THE LOVER short (2010)

robmneilson

robmneilson

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The Lover
Password: dvxuser

Hey all,

Please give me some feedback on my new short, which I shot two weekends ago. I've put it through a rough sound mix, and I want to get some feedback before I lock picture and go into color correction.

Hearing nice things is great, but I would much rather hear about what you DO NOT like about the film, so I have a chance to make fixes before it's too late.

I'll keep this up for a few days for people to view...thanks.
 
Sorry Rob, I know you want to know what people DON"T like about this, but wtf, I liked it.

About the only criticism I have from my first impression is that it seems to drag a bit in places, but after watching it once I can't really tell you where. So I guess it felt just a little long.

I'll try to watch it again later and provide a bit more feedback.
 
Loved it! The only feedback I have is pacing. It was pretty well paced honestly but I wish it just had a little more energy and went a little faster. I was just itching for some more movement. If it had that, then I would give it an A+ not the completely acceptable A- :)
 
Thanks guys...if you can think of specifically where it dragged in parts please let me know. I've seen it so many times in the past two weeks it's very hard for me to tell.

One of my friends says that he just wants to get out of the ukulele scene a bit faster. Do you agree? I could splice a couple of lines together "dont fall for this marie" and "People who play the ukulele set their sights low" to cut about :10-20 for that.

The rule I've had with criticism for this film is if any 2 people have said the same thing they are probably right!
 
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Whelp I made a bunch of changes...cut down the uke scene a bit, trimmed some shots from the backyard spying scene, and a few others here and there.

Only dropped :10 from the films TRT but in a short that might go a long way.

I'll try to upload another cut tonite, or tomorrow for you to peruse. At this point I don't really have an attachment for any one thing in the film, I just want to make it as good as it can be for the festival circuit.

I'm going to attempt to get a NYC area screening before I send it out to festivals. When you have an audience sitting in front of the film it's usually pretty easy to judge when the film drags.

Thanks again all....
 
It would be really interesting to see an audiences reaction to this. And cutting ten seconds might change it quite a bit. I "felt" it was a little long but not that long. It certainly held my interest.

A couple of things, in the opening shot the light source in the background is on the actors screen right, but your light source is screen left, that's OK but it might have been a little more dramatic if his face had more shadow on the opposite side. I realize you can't change that now, but those shots are a bit overexposed that you probably can fix and if you bring down the mid black you can make it a bit more dramatic.

One thing I didn't quite get was why was he digging through the trash?

A little of the "Video/Camcorder" effect goes a long way. It was a bit much going into the "you changed your phone number." But if you decide to tighten that up don't cut too much - that gag worked pretty well. A good example of where it was short and sweet but very effective was where he got caught shooting them and took off running.

Lastly, from me anyway, you have the "infomercial" and then at the end you have the "take me back Charlie," I'm not sure you need both. It might be more effective if you just end it at "Call me."

Again, I think you did a great job. Besides that's the beauty of non-linear editing you can try it all to see what works best.

Good luck.
 
Chuck,


Thanks for your comments....I am certainly going to trim a little bit from the video camera part, before the phone segment. It could stand to lose a second or two.

I admit I did screw up on his filmed monologue to her. I felt that I wanted it to look like some guy with a crap camera, who just set it up without thought using the on camera light. So I tried to put that frame together with as little thought as possible, when I should have put a liitttllle more thought into it. It was 90 degrees that day and I think my brain had melted by that point! (not that its any excuse).

as for the garbage I went a little too far, and decided to scrap my original idea for that shot. I was going to have him dig through the garbage (to find some info about the guy) only to find a used condom and be horrified. When we were on the way to set I put it to a vote and everyone said that it would be going a little too far crossing the line from funny to gross.

I'll make some more cuts tonite and load up a new video tomorrow.

Thank you all for your comments, I've shown the film to most of my friends...but I feel they can't really be trusted to always says 100% what they think. You guys have given me exactly what I needed to hear. I owe all of you!
 
You probably can. He only charged me $20 per hour to shoot...sadly the footage is a bit too racy for anything but redtube.com
 
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