Welcome Back to the Party (Exhibition Only)

Brandon,

great job. I liked how I felt like I wasn't watching the first movie over again. I feel some sequels play too hard into their first movie and it ruins it for me.

The one aspect that didn't pull me in was that the girl, after not being interested in the boy was suddenly and (too quickly) drawn to him. How was it she wakes up and just starts making out with him so passionately?

Other than that, I really enjoyed it and after this I plan on checking out more of your projects....thanks for letting me critique!
 
NICK ASH said:
Brandon,

great job. I liked how I felt like I wasn't watching the first movie over again. I feel some sequels play too hard into their first movie and it ruins it for me.

The one aspect that didn't pull me in was that the girl, after not being interested in the boy was suddenly and (too quickly) drawn to him. How was it she wakes up and just starts making out with him so passionately?

Other than that, I really enjoyed it and after this I plan on checking out more of your projects....thanks for letting me critique!
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Thanks for watching Nick. Regarding your comment about the girl, there were subtle changes in our lead character to show that post-death he was now a confident individual. In fact, if you notice, he makes the move on her, and she then gets into it after a moment. Maybe too subtle? Perhaps. Other little things in the performance should have keyed the audience off on the change in our characters confidence level. Death to him is like new life. Hope that makes sense, and thanks again for watching!
 
SPOILERS! DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED IT!

To be honest, I kinda feel like I don't really have a place to review or critique this. There were a couple others like that in the fest that were very professional looking / sounding / etc throughout. I don't know, I know that sounds weird, but it's true. I loved No Greater Love and I hold that as a bar of where you are even though that was a few years ago. That said, I really enjoyed this. As Nick stated, this felt like a short that lived on its own away from the first part. Kudos on that. That's kinda hard to do from what I've seen. Everything seemed great in this (acting, cinematography, sound, etc), to be honest. I think my only concern is that the guy just found out his good buddy (best friend) just died, and he doesn't seem too shaken up by that. I mean it hits him, but not near as hard as I would expect it to. That's a very traumatic experience that he kinda shrugged off until a little later.
 
Hey man I really appreciate the kind words here!

And thank you for still offering a balanced and honest critique.

We were all a little concerned about that issue and hoped Jason's performance sold the shock but that he was still on a 'mission' for the girl. Had we had more time (and maybe not having a sequel we needed to connect) I think we could have handled that issue better.

Thank you for watching and the comments! I appreciate the encouragement and will continue to try to pursue excellent film-making as I'm able!
 
Well done Brandon, really enjoyed this entry. Looked nice, good performances, great art department - probably the best in the fest in my opinion.

Loved that this stood on it's own as a film and didn't rely on WTTP. Good little story and loved the ending, when he asked "What now?" and they all just sort of looked around. Very nice.
 
Matthew B said:
Well done Brandon, really enjoyed this entry. Looked nice, good performances, great art department - probably the best in the fest in my opinion.

Loved that this stood on it's own as a film and didn't rely on WTTP. Good little story and loved the ending, when he asked "What now?" and they all just sort of looked around. Very nice.
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Matthew, I really appreciate you taking the time to stop by. I'm still planning on a review of Arabella (which was EXCELLENT by the way) soon!

Regarding the ending, I am GLAD you liked it, and hopefully "got" it :) Seems like sometimes my subtle nature with some of my films is lost on the audience... I wanted the protagonist to realize that this "new life" isn't life at all... it's kind of empty and pointless... I hope that came across.

Thanks for watching!

PS. I'm also THRILLED to hear that this film is good as a "standalone" as we were aiming for that, even though it was a sequel.
 
Brandon Rice said:
Regarding the ending, I am GLAD you liked it, and hopefully "got" it :) Seems like sometimes my subtle nature with some of my films is lost on the audience... I wanted the protagonist to realize that this "new life" isn't life at all... it's kind of empty and pointless... I hope that came across.
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Definitely came across. I found myself smirking at that point.
 
Brandon....well done....very well done. All I can say is it must be nice to live in the LA area where you can find such talented actors & crew.
(that might be the only nice thing about LA in my book...but that's a 'whole-nothar' story :huh:)

I think what I like most about your film is that even with people dying, killing themselves and gouls showing up at parties, they are all likable
characters...just nice people. You put a positive twist on a dark subject. I mean think about it, girl gets shot in head and seconds later is enjoying
a passionate kiss with her admirer. Women! :smile: Go figure....

