Too Late To Cancel

I liked the concept and felt that you pulled it off. The combination of camera movement, music, etc helped carry the story along. To nitpick, the lead could have been a little more distraught and the difference in lighting between the eye CU and full face shot was too dramatic for me.
Nice job overall!
 
Robbie, you know I'm a fan of your work and always look forward to your films...that said, I don't think this was one of your best efforts...and here's why:

1. I know what you were trying to do with the camera movement but feel it was just too much, especially when your actor was just sitting still.

2. Acting was a little flat and I still don't know why the guy wanted to kill himself...and if he really was in a deep depression, wouldn't the idea of being a father just make him want to kill himself more?

3. The story in general was told to us...too much spoon feeding. It could have benefited from a little less dialog.

4. The score. Although the score was excellent...because the rest of the film wasn't up to par, it seemed to be overly dramatic in my opinion.

This was a great effort for telling a story that's been told thousands of times before. I always love the look of your films. Grading is beautiful. Nice edit too...loved the cuts to the camcorder view, kept the movie moving in my opinion.

Keep up the good work and next time, beat Matt with a broomstick, get some tears in his eyes & the look of pain in his face...then we'd believe him.


...and tell me, who am I going to reach when I call the number clearly displayed on the cell phone as 'Sarah'?
 
Haha. I'm workin' on it guys. Only my second short film ever done! Didn't have time to plan for this one much, Robbie and I did this one spur of the moment so I kinda had to learn lines on the spot! NO excuses though! Still trying to prefect the craft and I am working on it....i still have a long way to go, I accept that and am welcome to any and ALL criticism.

Thanks guys.
 
I liked this. The idea of hiring a hitman to kill yourself seems unlikely, but I was willing to go with it, and I was rewarded. The tension is high there in the last couple minutes.

The film looked great, and I liked the use of the CAM view. Some of the shaky camera and focus adjusting seemed unnecessary. I liked the raw look, but it was a little too much.

I think you did a nice job for the most part Matt. You are natural and don't push too hard. However, I didn't really buy your reaction to Sarah's pregnancy.
 
The cinematography was great ... a bit too much handheld movement on some of your shots but I see what you were going for, but keep it steady sometimes and try to let the visuals tell the story every now and then not just the dialogue. I really liked the editing you chose, some great cuts back and forth from the cameras view and close ups. Great consistant grading. It was a good piece for a simple story. Nice job.

Matt - It wasn't terrible but it was not convincing either, you've done better. Try to play into the emotions of a scene a bit more.
ZazaCast said:
beat Matt with a broomstick, get some tears in his eyes & the look of pain in his face...then we'd believe him.
Click to expand...
This works too :grin:
 
Hey Jason,

Yeah I felt that line was really akward. I didn't like it either. But you are right I tried to go for the more natural feel. The problem with that is sometimes it becomes under-natural (which isn't even a word). Especially in a drama like this sometimes it works against you.


jasonthewho said:
I liked this. The idea of hiring a hitman to kill yourself seems unlikely, but I was willing to go with it, and I was rewarded. The tension is high there in the last couple minutes.

The film looked great, and I liked the use of the CAM view. Some of the shaky camera and focus adjusting seemed unnecessary. I liked the raw look, but it was a little too much.

I think you did a nice job for the most part Matt. You are natural and don't push too hard. However, I didn't really buy your reaction to Sarah's pregnancy.
Click to expand...
 
ZazaCast said:
...and tell me, who am I going to reach when I call the number clearly displayed on the cell phone as 'Sarah'?
Click to expand...


Pretty sure it was Matt's house number haha.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

As Matt said, NO excuses is right, but it was rushed.

I did indeed call him and said that I'd be over in an hour to shoot this, and he says "what?"

So yea, planning could have been done to improve this piece, for sure.

Although, that's not a good idea to do whta I did anyway..I should have planned and took this film more carefully. Not being cocky, but Time In A Bottle is much better than this, look and story wise, only because I took that film with time, and had some crew in with me also!

Again, thanks for the feedback everyone. I mostly agree with you guys!

