"The Melon Drama" -By HBlack

HBlack said:
We only had 3 throughout. For the dinner scene I only brought one, and Jacob refused to act unless I let him draw the face, so that's what we ended up with. I told him it had to convey annoyance, repressed resentment and feigned cheerfulness in once, I suppose it did that well enough.

Kind of disappointed I didn't get one of your in depth reviews though, Kholi :grin:
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You know it looked like it was all in good fun. DONE in good fun and, in the end, DONE. Which is more than I can say for myself.

I don't want to pick apart people's fun, either. I'd rather just have fun with ya. But, next time when your content is more serious, bet you'll have somethin' more in-depth from me!

I did watch from beginning to end!
 
I'm mostly with Kholi on this one. I know you had a lot of fun with it but quite honestly I was never really able to get in the moment due to the fact that I could never buy the kids playing adult parts. Age inappropriate. Then again, perhaps that was the beauty of it.
 
Thanks for the honest feedback. I completely agree with both of you. It's not my best work, but it was worth doing (the fact it was for a school project doesn't hurt either). At the moment I'm focusing all my efforts on a serious project, and I'm confident that will be enjoyable to watch.
 
A lot of the moving shots were done very well, but my main critique was with a lot of the framing, especially in the back and forth sessions between the lead and the friend during the office scenes. Even when something is over-the-top and silly, you can still get the audience sucked in, but it's hard to do that with quick cuts of nothing but close-ups. It might just be a personal thing, but I found that to be distracting.

The banana-melon scene was classic, and the dialog in that whole sequence was pretty stellar.
 
Hey guys. I love the dry absurdist humor of this. The deadpan delivery of the actors and the way the situation was treated really sold this. I like that you resisted the urge to "wink" at us and remind the audience that you're just kidding. The story never "broke character" so to speak, which made that punchline all the more effective.

Likes:
Those transitions. I loved em in Shaun of the Dead and I loved em here. The swish pan to the divorce papers is my favorite.

That spaghetti, man. I was cracking up during the dinner scene. Cringing in disgust and cracking up.

Good one.
 
I think excessive use of close ups is something I need to work on. Thanks for reminding me of that.
 
This was fun to watch. The banana scene and the transition to the divorce were both great and the best parts of the film. Honestly, I think it would've been a little better had you used a few more faces for the melon, as absurd as that sounds. I liked the music cue during the dinner table.

Just a note though, no one in an office I've worked in says "the boss". People generally refer to everyone else by name.
 
I'm sorry, i know I'm a pervert, but all I could think was: "How do they have sex?"

I dunno, I guess this could have been funny handled by comedians. Like some SNL skit, but I think you need some funny actors to pull it off. It did not really work.

But man, I did LOL at the banana scene...
 
The less perverted among us may question how a banana drives a red Volkswagen, but I suppose yours is a valid question as well.
 
*Spoilers Yep*

This seemed to me like an episode of the Office, with more comical relationship overtones. I think you could have achieved the same mindset if you cast two similarly female characters, to make this more of a comedy, rather than stating the obvious, which you were going for.
 
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That last line is awesome!

This was so strange and yet compelling. I can't imagine how you came up with this idea.

It was a lot of fun to watch.
 
Thanks, fun to watch was all we were going for.

The back story: I found that if you burn a face into a melon it looks like natural bruising. Jacob (the main actor) suggests the idea. We discover lovefest (and I have my commtech summative), so we make the dumbest idea we've had so far. We were originally going to use a cantaloupe, but those are really ugly. We didn't want a wife with severe skin problems.
 
nicely done!

liz the melon acted real well especially when she got caught fooling around with the ... banana.... aint this what love fest was supposed to be about? melons and drama and more melons? put in a couple of coworker jugs at their office and ...

acting was in fact quite good. i gotta think acting with produce isnt all that easy. the friend was good too, mr deadpan. he had a great reaction at dinner after the fight over eating habits. is that true dogs can't look up? sounds like a snapple fun fact.

liked the swipes from scene to scene, cool. made me laugh, thanks much!
 
The "dogs can't look up" line was one of the many Shaun of the Dead references within the film. I'm surprised nobody picked up on those, actually.
 
The Melon Drama
Funny title. Wasn’t sure what to expect from this? The sound sync at the beginning seemed to be off when I viewed this. The lighting was kind of harsh in a number of shots.

I liked the camera movement (some dolly shots maybe?) and a number of the close ups.

My favorite shot was when he discovers her (melon), and the other guy (banana). I laughed out loud! I thought the editing worked well here.

Favorite line was ‘dude, that’s a watermelon’.

Congratulations on getting this done. It was a little silly for me, so I couldn’t get into it!
 
Mmmmmm, melon. I thought the acting was OK for this one. The friend felt a little bit like he was reading his lines. The main did a good job reacting to a…melon. You had some nice shots in the car and some nice panning shots as your main enters the house the first time panning from him to the melon. I thought the music worked.
 
Truly bizarre. Went over my head, I think. Was this a comment on women, or wives in particular?

The banana thing was inspired. The only time I laughed out loud during this fest. :grin:

Look forward to more films from you.
 
Well, Im not even sure what to say. A laughed at Banana and "Dude, thats a waterlmelon", which is probably good because they were the moments I was meant to. I just kept thinking even though I laughed on the last line, I wonder how much more I would have if the line had have been delivered well.

Man, what a zany piece.
 
Justin -

This was really a nice piece at the core of it.
Funny idea, funny structure, with a great payoff at the end.
So hats off for going out on a limb and doing a crazy idea - but playing it straight and not all self consciously, that would have killed the humor.

I think the casting didn't help you much on this - I know it's tough sometimes but getting older actors would have really sold this. As it plays now I feel like I'm watching the 'idea' of a really funny short. I just couldn't believe the guys in the film because they seemed too young for the jobs/homes/situations they were in.

And, as much as you might not like hearing this, with a piece like this I honestly think it should have been about half as long as it was. That last line is really killer - and could have gotten a huge laugh out of me, but with that sort of construction I think a quick in and quick out is your best bet. Set up the world, set up the situation, reveal the affair, and then hit me with the punchline. A concept like this can't really overstay its welcome because an audience will start to question the belivability of the world once the novelty and humor of it wears off, I think. If this had been about 3 minutes long or less, "Dude, that's a watermelon" could have really killed.

But overall - nice work. You've got good shot construction going on here - I really liked the jump to the extreme close up on "Get F***ed four eyes!" That got a laugh out of me.

I hope you go the comedy route again next time - I'm looking forward to seeing another crazy idea come to life that can stand out from the pack.
:thumbsup:
 
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