Beautiful to look at and a complete film....nice work. :beer:
 
Brandon, I thought this was an excellent film. Everything was pretty top-notch. The cinematography was on-point as well as the performances. You had everything you needed to make this successful, including the location set design and extras. The makeup also looked better this time around IMO. The only thing that I thought was kind of distracting was when the kid first comes in the party and is talking to the girl. His MCU angle seemed fine, but hers seemed off for some reason. I don't know if she wasn't looking in the right spot or what, but it was something about it. I think an OTS from behind him would've worked nicely there. I'll have to go back and watch that part again, because I could be way off. Anyway, a very super pro entry on all fronts. Congrats!
 
ZazaCast said:
Brandon....well done....very well done. All I can say is it must be nice to live in the LA area where you can find such talented actors & crew.
(that might be the only nice thing about LA in my book...but that's a 'whole-nothar' story :huh:)

I think what I like most about your film is that even with people dying, killing themselves and gouls showing up at parties, they are all likable
characters...just nice people. You put a positive twist on a dark subject. I mean think about it, girl gets shot in head and seconds later is enjoying
a passionate kiss with her admirer. Women! :smile: Go figure....

Beautiful to look at and a complete film....nice work. :beer:
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Thank you very much! I am glad you got a chance to see the film. I still need to make my way over to your thread with a review (which will be positive by the way) :)

I appreciate the encouraging words, and glad you enjoyed our film! :thumbsup:

Marlon Ladd said:
Brandon, I thought this was an excellent film. Everything was pretty top-notch. The cinematography was on-point as well as the performances. You had everything you needed to make this successful, including the location set design and extras. The makeup also looked better this time around IMO. The only thing that I thought was kind of distracting was when the kid first comes in the party and is talking to the girl. His MCU angle seemed fine, but hers seemed off for some reason. I don't know if she wasn't looking in the right spot or what, but it was something about it. I think an OTS from behind him would've worked nicely there. I'll have to go back and watch that part again, because I could be way off. Anyway, a very super pro entry on all fronts. Congrats!
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Hi Marlon,

Thanks for the comments, and for watching our film!

Regarding the comment about the space/angle of that scene, I do agree it could have benefited from maybe another shot (medium 2 shot profile perhaps) but at that point (this was the last scene we shot) we were about 2 hours behind, and all very tired... I felt like we got what we needed to make the scene work performance-wise and wanted to move on. We actually cut out a few shots from that scene, but I felt like, in the edit it worked, as we cut back to the establishing shot (behind our lead) twice to establish the room and distance between the characters.

Thank you for the comment though, always looking to improve! :)
 
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That makes sense and honestly, I may have been the only person to notice, so it definitely works. I'll have to put that under the category of nit-picking something that probably only a filmmaker would notice. :thumbsup: So, what are your plans for the film from here?
 
Marlon Ladd said:
That makes sense and honestly, I may have been the only person to notice, so it definitely works. I'll have to put that under the category of nit-picking something that probably only a filmmaker would notice. :thumbsup: So, what are your plans for the film from here?
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No problem!

I'm planning to submit it to some "live" film festivals, including some specifically aimed at horror films. I am nervous that because it's a sequel it may be a little tougher getting into some of the fests, but I hope it still stands alone. We shall see!

I'm in further development on a short film to shoot in January/February. Co-writing with my wife, it's a Christmas short (much different than this). And then I'm going to hunker down and write/shoot my first feature this summer I hope! We shall see...
 
Marlon Ladd said:
That makes sense and honestly, I may have been the only person to notice
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I noticed this as well. But I bet most casual viewers won't notice. Might be a filmmaker thing.
Aside from that bump in the road, I liked the short. I don't think you really need to see the first one either, which is nice.

The performances suited the roles quite well. Everyone was good.
The pointing of the gun at her face for that long might have been a bit much, I expected her to be far more uncomfortable with that.

But overall the short really works. The ending was pretty good too. Loved that part.
Pretty solid short from start to finish. I enjoyed the opening as well with all the decorations.

Nicely done.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
I noticed this as well. But I bet most casual viewers won't notice. Might be a filmmaker thing.
Aside from that bump in the road, I liked the short. I don't think you really need to see the first one either, which is nice.

The performances suited the roles quite well. Everyone was good.
The pointing of the gun at her face for that long might have been a bit much, I expected her to be far more uncomfortable with that.

But overall the short really works. The ending was pretty good too. Loved that part.
Pretty solid short from start to finish. I enjoyed the opening as well with all the decorations.

Nicely done.
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Thank you for watching! :thumbsup:

Regarding the pointing of the gun at her, we kind of played with "time" a little bit there... since we're dealing with the living and the dead at that point, we sort of slowed time down for a few beats there. I actually like the effect, but I see what you're saying if you don't catch that.

Thanks again for watching our short, and the encouragement! I am glad you thought it stood alone, as I had hoped it would. I actually think this short is stronger in terms of a traditional story-line and structure.
 
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