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[RallyMonkey]

Hey guys,

This summer I made a movie. I spent quite a bit of time on it, and I think it turned out pretty well.

It's about a teenage boy who refocuses his romantic aspirations after he interprets a sign for a mattress store as a sign from God.

If you're interested in seeing it, and have some time to spare, than I would really appreciate knowing what you all think of it.

You can watch it here

Thanks.

[Dimmukane]

I'm not trying to be mean, but the actors are shit.  Except for Carrie...and her part is pretty small.  Barrett wasn't terrible.  Grace sounded like a bimbo.  Tucker was fucking annoying.

Your shots are pretty okay.  The only one that really stuck out (badly) was the one with the lamp in the middle.  What the fuck was that.  The other thing I noticed was how hard it was to see the actors faces a lot of the time, their hair was in the way.  The script was alright.  Definitely not that good, but worse scripts have gotten backing from major studios.  I love how Grace has no reaction to the song whatsoever while he's playing it. 

[RallyMonkey]

Thanks for watching it.

[schimmy]

I watched it last night and rather enjoyed it, though the whole of it felt kind of "hey, let's make an indie movie!"
It's pretty good for what it is, though.

[RallyMonkey]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. That's all I really wanted to get out of making it.

I'm definitely not great at making movies yet, I'm just starting out. Yet, this one I took a lot more seriously than I rarely do, and that's one of the biggest reasons for some of the flaws. This is the first time I ever used lighting or microphones or any of that such, so it was difficult to set the lights, set the tripod, set the camera, set the microphones and boom mic, control the camera, and focus on the actor's performances at the same time. Next time I make a movie, I plan on having a much larger crew than just myself.

Thanks again for watching it.

[Dimmukane]

It's pretty good for what it is, though.

Despite everything I said, this is probably more appropriate.  You had 5 people and probably zero funds, but you were able to make a movie out of it.  It's not going to win awards, but it probably taught you something about the process, and that's more important.

Like I said, though, most of your shots weren't too bad.  I've seen worse on DVD (re: Motocross Zombies From Hell.  This is an example of a movie that is definitely worse than yours).


New post: This reminded me that your lighting was pretty decent, too.  You seem to understand the technical bits a little better than you do controlling the actors.

[RallyMonkey]

It's not so much that I understand it more, but I don't have much experience with controlling actors for film. All of the actors in the movie are theater actors, and very good ones at that. Yet, it's really hard to make a transition from stage acting to film acting with out getting a lot of good direction. And this film was my attempt to really get the technical parts such as lighting and sound down, and by the time I got those kinks worked out, we were out of time for me to get good performances. We were working under time pressures the whole time, and most of the shots were done in one or two takes, because that's all we have time for. And yes, we had a zero dollar budget.

My next film I plan completely on being a character film on which I focus almost purely on the actors.

Thanks for the comments, Dimmukane, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it. Did you at least get a few laughs out of it?

[JediBendu]

Watching it it seemed really obvious to me that the actors weren't really comfortable with their lines. A good bit of the lines were noticeably fumbled. And the girl who played Grace was flat(ter) than the other actors in some of her scenes.

The premise and most of the writing isn't bad (I didn't like the dialogue in the picnic scene though.) Your grasp of the technicalities are functional, as has been said, but I think the scenes could benefit from some close-ups rather than letting the entire scene play out in two-shots.

But overall it was entertaining enough and as long as you recognize the process of improving and learning then you're on the right track.

[Dimmukane]

It's not that I didn't enjoy it, it's that the actors ruined it (which I now understand was something you didn't have time for).  If the dialogue flowed a little more naturally I think it would've been a semi-decent flick.  And now that you brought it up, I can see how Tucker and Barrett might be decent theatre actors.  I didn't really think about how hard it might be to transition between theatre and film until you mentioned that.  Grace was still pretty flat, though.

[RallyMonkey]

The girl who played Grace was really nervous. She was not originally the one set to play the part, and I called her up the day of shooting, and she agreed to do it.

It's funny that you mention you didn't like the writing of the date scene, because that scene was completely improvised. It has had very mixed reactions, most people either think it's the best scene, or the worst, very few people are indifferent towards it.

That is another one of the problems is memorization, usually the actors only have however long it takes me to set up the lighting and the shot to memorize their lines, so most of the directing is overshadowed by just trying to get the lines right. Another problem of time constraints. All things I plan on focusing more on next time.

Thanks very much for the comments.