On The Lot

[Sniper]

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Any special effects gurus wanna tell me how to get started???

PS: I haven't shown this film to many people who have critiqued it, practically only my film professor who gave me a B+ (??).

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Do they have specific courses in film school that teach special effects? I'm curious myself how one learns this trade. You need to apprentice yourself to someone. I imagine there is a lot written about it on the internet. I would hope, anyway.


No one else wants to critique Popinjay's short film? come on Loungers! Pretend you're like Garry Marshall or Carrie Fisher and put on your judge's hat. (try to stay out of the medicine cabinet beforehand) Keep in mind he made the film in one day on $0 budget. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] Not bad! Could he get into the next round of On The Lot? I really liked his ending and think our 2+2er shows a lot of potential.

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The "too dark" lighting for the majority of the film is not making the cut... lighten it up so we can see what's going on.

[Duke]

OK I'll put on my critic hat for Popinjay.

1. Musical transitions should accompany scene transitions. The guy's kinda stumbling across the grating and the music shifts noticeably to the "quick" side of things, and there is no related shift in camera angle or action level in the shot. He's still stumbling.

2. Making a story intentionally obtuse doesn't draw people in, it drives them away. Intellectually engaging films attain that classification by basically giving the viewer every single piece of information, and having it still be insightful, or whatever.

3. Do something neater with the smoke -> water transition. There's a lot of potential in shots like that to look cool.

4. Make it a little clearer why he's looking through that grating initially. I'm probably wrong, but I'm guessing that you were going for him trying to always view the world through a little box, as if it were a film, and so on, which ties in to the ending.

5. Every time you're going to make a movie, pretend you're Christine obeying Arnie Cunningham. "Show me." Show us, don't tell us.

6. The music was distracting at best. Aside from "killing teachers" I don't see how it fit in with anything (this was a school project, yes?).

7. Long shots that show a bunch of stuff happening can be experimental and fresh. The "I need to put sunglasses on so I can smoke" scene was decent for a long shot. Long shots that show basically nothing happening are just bad decisions. "Stumbling across the grating" was unnecessarily long and drawn out.

8. You mentioned not knowing how to do special effects. Watch these party invite videos. The effects are neat, and precisely "half-assed" enough to basically show you the tricks themselves. I don't know these people, but the videos are, indeed, ridiculous for what they are.

9. I'm pulling all of this out of my ass (just like Carrie Fisher), but my ass typically does a good job of being close to right.

Thanks for sharing the video.

[CharlieDontSurf]

The Bad: The rock music w/ lyrics = music video, the lighting and camera work..to dark/doesn't look like it is in focus which doesn't really add anything to scene. The subtitles..show don't tell...and if your going to tell at least use dialogue. there isnt much of a story/characters etc.

The Good: you actually went out and made something..you can only learn by actually doing it.

[katyseagull]

Tonight's episode of On The Lot was pretty good! I think overall the quality of the films was a big improvement over the last couple weeks. A couple of them were actually funny. What did you guys think of the comedies?

[Duke]

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Tonight's episode of On The Lot was pretty good! I think overall the quality of the films was a big improvement over the last couple weeks. A couple of them were actually funny. What did you guys think of the comedies?

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I'll let you know in a couple hours when the west coast catches up to the east. Last time I saw it I was on the east coast, so that's why the time stamp on that initial post was consistent with an EDT viewing.

[CharlieDontSurf]

Special Effects guy should pretty much have this thing won.
when he doesnt even use any FX he is still clearly the most talented director

[katyseagull]

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Special Effects guy should pretty much have this thing won.
when he doesnt even use any FX he is still clearly the most talented director

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Special Effects guy was impressive last night! He could teach the others a few things. His short is as good as it gets for a 2 minute comedy piece. The concept was great, the casting and direction was great, the music and sound effects were perfect. He seems to be the only one who understands how to use music effectively, changing it up at exactly the right moment. Where did this guy come from?

[katyseagull]

Anyone else watch On The Lot last night? Your thoughts on the caveman film? Duke, did you watch?

[rothko]

just finished. zach was by far the best. all of the rest missed the mark.

caveman one sucked. why'd you ask specifically about it?

also, why has nobody shot the host in the face, yet?

[katyseagull]

Well I asked about the caveman because I thought parts of it were just dreadful and parts of it made me laugh. So I guess I found it to be rather perplexing. When parts of it are good and other parts are awful it makes me wonder what is going on in the director's head. Is he just struggling with execution or did his concept totally suck? I guess I was wondering how he could have taken his caveman concept and made it work better.


Here is my order. My #1 film is so far above the other four as to make it sort of pointless.

1. Special Effects guy
2. Father-in-law
3. Caveman
4. Sperm bank
5. Making a baby