*FILM* Distressed

[RydCook]

Hey people, got my latest film uploaded onto youtube recently and thought it'd be cool if you could check it out and leave some feedback.

the film is a bit like Small Town (one of my other films, if you've seen it) in that the script sucks, and so do the actors! but i beleiver the film does have its plus points, i think its rather funny and random, and theres some nice shots.

it was shot last year at the end of december, and was edited early this year. so go to the page and rate it and leave a comment! any feedback welcome, bad, good ANY!

cheers, heres the link:

[Hyde]

I liked the music and the setting! like where you cant see anything in the background but sky, its just flat! thats cool!

but I didnt like the rest, and I dont think you expect us to either haha

Keep at it though I look forward to when you can nail the dialogue and acting!

[RydCook]

thanks hyde! just what i wanted to hear. i guess the acting and dialogue is just funny for me and my mates. i love the location too, hoping to get another short film done there soon. luckily enough it will have no dialogue! ha ha. thanks again mate.

oh if you like the location check out another one of my short films shot there: Small Town



unfortunately it has the same bad acting and dialogue. some nice shots of the location though. cheers again for checking it out hyde.

[Hyde]

Your best yet is definately the one where the guy is seeing everything backwards and shit to the music, when I watched that I was surprised and was thinking hang on scrap what I thought about small time this guys really got something here! and its true, to me it was original, and well done, cant ask for more right?

[RydCook]

ha ha thanks! i think its my best film too. small town and distressed are just films to have a laugh with my mates, and also to get experiance. there are actually some very complicated sound edits in Distressed and making it was a great learning process for me. i never intended it to be film festival competition ha ha! whereas Esurio Admitto is more of a serious film and i did put alot of effort into the idea. my next film is to be another serious one, and will be the first to be filmed on my new camera, so the footage will look alot better quality. i look forward to shooting editing, and finally showing you guys it. i'll keep you updated.

[Dazza]

Mmmm i have also written a film about some teenagers that car breaks down and they meet a weirdo and end up in the forest but have yet to shoot it lol.

Fit girls in the film Ryd and I like the style its shot in and the way you switch the sides that you see the car when it runs out of fuel and the skyline in the background gives it a great effect.

Music is simple nice baseline but effective and I like the fact its shot in the snow.

The way it merges when they leave the car is a real cool effect.

Thats you the deranged man, its a shame the actors laugh when you first come into the film.

How are u supposed to be his father??? Sorry to be negative as well matey but the actors wernt that great, what happend to the little guy from smalltown he was pretty good? I can appreciate you gotta work with the people that are willing to be involved tho.

[PatrickCoyle]

dazzab21 said:

Mmmm i have also written a film about some teenagers that car breaks down and they meet a weirdo and end up in the forest but have yet to shoot it lol.

That's quite similar to a film I acted in that my mate did... Called "Silence". Hopefully yours will be better, the story seems a bit more solid! (In my mate's film it didn't make any sense)

Gonna watch Distressed now!

[PatrickCoyle]

Seen it... Some of the shots were great, I think you've improved a lot visually. Continuity was still a problem when using different angles and takes within the same scene, and the dialogue and acting were atrocious - worse than in "Small Town", just because it seemed no one took it seriously. But I kept watching, at no point did I get bored, and that's good. It's a testament to the look of it, the locations and shots (and fit girls).

Was that the intentional story? It seemed to be going somewhere and when your character appeared the story appeared to fall apart. The most impressive part for me was the walking up the road sequence - would've been great if you could have stopped other cars from passing.

[Dazza]

I agree with Patricks comments Ryd, he is right about some of the shots being great.

Its a good question about the story I didnt get where it was going once your charecter appeared and people were saying they were that guys father?

Patrick, once I have shot that film i'll do what Ryd has done and put it on here for some constructive critiscism. I need to get another film made seems like ages ago I did one but I'm gonna link my last film done a few months ago for you guys to see.

[Dave]

What the devil was that all about?? hahaha

As has already been mentioned, there were lots of nice shots in the film.... rock steady! A tripod does wonders!

Okay, so the acting is bad, but one thing that could improve any dialogue exchange is to film the entire conversation from each angle you may want to use. What you seem to have done in this short film is to point a camera at someone and get them to say one line on cue. Then change to view next person, and then get them to say their one line into camera. This makes any bad acting even worse.
No matter if a person only has one line in an exchange of dialogue and you want a to cut to them when they say it, then it is still better to go through all of the dialogue exchange while just pointing the camera at the person with one line. That way, their line won't feel so 'cued-up' and more part of a discussion. Another handy thing is you can also get the actor to react to what else is being said in the conversation, that way you may have some good reaction footage to slip in to the edit. Sometimes it's better to see someone reacting to a line of dialogue than to see the person who is saying it.

