Scots Taffer on 25/12/2009 at 00:25

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At the risk of sounding like a pretentious critical fag, I think you're kinda sweeping away many valid criticisms in favour of self-pleasing thoughts like "different tastes" - perhaps because of how much people have "creamed" over your attempt here, and presumably their taste aligned better?

Don't get me wrong, you're taking the majority of the criticism well but your response smacks of "yeah, thanks but it means this and you don't get it", which basically means you'll struggle to meet as wide an audience as possible if you're only concerned with pleasing yourself and those whose tastes align with yours.

The consensus here is that you need to tighten up your editing and get some actors next time - not bad advice really.

IMO shots are simply far too long in the majority of the cases and it's not building tension, it's just sloppy editing. My feeling is that the robot voices and blank expressions meaning to convey exaggerated tension or whatever is just down to bad acting, no offence.

And as far as me missing the point, if you're saying the way they stand-off immediately upon seeing each other (which I described as robotic voices/blank expressions) isn't in any way meant to be an exaggerated attempt to mimic the tension of Western-style stand-offs at high-noon, then I guess I was giving you too much credit!

There's also no place for excuses like "you'd see that you can't do this any other way... tired arm /etc" are meaningless, you basically shouldn't attempt anything you cannot convincingly or technically achieve if you want to be taken seriously (artistically or otherwise).

Also, try not to take anything personally, just because of the way I disliked your manner onscreen doesn't mean I think you are a douchebag.

Unless that really is the way you are. ;)

Muzman on 10/1/2010 at 01:55

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Before this one gets away...


If you're showing people something important to the story, yes. The beginning does this fairly well. Where the amateur stuff shows is when you have to hold a long time for framing like the crane arounds in the chess and arm wrestling scenes. It seems like the dialogue is waiting for the shot (it's actually not all that often but the rhythm is funny). Amateur acting pauses are usually a bit of a dead givaway for me so, cutting around them is a good idea I find.


Here sound can help out. In fact, through most of it some extra in that department wouldn't hurt.


I suspect he means they are beyond the equipment and skill present on the day (I mean, is there any real reason why the wide shot in the chess scene isn't level?). You can do big handheld crane shots over a small area with some practice. If you're really good you can do it by propping a tripod against your hip and things of that sort.
I guess the point is if on the day the shot is ever extending the limits of movement you have it's better to cut out of it or think of something else.
(Although the track across the chessboard is wonky as anything and that's only a foot)


Here you use the most solid thing available to you, namely the door or the frame and lean against it hard. If the angle isn't quite right at the start, prop it (that is, the camera) up on a book or some sort of wedge shaped thing. Friction is your friend.
If you actually had a crane you'd probably find that the mount and general aperatus wouldn't fit close enough to the door for the shot anyway.


Indeed, and there's ways you could play this up with sound and shot selection and music too. An old school motif heavy comedy soundtrack would do well for it (frankly I'd like more pretentiousness myself too "You're trying to get Charlie and Chocolate Factory in ahead of MASH?! Burton's weakest effort! Taste alone means we win!")
Also, both groups should be established approaching the room at the start.



Not really. The stiffness of the performance and the awkward delivery isn't going to fool anyone that this a high grade effort. The pauses are amatuerish. There's obvious attempts at comic timing that don't quite click. When it breaks from the script into adlibbing is really plain at the end there. It sounds read more than performed for the most part (and the exceptions make it all the more apparent. There's quite good films with stilted or stagey performances, but they are consistently so). While it's not supposed to be great naturalism, it's not playing to its strengths (or cutting around its failings) either. The central performances could work, with some tweaking (her in particular), But they also need something real to work against. Notably the guy at the end needed to be the straight man acting as a back-to-reality for these overthinking leads, but he's having trouble talking and emoting and waving his arms at the same time. That role probably needed to go to the best overall actor in the piece.

The thing is, as most students do, thinking you'll have a few laughs you've picked one of the least casual and harder things to get right in all of movies. Farce just looks straightforward. So we'll cut you guys some slack (or I will anyway).

The other thing is, even great actors aren't necessarily going to fix this. They can be poorly handled and misunderstand the moment or the material too. The director has to be very ying and yang about the whole thing when it comes to getting what they want versus making the best of what they get. And this isn't even in the edit. This is in take four of some line you thought would be easy and the actor has just changed the whole meaning of it (and the scene) and can't seem to do it another way. You'll know this by now, in principle. Sadly it's really only experience that tells you the practicalities (not that I have a hell of a lot, but I see that much). So it's worth the exercise of going through the process of choosing and working with proper actors.

lastly

Haha, yeah. If you've seen what the real thing looks like and how they work you'd probably work out that this can be an adventure.
You might be a great tinker for all I know, just don't bring the thing to the set and hope it works on the day. See if you can do what you want long before and figure out what you're going to do when the thing breaks on you. That's all I'm saying.
They look pretty straightforward, and for the most part the principles at work are easy to understand and have parts that look fairly common. But there's usually one piece, a bearing or a gimble or hinge or something, that's the finest piece of titanium precisely machined to the nanometre and costs a fortune by itself. Those bits are key to the real things working as well as they do.

Good luck with it all anyways.

AR Master on 10/1/2010 at 18:37

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was the blue hoodie person a guy or a girl

Yakoob on 11/1/2010 at 01:08

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Girl. And yes you are not the only one confused about that (my first meeting with her: "why is this dude named Natalie?" )

AR Master on 11/1/2010 at 03:05

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id throw her a bone