Written and Directed by John Borowicz Running Time: 11 minutes 40 seconds
7 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I had trouble hearing dialogue tracks and consequently the conversation in the final scene with the woman and her son "Mr. Valentine" as they stood on stair next to the Stone Arch Bridge. When the dialogue is obstructed and we cannot hear what the characters are saying, its time to turn it off.
The story line and structure was also pretty confusing and should have been worked out on paper well before shooting and editing. I get that he receives the prognosis from the doctor he's going to die, he hires a hit man to kill himself who he meets in the park, calls an old girlfriend, wants to call of the hit (after a series of missed phone messages?) and then comes the scene at the Stone Arch Bridge.
The story is a sophomoric premise, something you'd see in high school students making their first film telling a twisted crime story but the transitions and dramatic build have no intensity or strength and we never feel as if we want to know "what's gonna happen next."
The thrill or suspense of anticipation is critical to this genre of storytelling. The element of surprise is even more spell-binding, however, this story has none of those elements.
Where do you hire a hit man to put a contract on yourself? The Yellowpages? Craigs list? Do you know how ridiculous the premise of the story is?
As a writer you have an obligation to make this premise plausible even if it is a reach. Quentin Tarantino is able to accomplish this weird and twisted sense of the mundane reality but not without effort. Andy Warhol with his films "Vinyl" and "Kitchen" or the feature film "Bad" (Warhol produced) took a twisted angle on the mundane, yet, gave us plausible reason to accept it.
"Bad" directed by Jed Johnson and based on George Abagnalo story was about a salon hairdressers who moonlight as hired murders. When a rich couple hire the hairdresser to kill their autistic son, we all winch and the moral dilemma becomes wrenching for the story and the hairdressers who just have a job to do.
This film makes no effort to establish the hired hitman premise as plausible and therefore comes off as half-baked.
The only good Thing I can say about this film is: Nothing! I'm sorry, but what were you thinking? You need friends that will tell you the truth, or at least actors that will tell you, there is no way I would act in something as unorganized. Either go to school for film making, or give it up because it's not your calling.
Assuming you're a member of Screenwriters Workshop, you may want to go to some of their programs.
While production issues were a problem, I think the overlying issue was story. You had 3 separate stories here: man dying of cancer, man trying to bargain with a contract killer, and man finding an old love and discovering a son he never knew he had. If you think about it, each of these could be a feature and you crammed them into a 10 minute short.
When making shorts, keep your ambitions modest and your story small.
Movie Critic--didn't they tell you in kindergarten...if you can't find anything good to say, DON'T SAY ANYTHING?
The themes here are intriguing, but I agree with JMM. Don't get too ambitious with your stories. A well-structured story would cure a lot of ills in this piece.
The dialogue sounded written, I didn't believe the main actor in the doctors office. The sound levels were off and I wondered why the camera jumped the line? I complelely lost interest in the park and the dialogue in the park was even weaker than in the doctor's office. I stopped watching at the 6 minute mark.
7 comments:
I had trouble hearing dialogue tracks and consequently the conversation in the final scene with the woman and her son "Mr. Valentine" as they stood on stair next to the Stone Arch Bridge. When the dialogue is obstructed and we cannot hear what the characters are saying, its time to turn it off.
The story line and structure was also pretty confusing and should have been worked out on paper well before shooting and editing. I get that he receives the prognosis from the doctor he's going to die, he hires a hit man to kill himself who he meets in the park, calls an old girlfriend, wants to call of the hit (after a series of missed phone messages?) and then comes the scene at the Stone Arch Bridge.
The story is a sophomoric premise, something you'd see in high school students making their first film telling a twisted crime story but the transitions and dramatic build have no intensity or strength and we never feel as if we want to know "what's gonna happen next."
The thrill or suspense of anticipation is critical to this genre of storytelling. The element of surprise is even more spell-binding, however, this story has none of those elements.
Where do you hire a hit man to put a contract on yourself? The Yellowpages? Craigs list? Do you know how ridiculous the premise of the story is?
As a writer you have an obligation to make this premise plausible even if it is a reach. Quentin Tarantino is able to accomplish this weird and twisted sense of the mundane reality but not without effort. Andy Warhol with his films "Vinyl" and "Kitchen" or the feature film "Bad" (Warhol produced) took a twisted angle on the mundane, yet, gave us plausible reason to accept it.
"Bad" directed by Jed Johnson and based on George Abagnalo story was about a salon hairdressers who moonlight as hired murders. When a rich couple hire the hairdresser to kill their autistic son, we all winch and the moral dilemma becomes wrenching for the story and the hairdressers who just have a job to do.
This film makes no effort to establish the hired hitman premise as plausible and therefore comes off as half-baked.
The soundtrack on this is all over the map--poppy, strings, inappropriately placed and distracting, while the dialogue track was hard to hear.
It just "begins" -- no fade in or setup.
Confusing storyline. Odd scene over the phone with cross-fade. Dialogue hackneyed -- didn't believe in the actor saying it.
Did you mean for the characters to come off as creepy? If so, you succeeded!
The only good Thing I can say about this film is: Nothing! I'm sorry, but what were you thinking? You need friends that will tell you the truth, or at least actors that will tell you, there is no way I would act in something as unorganized. Either go to school for film making, or give it up because it's not your calling.
Assuming you're a member of Screenwriters Workshop, you may want to go to some of their programs.
While production issues were a problem, I think the overlying issue was story. You had 3 separate stories here: man dying of cancer, man trying to bargain with a contract killer, and man finding an old love and discovering a son he never knew he had. If you think about it, each of these could be a feature and you crammed them into a 10 minute short.
When making shorts, keep your ambitions modest and your story small.
Movie Critic--didn't they tell you in kindergarten...if you can't find anything good to say, DON'T SAY ANYTHING?
The themes here are intriguing, but I agree with JMM. Don't get too ambitious with your stories. A well-structured story would cure a lot of ills in this piece.
The dialogue sounded written, I didn't believe the main actor in the doctors office. The sound levels were off and I wondered why the camera jumped the line? I complelely lost interest in the park and the dialogue in the park was even weaker than in the doctor's office. I stopped watching at the 6 minute mark.
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