please comment on my film

[paul]

I would be very happy if you like to leave some comment on this little 8 minute feature I made. You can leave it here, email me, or leave it on vimeo.

I hope to improve my self this way, so if you like to contribute..please do..

Thanks,


Paul

http://vimeo.com/groups/super8/videos/3252789

p2.paul@home.nl

[BK]

Hey Paul, nice and well shot. I see the black & white Kurasawa style. 8)

I don't quite understand the story, there must be something crucial in the few lines of dialogue. Not sure about the fade in fade outs to show the passage of time at the beginning, maybe the guy looks at his watch and close up shots of the watch at different times, or audio of the radio annoucing different times.

The shot of the guy driving filmed from the hood of the car is quite dramatic, hope you weren't hanging outside the vehicle to get this shot. Maybe a close up of the speedometer and shifting gears illustrating how fast he is going would be nice.

The girl, when she came out from the shower and then she's dressed and ready, it's too abrupt as though it's a jump cut. And the empty window shot?

Maybe you could have a big long wide shot of the house and you see the couple through the window fighting inside but you have sounds of shouting and things being smashed...just to make it more dramatic.

Well done Paul, you are getting better and better with your little films.

[richard p. t.]

Hi Paul,
you have executed this film with a steady hand and achieved a clean and restrained style. I like the stillness and the silences. Of course the still shot of the broken pot plant speaks volumes...
a fine film.
richard

[marc]

Most of the shots look very steady with no jitter!

[adamgarner]

Good use of sounds and music. Foley!

Good acting, and I like some of the shots. If you want some "criticism," I would have enjoyed more variety in framing and movement. It seemed like the majority of shots were 90 degrees. Very angular and very still. Maybe that was your storytelling, though?

Good work!

[paul]

I used virtual dub for stabilising the frames. So that's why everything is so stable. Freddy from this forum helped me out a lot here.

It is true that it is filmed sober. Perhaps I should think of using more different angles. I think of that next time, as well as of the movement.

Thanks for commenting guys!

Paul

Damn! Something went wrong. The new link is;

http://vimeo.com/3252789

[woods01]

I would suggest that you spend some time doing some 'colour' timing of the movie. Your film is very grey & washed out in the exteriors. Basically the blacks aren't black and the whites aren't white!

For example your insert of the keys at 01:05 is very black compared to the master of the car interior. The scene in the apartment around 03:00 however has much bolder blacks in it and has better contrast. Which is close to how I prefer a good B&W image to look.

[paul]

What do you think about the story..does it grab your attention or not at all, is it boring or entertaining? Which parts do you think are are good/bad etc..

Thanks,

Paul

[richard p. t.]

Hello again Paul,
I have been thinking about your film. Here are a few of my thoughts about it.

Regarding style, as I mentioned above, I think you have achieved something here. This is a restrained, almost minimalist style. Key features are the stillness and quietness. Reduced movement is part of this style - both of the camera, and of the objects within the frame. As is a reduced spectrum of shot sizes, lens focal lengths and angles. In such a style, small movements and small changes become pointed and noticeable. This is the kind of restraint and mise-en-scene control you see in the films of the incomperable Yasujiro OZU, as well, in a different way, in those of Buster Keaton. I wouldn't be surprised if you were a fan of these two. Another aspect of the style you have achieved here comes down to what I refer to as 'off screen emotion'. Where the audience experiences emotion in the character's world, it is nonetheless not shown to them, but rather generated by them. The 'off screen'/'on screen' distinction to me connects with the 'apolinian'/dionysian' distinction explicated by Nietzsche I believe - the 'dionysian' being an explosive, passionate tendency while the 'apolinian' being a rational, calculative one (caution here: my spelling of these two words is not to be relied upon). Personally I think 'off screen' emotion engenders a greater sense of ownership of the emotion in the audience, and thus a greater sense of participation in the work. Often, the ‘off screen’ approach is associated with a strict avoidance of music – aside that is from ‘diagetic’ music – music that is literally in the world of the characters like the dance music we hear in your film. You see this most clearly in the work of Bresson. A fan of him too?
You deviate from this ‘programatic’ restraint only at one point – that is the decisive point where the man decides to go and do his evil thing. We see some very close close-ups and hear intense non-diagetic string sounds. These are ‘on screen’ cues as to what is going on inside him.
What do I think of this deviation? Well I am not sure. There is an easy tendency when one articulates a set of programmatic stylistic stipulations like those I have given above to slavishly (a loaded word!) stick to them. This too can be a fault – one I know I have been given too. I can imagine this scene without these on-screen ‘cues’. But also, I think a pointed deviation from your mise-en-scene ‘rules’ can also be useful. I remember seeing a film of Pual Schrader set in Venice (title forgotten). This too had a very programmaticly reduced and controlled style. Then in the final scene, he broke the style and incorporated a very slow motion shot of someone being stabbed. I felt betrayed by this slow motion shot. But ultimately, it comes down to taste.

