Presenting "La Zucca"

[evenwolf]

http://www.tycoonjack.com/video/lazucca.mpg

Right click, "save target as"

91mb download
9 minutes
3-4 days of shooting
miniDV, Sony pd150

any critiques would be appreciated.

[Gilbert]

What?2? 91MB? That must be crazzzzzzzzzy, only insane f00 would download that!1!

* Gilbot V7000a starts teh download.

[remixor]

Wow, not a bad server.  I'm getting about 200-230 kbps, so it should be done pretty soon.

[TheYak]

La zucca?  Isn't that spanish for The Squash or something?  Or is it Italian for Azùcar?  

Anyway, nice audio/video quality..  very strange film...  sort of reminds me of a King Missile production.

[Nacho]

Yak: That double "C" (Zucca) makes me think that we´re facing some kind of italina word.

* Farlander is happy to see how this short post increases his posting figures

[Shattered Sponge]

I second Yak; very odd film, but very amusing also.  Overall, me like very much (I'm sure that you're ecstatic to hear that I liked it), but as you asked for critiques, I tried to pick out a couple of things that irked me:

Firstly, although it's obviously not a serious work, it does seem a mite unusual to try and have a 'OMFG it was teh him after all!' plot twist in a 9-minute film (although that might not be what you were going for and I'm just an idiot), and it felt a little unwieldy in the film itself; I think the short length combined with the amount of plot you had also caused the dialogue to feel a little too blatantly exposition-heavy, as well.

Secondly, and indeed finally, in the part where the guy (you?) pulls out the knife and the sound seems to cut out to give way to the BGM, it's somewhat jarring when the Opera music suddenly quietens for a couple of lines of dialogue and then goes right back up again; it's a pity, because there was a nice use of the camera in that sequence, and one might have got 'lost in the moment' (for lack of a better term; at least a better term that my idiot mind can muster) and it would have been more of a surprise when the guy-who-might-be-you-although-I'm-not-sure got shot in the head.  Nitpicking, and something that probably only would ever bother me, but it's the only other thing I could think of.

Anyway, sorry if I didn't phrase that too well, but I hope it helps a little (doubtful, as I'm such an idiot).

[evenwolf]

I hope it helps a little (doubtful, as I'm such an idiot).

This helps alot actually, thank you for scrutinizing indeed.

I think I agree with you on the second comment, the dialogue "You'll go to hell soon, same as your boss" was originally intended as a callback to the diner sequence "the same" pun (which wasn't really strong to begin with) - and when editing, I almost decided to drown out that line of dialogue as a symbol of overpowerment by the part of my character Luciano (yes, that is me).  But you know, sometimes you edit with simply the script in mind- and that's what happened in this scenario.  A critique I will most CERTAINLY keep in mind for future cuts of the movie.

As for the first point, I wish I could have filmed more with the "Same Guy" as to where we see him enter the garage for a logical reason - rather than "I just happen to be where this murder is about to take place, and I happen to have a huge gun" - however, a) that actor only had 15 minutes to film that scene, and b) I only had two days to write this.  


To clear this up, I wish I could reshoot a couple shots establishing that the same guy is in the garage on some mission, so when he kills Luciano that it appears he's enacting justice rather than just appearing out of nowhere.  But I probably won't get to reshoot.

Thanks again Shattered

[Barcik]

I liked the camera work a lot, and I enjoyed the shooting scene greatly. The whole general idea was silly. Good silly that is.

I was quite annoyed by the 'stunts'. For example, when that guy was beaten with the pumpkin, it was well seen that he didn't actually hit him. I imagine that there are limitations with doing a very low-budget film, but if you shoot violence than at least make it look real.

Overall, I can say I enjoyed these 10 minutes.