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watch Sadistic Dismemberment - My First Film, Dark Comedy/Horror

J

Jedsterg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nre6KSx9CIw

This is my first proper short film, I did everything myself, except compose the music of course. So please go easy on me :blush: I only used a Digital Camera. Some opinions on the editing, cinematography and all the other stuff would be nice.

You might find the storyline a bit random, maybe even distasteful, but if you've see the movies I was inspired by in the credits you will understand why. Some of my other influences, some directors I was influenced by are Park Chan Wook, Takeshi Kitano, David Lynch(kinda) and Fruit Chan.

There is no dialogue, it's sort of a silent film.

Youtube kind of ruined the quality of the text, which is annoying..
 
I liked the part at the end where the hand holds up all the different tools the best. As for a critique, a lot of the shots held too long- you could easily shave 3-4 mins off this vid with tight editing and have much more impact in the shots you do choose to hold longer. All in all, despite the length it was an interesting enough idea in there... kind of fun little video with a little kid being the sadistic killer and some neat POV shots... got nice and creative in the end there which is cool.

As for the beginning, I HAVE to post this video I made a few years back for The Poke Show called Clichè: An Independent Film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOZWvznYvqY

...Cause I can't tell you how many indie shorts I've seen start off with the following: alarm clock, guy wakes up, makes coffee/breakfast for 5 minutes before the action starts.
LOL.

But I digress from indie-snobbery... it was a good little first film and I look forward to more!
 
Thanks, I had no idea the alarm clock thing was so common :P

About the drawn out shots, thats kinda what I wanted to do, I guess it would alienate some people. The movies and some of the directors(Takeshi Kitano and Park chan wook in particular) I was inspired by, seem to have lots of drawn out shots, which I really liked. It seemed to have worked for them, but it probably came off as a bit pretentious for me.
 
Spatula that Cliche was awesome. I think that theres some things in films that shouldnt be allowed after its been shown for the millionth time
 
Jedsterg said:
About the drawn out shots, thats kinda what I wanted to do, I guess it would alienate some people. The movies and some of the directors(Takeshi Kitano and Park chan wook in particular) I was inspired by, seem to have lots of drawn out shots, which I really liked. It seemed to have worked for them, but it probably came off as a bit pretentious for me.
Click to expand...

Well, it's more of a pacing issue than pretension, LOL... ultimately that's your call, I'm just saying that holding shots that long in sequence really slows down the pace and when you use them one after the other it crawls down to slideshow levels. The ending picked up the pace and hence, made me laugh!
 
Alright, thanks :D I'll keep that in mind next time, I definitely could have cut down some scenes, like the fork scene, that was definitely too long. I would re-edit it, but it literally took me 8 hours to save it and because my computer has hardly any RAM, the program crashes every 5 minutes and I had to cut my film into 3 parts, save them separately and then put them together in a different program, and then save them as one film :eek:
 
I like how you play around with angles and composition...that shows great potential. Some of your shots looked really cool. I found the pacing slow, which has already been mentioned here.

Getting into lighting seems a bit pointless, as you really didn't even try to be creative in that arena. But that's cool...one step at a time. You've got a lot of interesting shots...which is better than most young filmmakers...but you're also lacking many other aspects professionals take into consideration. You should continue to experiment with ideas and techniques (lighting, sound, etc)...you're off to a great start.

Thanks for sharing.
 
I watched that cliche short Motorstorm and had a good laugh - especially at the phone voice-overs. As well as the alarm clock, there's the long look at oneself in the mirror and the explanatory language: "our mutual friend Fiona". Here's a great site about - well it's pretty obvious what it's about: www.moviecliches.com. Enjoy.
 
I used a Canon powershot A470. The only scenes I thought were too long was the fork scene, eating cereal scene and the scene when I was watching TV. I'm happy with the other scenes.
 
Jed Camara - what a great name for a filmmaker! I really liked the fork scene but it was a tad too long. And the household implements were funny. But the way you described your little sister at the end - that's not nice! ;)
 
Jed Camera Lights Action!

Yeah, I've been called that a few times :lol:

I definitely made some errors with my editing, in some shots you can see me for a split second moving to turn off the camera. :hmm: But that was more due to my rubbish computer freezing and crashing when ever I try to edit my video.

But I've got a better programme now and I'm already thinking of some new ideas, I might do something about a hacker.

Thanks for all the feedback.
 
I really like the visual texture of your movie. By that I mean all the close-ups of objects and actions that create meaning. There are some very nicely composed shots. Also, there's also a good use of sound and music.

I have to agree with the previous poster that the whole thing could be tightened up. He's right on the money about the morning routine. I taught a beginning filmmaking course and after one quarter I banned students from making movies that included sequences of people getting up and getting ready for their day because I saw 4-5 on them the first quarter. There's a commercial out now for some kind of health breakfast bar out now which crams a whole day of eating and snacking into 10 seconds.

Specific cuts are the shot down the hallway before the first vision of the killer runs way too long. Cut half the first part off. The shot with fork in the foreground is great, but again, cut off most of head of the shot before the victim sits.

Overall a good effort, but needs editing.
 
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