Regarding the story, again, I thought it was very gentle and restrained in its telling. I like the fact that we didn’t even see the woman and the other fellow touch. Maybe he was a work colleague. The ‘sexual’ component that we assume our villain assumed may have been entirely in his head … as was, we assume, that relation between him and the woman. The prior history of the woman and our villain is left unsaid. That is interesting. Knowing one way or the other about a prior history between the two would have balanced our reading of the story quite differently. Of course, no prior history of any kind could mitigate against what he did, so perhaps it is thematically stronger to leave any prior history unsaid as you did. But I am a little troubled by what I see as the absence of thematic material in the film. I realize it is a very short film, but I am having trouble getting beyond mere story into something deeper. What are we to make of the events? The narrative seems neutral about them. That, for instance, could be taken as a very balanced and humanistic approach. However if that sort of humanism were to gravitate to the level of ‘theme’ we would need more thematic cues in the narrative to explicate some kind of inevitability of the events – just for instance. By ‘thematic material’ I am not talking about a kind of didactic ‘judgment’ of the events – the events are obviously damnable enough. But if I was asked to find fault in your finely crafted and executed film, it would be that I am unsure of its thematic import – of what is motivating the story to be the shape it is – of what the story is ‘about’ over and above the people and events we see in it.
I recently went to see the two new films directed by Clint Eastwood – Gran Troino and The Changeling. These two films couldn’t be more different with regards to this question of ‘theme’. The former is entirely a fiction, its events entirely constructed around the theme of having faith in handing the world over to the next generation. The latter film however was a true story, and from it, I didn’t get much more perspective on the events than you would get from a thorough news story about the events. Yes, those things happened and happen … but not much more than that. There was ample opportunity in the events of the story of The Changeling to take us somewhere beyond the events – it could have been about trust or hope of the futility of both in the face of a random universe (!!) or anything – but instead it showed me that there was brutality and corruption in the LAPD in the 1920s.
I think you have taste in what you are doing Paul and I hope you continue. Well done.
richard

[paul]

Hello again Paul,
This is the kind of restraint and mise-en-scene control you see in the films of the incomperable Yasujiro OZU, as well, in a different way, in those of Buster Keaton. I wouldn't be surprised if you were a fan of these two. Another aspect of the style you have achieved here comes down to what I refer to as 'off screen emotion'.

Hi Richard,

First of all thank you very much for taking so much time for commenting on my film.

I am indeed a fan of Ozu. Buster Keaton I don't know so well. I do like sober filming. I like the qualifications you give like 'restrained' and 'minimalist'. For that reason I like the Brothers Dardenne (our Belgium neighbours) a lot too. It's funny that you mentioned Bresson, since I always keep a booklet on my desk of him called "Notes on the Cinematograher", with a lot of quotes of his, which make you think.

Bringing the off screen emotion has a lot to do with that I work with amateur actors. One can not expect complicated acting from them and that's why I tried to suggest these emotions more indirectly instead of directly. In a way, especially the villain, they did not have to act at all. And that was the only instruction I gave them while directing: "don't act!", which (amateur) actors are tempted to (over)do. But that is not to say that I do not like the off screen emotion as a style. I think it even might be stronger than on screen emotion. But it is a low/no budget technique as well of course. I try to write a film so, so that the required acting is minimal.

Paul Schrader, I just read, was inspired by Bresson and Ozu and Dreyer (whom I like a lot as well).

It was interesting that you mentioned the appolian/dionysian dichotomy. I am a true apolinian. My nephew who is a painter is a true dionysian, and I envy him for that. I want to be more a dionysian, at least in filmmaking. It is interesting to think about that, in that way.

I think you have a point with the thematic lack. A friend of mine said that she liked the film, but that the film was not grabbing her. It missed a 'hook'. I think that's what you are missing too. Either I should give it a stronger POV, bring the characters more to life or bring out more emotion. I will have to study on that. I watch films often with a certain 'assigment', like: 'how does it open', ' how are the characters created' etc. I think the next assigment will be "why does it grab me and how was it done", or "from what moment on did I sympathise with the character" and analyse that. There is still a lot to learn.

Thanks again for your input. It gave me things to think about.

Best regards,

Paul

[Steven Boldt]

Very well done and thought out. Good acting and good pace. Could you let us in on the filters, lighting etc... that you used? I was wondering about filters because I've been reading that a weak yellow filter used out-doors with B and W film can give much better contrast between colors that show up as grey. I forgot which to use indoors. Just curious about that.
This reminded me a bit of "Baroque" film noir as done by Orson Wells in some movie in the 50's. The Killers?

Overall,good job!

[paul]

Hi Steven,

No filters were used in this film. I used the contrast setting in post on my computer and used a little program (Virtual Dub) for resetting the white and black levels in the film to 'pure' black en 'pure' white. This way the contrast in the film was good most of the time. I also used it's image stabiliser.

I also used a Depth of Field (DOF) table. I measured the distance to the camera, measured which diaphragm to use with an external lightmeter, and looked in the DOF-table to which distance I had to set the lens for he depth of field I wanted. This way of focussing always gave me the very best results.

For indoor shooting I used a 1250 watts halogen tungsten light. I had to use the full potential of it, so I directed the light directly to the subject most of the time.

I used a Nikon R10 and a bit of a bauer C900. I found the Bauer c900 superior interms of image stability.

Thanks for the compliments Steven. If you want to know more, just ask.

Paul