Well, hope that makes sense!

[PatrickCoyle]

The problem with that, Dave, (IMO) is that when your actors are mates who are just pissing about, it just takes too long and the line readings aren't really any better for it - every take will devolve further and further from the point (or conversely, they could get better with each take, but either way I think it's hard to get consistency). I know what you're saying and it is the better way, but I know all too well the trials and tribulations of trying to coerce my friends into acting... If a scene isn't covered within five minutes, their motivation wanes like my erection when the condom goes on.

[Dazza]

LOL The last sentence in your Post patrick had me chuckling!

[PatrickCoyle]

That's odd, as tears welled up in my eyes when I wrote it.

[Dazza]

Dry your eyes mate
I know you want to make her see how much this pain hurts
But you've got to walk away now

[RydCook]

i'm gonna qoute you guys and then just reply to your questions, your stuff will be in speech marks, and my answers will be underneath with out them:

dazzab said:
"Thats you the deranged man, its a shame the actors laugh when you first come into the film.

How are u supposed to be his father??? Sorry to be negative as well matey but the actors wernt that great, what happend to the little guy from smalltown he was pretty good? I can appreciate you gotta work with the people that are willing to be involved tho."

yeah it is a shame they laugh.. nothing i could do about it really, i couldn't do takes over and over again for that, it was a bloody cold day!

how am i his father?! i dunno it doesnt make sense at all! i guess thats just our kinda comedy, we find it funny, but i can understand if others don't! the story is completely random. and writen by me and a friend, and neither of us are writers! evidently!

coyle said:
"Was that the intentional story? It seemed to be going somewhere and when your character appeared the story appeared to fall apart. The most impressive part for me was the walking up the road sequence - would've been great if you could have stopped other cars from passing."

dazzab said:
"Its a good question about the story I didnt get where it was going once your charecter appeared and people were saying they were that guys father?"

yeah the story is kinda in two halfs, i wrote the first half a while ago, and it was originaly meant to be a horror parody, which took the piss out of horror films, when the inevetable always happens (the car breaks down, they stupidly decide to some weird creepy place, and then stupidly decide to split up.. etc) however, the second part of the film was written ON THE DAY OF THE SHOOT! hence it's badness. i had to shoot that day because of the awesome weather, and the snow, i thought the location would look wonderful, and it certainly did. it was just a shame i didnt have a proper script written up.

Dave said:
"Okay, so the acting is bad, but one thing that could improve any dialogue exchange is to film the entire conversation from each angle you may want to use."

this is exactly what i DID do!

"What you seem to have done in this short film is to point a camera at someone and get them to say one line on cue. Then change to view next person, and then get them to say their one line into camera. This makes any bad acting even worse."

i certainly did not do this! but i must admit, it does seem like i did. if you could see the outtakes yu'd see one shot of a guy, and the other actors saying their lines to him and him reacting, and saying his line.

"No matter if a person only has one line in an exchange of dialogue and you want a to cut to them when they say it, then it is still better to go through all of the dialogue exchange while just pointing the camera at the person with one line. That way, their line won't feel so 'cued-up' and more part of a discussion."

that was the plan.. obviously didnt work!

"Another handy thing is you can also get the actor to react to what else is being said in the conversation, that way you may have some good reaction footage to slip in to the edit. Sometimes it's better to see someone reacting to a line of dialogue than to see the person who is saying it."

aah i see, i could have tried this.. didnt think of it. i shall try next time i do a dialogues film.

coyle said:
"The problem with that, Dave, (IMO) is that when your actors are mates who are just pissing about, it just takes too long and the line readings aren't really any better for it - every take will devolve further and further from the point (or conversely, they could get better with each take, but either way I think it's hard to get consistency). I know what you're saying and it is the better way, but I know all too well the trials and tribulations of trying to coerce my friends into acting... If a scene isn't covered within five minutes, their motivation wanes like my erection when the condom goes on."

yeah coyle is very correct here, my friends did get tired of saying the same old lines over and over, and having to say lines when they wernt in shot, it seemed pointless to them. one of my friends (the long haird fellow) took 15 minutes to get one line right, all he had to say was "whoa, that guy looked distressed, d'you think we should listen to him, and
turn back?" ha ha.. and he just couldnt get it right! some funny outtakes came out of it. but i can see what coyle has said here and i certainly applies to maybe why the dialogue and acting is so bad in my film.


sorry for such a long post! thanks for all your constructive critism guys! most of the time it helps a whole load more than positive critism, cos now i know what to try next time. thank you all very much for your time to watch it and give me some feedback, much appricated! i look forward to making my new film and then showing you guys