thing. The swirling leaves was a mixture of memories and emotions, a blissful moment before recall.

If I had more time I would have filled in some of these 'gaps'. I would have also liked to extend the sentry chase sequence because to me it felt a bit short.
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I finally had a chance to watch this film (the last one I had not watched yet) and must say that I did enjoy it. I felt the story was very undeveloped, and it felt like it dragged a bit, but your lighting, and CG looked awesome. I really enjoy it purely on the asthetic look and feel, which I thought you nailed! Great, solid looking short!
 
Thanks briceman, glad you enjoyed the lighting and the cg. Yeah, the story was underdeveloped, I had to keep it short, sweet and simple because of the time constraints I had but i definately wanted to create a look and feel which I'm happy you picked up on. thanks for the comments, much appreciated.

Ben
 
I'm probably going to echo everyone's comments; lack of story, nice choice of music, mix of CGI and DVX footage...

I will say that this film has a certain dreamlike quality to it. Which I admire. Congrats to that.

EJ
 
Blaine said:
Having watched this a second time I had some things I'd like to add. I've come away with the feeling that I've just eaten a great looking meal, but a little light on the substance. I'm still hungry. You have created some of the best images in the fest. Your locations were visually astounding. The night shots across the water can't be touched.

My only complaint about the film is the story. I loved watching it but just didn't get much out of it. I've read all the posts here so I understand what you're trying to say. The only problem I have with it is I need you to tell me that to get it...it's not on the screen. But, oh, is it nice to look at.
thumbsup.gif
This is the kind of piece that I would love to see re-done in a longer format so the story would have the time it needs to unfold.

With everything taken into account, I still love this entry because of how it looks.
thumbsup.gif
Click to expand...

It's hard for me to be subjective after seeing my own movie so many times during editing so thanks for the encouraging comments.
 
I think this suffers from the classic issue that, as filmmaker, you know what's going on, and it's *endlessly* hard to figure out exactly what you need to tell an audience to make sure they get it too. Me, I didn't get it. I thought the opening monologue set a great scene and the CGI was extremely impressive for the most part. I just didn't get the story you explained out of the movie I saw. Focus on telling your story and I'm sure you'll do some really good stuff, but this fell a bit short for me.
 
Hi - nice work.

It felt like you really focused on creating some cool effects without thinking of how they would carry the story. The story, as a result, just wasn't very engaging.
 
conrad_johnson said:
Hi - nice work.

It felt like you really focused on creating some cool effects without thinking of how they would carry the story. The story, as a result, just wasn't very engaging.
Click to expand...

Nicely put, and I thought I had lost something somewhere.
 
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