Robbie
 
Agree with much of what has been said. The ending was known even before the leader was done, and 30 seconds into it, I knew where the shot would come from. Man, I kept hoping the phone would blow up or something totally unexpected.

Pretty off-the-shelf excuse for suicide. Not much reason to hope he somehow gets out of the jam.

Matt did what he could with the story. Performance-wise I wouldn't hold it against him. In the two films you've used him, I think he's been mis-cast.

He's a good looking guy with a talent more for action (Puck's film), so use him how he was meant to be used. If you've seen the film "Far and Away", that's a Matt role.

I don't dislike this film, but it feels more like you woke up with an itch to film something, looked around the house, called Matt, and bingo!

I'd call this one 'practice', like any good musician does with their instrument just to stay polished.

aw

www.alexwhitmer.wordpress.com


.
 
Robbie... I couldn't quite get on board with this one. There was never a time when I believed you character was distraught enough to commit suicide. And while I think I know what you were trying to accomplish with the camera movement, I found it incredibly distracting. The other problem I had with this was that him hiring a "hit man" felt like a contrivance to make the story work. I'd much rather him have found or hired "someone" to do it. It's just the way the whole "hit man" thing played out it was like he probably looked in the yellow pages to find one. I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't know the first place to look for a "hit man." I could probably nitpick the envelope from the doctor, too. I would have liked it to look a bit more official.

Other than that, I was fine with the story. The concept wasn't flawed, only the application. All that said, I think you did a very good job on the ending.
 
Last edited:
I liked this film but I didn't understand why such a young clean cut guy would be suicidal. Despite the fact that he's so sure he's about to get fired and lose his girlfriend, the fact remains he's employed with a girlfriend. I understand some people are just troubled, I just didn't feel it. I loved the camera work though and I think the concept is fantastic, I just think it would fit an older more troubled character.
 
while watching this movie i noticed that the ultrasound picture was of a baby of about 6-7 months, almost entirely developed. the idea of the story was heartbreaking a catchy but the picture really threw me, i didnt feel as conviced as i had hoped.
 
I thought it was a pretty good film. I might have made it shorter and not so much moving around.
 
Robbie, interesting twist to a plot that is seen often... success in that regard....

Character/Story wise though I couldn't get into it. First off, it'd cost him good money to hire a hit man and I just wonder how that'd be logically plausible for a young kid with limited connections in the world to hire a hit man... this reminds me of a short story called 'No Comebacks' which is really interesting because it shows how difficult the process is to hire people to do these kinds of things. So for him to hire a pro, it would have taken considerable effort. So although it's an interesting twist (one I like), I don't feel it works for this scope of a story...

Acting was both up and down... there were good moments where the character really seemed confused and upset with himself and others were it felt as if he were reading lines. I didn't feel for his plight in the beginning, he didn't look like a man hanging by his last thread, of one who had surrendered to death as the only way out.

From a directing sense, it shows strong promise and intricate attention to detail. You have a well executed production with good camera choices, good pacing and good twists! I just think some aspects of the story, some concepts are too big for the setting and character themselves.

Thanks for sharing. Look forward to more from you.
 
Thanks Geoff.

I'm a fan of your work, and love the stuff you produce. I'll be in the L.A area next week so I'm hoping to connect with some of you guys.

Again, this piece was a tad rushed, but I'm not using it as an excuse, as it's my fault for rushing.

Thanks for the feedback.

Robbie
 
My only major problems were the cut to the CU of the eye when he was talking to the camera and the heavily used of shaky hand held camera work to create tension...

The acting needs a lot of work as the character isn't believable.

Thanks for sharing and please don't hate me for repeating some of these that'd been already pointed out by others...
 
Got some good shots in there Robbie but I think that although it is effective at times, the film industry as a whole has subscribed to the "create tension with shaky camera" edict and we need to back away from it a little.

I liked the cuts between the movie and the suicide tape. The concept was decent and there were some good points in there but the story wasn't completely balanced. The main character didn't look like he was going through anything...he needed some stubble...some red rimmed eyes.

That being said, you had very crisp images and colors. The shots were very clean and vibrant. There's some good stuff here and I liked it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top