Villain of the Month

Oh your first! Well in that case the biggest achievement really is in completing it! God knows my first and second.... and third... shorts were terrible - worse than anything in this festival! So yep Lynchenstein I want to applaud you as one filmmaker to another for managing this first feat! It gets easier!
 
lawriejaffa said:
Hey there Lynchenstein well done for producing your short film! For me this film had a novel premise (which i liked - its cute and funny.) However armed with this singular idea, the film for me, failed to rise to the potential of that premise.


I can only describe it as somewhat agonising - the painfully slow pace of events where by we had to hear the court proceedings declaring on and on for what our hero was found guitly of (while he slowly ooooh so slowly packed away his office belongings.) It was like me with a Scottish strawberry tart (its delicious but it takes a while to eat because on top of the delicious pastry casing is a yummy thick cream with a strawberry draped in thick strawberry syrup yumminess.) But a bald guy packing his folders to a weird slow mo voice over is no strawberry tart. I actually felt like it was personal watching this - like you were trying to teach me a kind of Terence Malick lesson of life!

Then WHOOSH we're in an office for like 10 seconds and the films over. Where were the jokes? See, this kind of film would have benefited from jokes and a much snappier edit. (Now i say this but there were some amusing props, the moustaches and the little shark toy and so forth were cute!) But as background elements these are only comic ambient.

I'd love you to tell me what your focus was with the film - was it simply on just trying to get it made? or is it part of a bigger project etc? Why did you not inject the film with more comic moments? Why did you rely on such a substantial part of the film being covered in expositional voice over?
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Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated. I've never tried a Scottish strawberry tart and you make it sound so delicious, I think I must seek one out ASAP. Here are my responses to your comments:
Spoiler:

First of all, thank you for your insight. I don't disagree with any of your points and after not being immersed in editing for a few days I really do see the flaws and opportunities for improvement.

On to your questions:
I was going for a melancholy feel, with some subtle visual gags in the periphery (the mustaches, shark, newspaper, etc). I was trying to do a rap on the corporate evil CEO type versus the typical evil villain stereotype. A stereotypical evil villain is forced to find another type of evil to do - corporate evil. So he takes his company (a paper products company) and introduces a virulent strain of stomach ailment, and makes a killing on the increased toilet tissue sales. Evil, no? Funny? Well, I guess it Depends (pardon the pun).

Yes, part of the motivation was to finally get something made, no question about it. I have made a couple of false starts before and then the DVX Fest came along and BOOM! I have a deadline, some interesting constraints and I know it can't be more than 6 minutes so the scope was small enough to be manageable with almost zero crew and budget.

The original script was about 10 minutes - with a couple more scenes and some more overtly comic dialogue. But, as this was a 6-minute fest we trimmed and trimmed (and trimmed some more). I personally really liked the packing montage with the evil magistrate voiceover to show off his sentimental attachment to his evil accoutrements (and his pet shark) and to describe why he was forced to quit evil. Now after a few days to be less attached to it, I see how I should have kept at least one of the other scenes and trimmed the packing and hallway walk scene down a lot more. Too much voiceover and not enough of the characters doing their thing. This is a common criticism and I totally agree.

So, this is part of my learning process and I've learned a great deal. I am quite happy with completing my first film and with the opportunity to get some feedback. Now that it's done I'm learning a lot more from the people who take the time to comment. One of the biggest things I've learned is to edit ASAP so that I can get a chance to put the film aside for a week or more and then watch it again. I let the raw material sit for almost a month before I got around to editing. My bad and I won't be doing that again.

 
Congratulations on your first DVXfest entry and I hope you'll enter more.

I thought you had a really great concept here - a villain kicked out of villainous organization - sort of the opposite of Dr. Horrible (which I just adore).

I really liked your locations and your use of props - they were original and your attention to detail was great.

However, there were a few things which made this short a bit rough around the edges:

- The pacing of the edit is a bit slow. Tightening it up would really help a lot.

- The sound and the ADR are a little off (ADR is so hard to do).

- The ending to your story felt kind of abrupt. I wish you had focused more on his removal from the organization and his fight to stay in. Phone calls (even video calls) are really tough to make cinematic and I wish the visuals carried your story further.

Still, there is a lot of promise here too and I look forward to seeing your future films.
 
I thought this was the most fun entries in terms of portraying villains, thanks for showing a tongue and cheek perspective.
 
Chris Messineo said:
Congratulations on your first DVXfest entry and I hope you'll enter more.

I thought you had a really great concept here - a villain kicked out of villainous organization - sort of the opposite of Dr. Horrible (which I just adore).

I really liked your locations and your use of props - they were original and your attention to detail was great.

However, there were a few things which made this short a bit rough around the edges:

- The pacing of the edit is a bit slow. Tightening it up would really help a lot.

- The sound and the ADR are a little off (ADR is so hard to do).

- The ending to your story felt kind of abrupt. I wish you had focused more on his removal from the organization and his fight to stay in. Phone calls (even video calls) are really tough to make cinematic and I wish the visuals carried your story further.

Still, there is a lot of promise here too and I look forward to seeing your future films.
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Thanks a lot for the feedback. I spent quite a lot of time on the props - should have spent more time on the edits I guess :)
The sound in the "evil lair" was impossible and we were forced to do ADR, certainly not my first choice but if you aren't paying too much attention I almost get away with it. BUT, it looked so fantastic that it was worth it.

On to the next one!
 
This was a fun idea with rough edges.

Sound/ADR was not the best but this is your first, right? That being said you did admirably.
I won't harp on what everyone else said but I do want you to learn from this and jump back in.

I saw some glimpses of hope throughout. Pace your next entry and try to get more coverage and better sound.
You'll improve fast. Best of luck and good first entry!
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
This was a fun idea with rough edges.

Sound/ADR was not the best but this is your first, right? That being said you did admirably.
I won't harp on what everyone else said but I do want you to learn from this and jump back in.

I saw some glimpses of hope throughout. Pace your next entry and try to get more coverage and better sound.
You'll improve fast. Best of luck and good first entry!
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Thanks Michael.
 
Opened with a pretty epic shot. I like it. This starts off as tongue in cheek but doesn't quite stay with it. Somethings I was hoping for, I wish your villain had a look. Like Dr Evil, scar, pinky mannerism, albino skin, etc. or Dr Horrible. Your villain looked a bit too vanilla...need to add the sprinkles and chocolate sauce so to speak. The lighting at his secret hideout was very over exposed. I would've put the light coming from underneath to get those shadows and sell the silly evilness.

The story progressed rather slowly but you were extremely effective in showing a lot about the character with some of the neat devices. I did like some of the stuff on his desktop, the mustaches etc.

It was a neat idea. The villain stripped of his membership. However, you cut out the fun and games part of it and went straight to the conclusion. Showing how he gets back in by being truly evil is what I would really like to see. Right now you have two bookends and no middle. I would show the middle next time as that's the meat of the story. Great Job overall!
 
Mobie540 said:
Opened with a pretty epic shot. I like it. This starts off as tongue in cheek but doesn't quite stay with it. Somethings I was hoping for, I wish your villain had a look. Like Dr Evil, scar, pinky mannerism, albino skin, etc. or Dr Horrible. Your villain looked a bit too vanilla...need to add the sprinkles and chocolate sauce so to speak. The lighting at his secret hideout was very over exposed. I would've put the light coming from underneath to get those shadows and sell the silly evilness.

The story progressed rather slowly but you were extremely effective in showing a lot about the character with some of the neat devices. I did like some of the stuff on his desktop, the mustaches etc.

It was a neat idea. The villain stripped of his membership. However, you cut out the fun and games part of it and went straight to the conclusion. Showing how he gets back in by being truly evil is what I would really like to see. Right now you have two bookends and no middle. I would show the middle next time as that's the meat of the story. Great Job overall!
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Hey, thans a lot! I really loved the look of your entry - nice and dark.
 
Sound was off in the beginning. A shark with a freaking laser on its head!

If it's legal it ain't evil. :)

That looked like my conference room, not an office. I liked the ladies reaction to him. But I didn't see a whole story here. He was bad and got booted for some reason and now is profiting off peoples crap. I liked it, but I look forward to seeing bigger and better things from you in the future.
 
Chris_Keaton said:
Sound was off in the beginning. A shark with a freaking laser on its head!
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You bet - the noise in the boiler room (evil lair) was brutal, so we had to replace it.

Chris_Keaton said:
If it's legal it ain't evil. :)

That looked like my conference room, not an office. I liked the ladies reaction to him. But I didn't see a whole story here. He was bad and got booted for some reason and now is profiting off peoples crap. I liked it, but I look forward to seeing bigger and better things from you in the future.
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Bingo! - conference room. We used what we had on short notice.

I'm working on more scripts and am keen to do another DVX Fest - so we'll see what the Festival gods gift us with in a few months...

Thanks for the the feedback Chris.
 
I agree that the audio was off in the opening scene. I really thought the last half of the film was much better and cleaner than the opening. The shots seemed to all be good and the right ones. The location I think also set the scene to play better. The opening scene may have lost some of it's flare for me, because of the audio being off. Some of the shots seemed to be held a little too long as well. Overall a good film with a decent story. You should be proud.
 
I'm sorry but I couldn't get into it and here's why...

Spoiler:

Your actor's interaction other that the harassing butt-slap to the secretary, was non existent. Talking into a laptop, having a voice over, talking into a phone doesn't allow an actor a chance to really play off another actor. I really don't care for this type of storytelling because I think it's a "cheat." You as the director are only directing one person at a time. Didn't work for me (most of one-actor films don't work for me).

I kept thinking the lighting was way off. Maybe that's how you intended it, but it bleached on my screen. I didn't really notice the audio problems but he had an awfully big mic to be talking to someone on the computer. That was definitely a director's cheat. Would have been harder if he had a simple thin mic as you would normally talk through during a one-on-one video session.

Every detail has to be believable. The voice over was over the top. Did I like anything about it? The one line, "You're the best lawyer an evil person could have..."

So now you have a film under your belt. Learn from it. Get some dialogue exchange with characters in the same room. Use subtext. Have conflict. So many elements missing, so this is your building block.

 
Charli said:
I'm sorry but I couldn't get into it and here's why...

Spoiler:

Your actor's interaction other that the harassing butt-slap to the secretary, was non existent. Talking into a laptop, having a voice over, talking into a phone doesn't allow an actor a chance to really play off another actor. I really don't care for this type of storytelling because I think it's a "cheat." You as the director are only directing one person at a time. Didn't work for me (most of one-actor films don't work for me).

I kept thinking the lighting was way off. Maybe that's how you intended it, but it bleached on my screen. I didn't really notice the audio problems but he had an awfully big mic to be talking to someone on the computer. That was definitely a director's cheat. Would have been harder if he had a simple thin mic as you would normally talk through during a one-on-one video session.

Every detail has to be believable. The voice over was over the top. Did I like anything about it? The one line, "You're the best lawyer an evil person could have..."

So now you have a film under your belt. Learn from it. Get some dialogue exchange with characters in the same room. Use subtext. Have conflict. So many elements missing, so this is your building block.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments Charli.

Charli said:
I didn't really notice the audio problems but he had an awfully big mic to be talking to someone on the computer. That was definitely a director's cheat.
Click to expand...
Actually that mic was a prop - it's a real mic but it wasn't functional. I recorded all audio using a Rode VideoMic (on the camera - I know! The HORROR!) and an h4n using the built-in mics. We were forced to do ADR due to the frequent and random furnace noises as we were shooting in a basement.

I'm glad you were able to take a little enjoyment from it at least (the one-line). I do appreciate your perspective and I don't disagree with anything you've pointed out (except for perhaps the mic).

I can only get better right?
 
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