The mark f thread

I just now saw your post Sexy. Very nice. That woman in the forest is indeed the one and only Sarah. Now, if she's playing herself, we'll have to drag her into this thread (which I'm trying to do). I know for a fact that someone else was supposed to play that role but as I mentioned before, many people who said they were going to that forest never showed, and Sarah had to think on the fly and adapt.

See how much fun it is to "dig deeper into movies"?

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

No, I don't think you're superficial and shallow, but sometimes I do wonder what makes you take that extra step to "love" something.

I liked it, it made me want there to be more of it, which I mean as a compliment.

What was the significance of that picture of the knights? Has Sarah seen Raising Cain (I'm thinking of the extended dream sequence)? I also don't see what the problem with young people using (showing off?) old cameras is. I always used to play with my great grandfather's original Rolleiflex (which we still have) whenever I visited. Anyway it's a little obvious (my comment, that is) but the scene with the camera just adds another layer of ambiguity to the "what/how are we seeing?" question implied by/about the movie. Lastly, nice lighting in the bedroom scene, really creates an ambiguous mood.

Best wishes to sarah, I hope all is well and that she will post more.

Woohoo, I got it right! I assumed that was Sarah in the forest, too.

My feelings are mixed, but knowing a little of the backstory about it, as provided by you, bodes well, because all the things I like are about her innate filmmaking talent (the way it was shot, the cuts, the sound, etc.), and the things that threw me about it were things that sounded like they were beyond her control (not totally fleshed out, hard to guess at the meaning of it all). I enjoyed watching it and, like lines, really just wished she'd been able to see it through the way she initially wanted, with more emphasis on the dream sequences and more time to spell out what was happening, though I was able to guess at most of it.

Great stuff. Really dug it and I'd love to see what Sarah can do with more resources in fleshing this stuff out. The only things that I felt were off were largely due to the things you mentioned, and because her goal for this actually sounds overly ambitious for such a short film for such a budding young filmmaker. I feel like, if she'd had a more modest goal, she'd have probably knocked it out of the park. Trying to make symbols and dreams and things work coherently strikes me as a really hard thing to do, so kudos for aiming high and doing quite well with such a high degree of difficulty. Please thank her for sharing it with us.

This isn't sounding like something I would have liked. Autobiographical usually is boring. Yeah, I know they say write what you know so most people figure they know themselves and write about that. What was the last autobiographical movie that won Best Picture? Annie Hall? That had Woody Allen writing about himself and Diane Keaton and he and Diane Keaton are a lot more interesting than your average person or even artist. USC is right. Go commercial.

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It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

Okay.

Many thanks for making us all privy to Sarah's project Mark...

What do I think?

If nothing else Sarah is going to make one hell of an editor...

You mentioned earlier there are some wonderful cuts between reality and fantasy, and at the risk of souding sycophantic; it was those very transitions that drew me in...

I didn't watch the film for a story because I imagine this is more of a technical exercise; though to Sarah's credit the film is certainly coherant.

The photography is strong as I'd expect, and I think limiting the dialogue to hokey 60's cliches (the band at the end) was very amusing...

One thing I didn't like is that some of the film appears to have been shot on campus (correct me if I'm wrong) but I'd have prefered an exterior shot before the library scene, even though the rest of the editing was flawless...
I always think shooting anything other than discrete exteriors on campus detracts from authenticity...but I'm nitpicking...

I particularly liked the zoom into the dictionary entry 'halucination' which gave it (at least for me) an exploratory B movie feel, and I can honestly say the whole thing was entertaining. Thank god you're taste has rubbed off, because it didn't play like some detatched abstract art project...at least for me...

I want to see more...I also agree that 'Eat the Fruit' would have been a better title...please keep us all posted

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

I want to respond to all of today's posts, but first I'm trying to rewatch the film. I downloaded it but I'm still having some serious problems trying to watch it. I don't think they'll be resolved before the World Series in a half hour though. I just want to say that I appreciate the comments, and there's a good chance that Sarah will come into this thread soon to get more personal about the film and to comment and thank you all.

Cool stuff, the editing was fantastic. Quite a lot to interpret, especially for a short, but it did seem to have a lot of religious and/or mythological themes. I was a bit surprised when the credits rolled though, that was an interesting way to end the film.

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"Puns are the highest form of literature." -Alfred Hitchcock

Mark, I tried to watch and couldn't connect. The short sounds interesting from what I've read here so far. Stuff that blurs the line between dream and reality is generally my cup of tea.

I'll try again soon. Thanks for the heads up.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

I'm a bit mixed on the matter.

While the narrative is a bit convoluted, I do enjoy the style in which it was filmed. (Falling from one place and cutting to falling down into the next, which seems recurrent). It's a style which merits hallucinations, which I'm presuming is what the narrative was supposed to be in the first place. I think she can do better, but that's the film making process right? You strive to become better as your projects progress. So tell her I said to keep at it!

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Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of 'Green'?

-Stan Brakhage

I watched this short twice, once from a filmmaking point of view and the other from an audience point of view. Also not reading any comments yet, to go in with a fresh mind.

I'll start with the filmmaking point of view.

Not a fan of how it opens, the transitions seem very quick with the fade ins and outs.

I had no connection problems, it played fine for me, which tells me there is some audio issues. ADR is very evident for me, when they spoke I could tell the audio was recorded in a sound booth somewhere, as it's not synched up PERFECTLY and sounds very out of place with the environment. The most obvious part is when the two "hippies" talk to Jethro at the beginning. This goes hand in hand with the foley work: footsteps, drawers opening, papers shuffling, etc. To me it all seemed artificial. If it was done on purpose, it's a tricky thing to pull off because it will just take the audience out of the experience. Just in my opinion, of course.

I like seeing the world through the lens of the camera, it immediately sets an "age" to the setting.

The camera work is good, I liked the zoom in on the Tree of Life words in the book.

I thought the black man's death scene could have gone better. He slowly falls down backwards and is very staged.

Not a fan of the lead, it's hard to portray a character with no dialogue, but he really seemed unnatural to me. I liked the billionaire Asian man, he came off as an experienced actor, or one that takes it seriously.


From my point of view, it looks like he's looking for some sort of inspiration. The tree of life is put on by the record company and it seems that the billionaire represents them in the hallucinating sequences. Does he find inspiration? Does the record company kill the inspiration he finds? These questions are left unanswered by Sarah, but a slight grin from the lead makes us lean towards yes, he found something.

I find it interesting that she used a Dutch Angle for what I thought was reality, which makes me question which reality was real.

For those who think Sarah edited this, read the credits. She wrote and directed it. I know she had a vision on what it would look like, but I give credit to the editor, Alex.

Overall, I can see this playing at some festivals, just make sure she researches the right ones. Otherwise it will be a waste of time and money. Know what type of films the festival plays and rewards.

Despite the short not being clear with whatever she had intended, she clearly had a vision. A short like this is meant to make people debate about what the message is. With my personal experience with schools telling people what type of films to make...f*ck em. They are, in my opinion, trying to make their success off the minds who put their time and money into a passion project. They want something that will appeal to all and throw their name behind it. At least in my experience.

Congrats Sarah and starting out with literally NOTHING and then having a finished film on your hands that people watch and talk about. The highest compliment I can give you is that you sparked discussion.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

I really liked the short, I am not one of those people who analyzes a film bit by bit, sometimes a tree is just a tree. But I liked it and wish there was more and I think that is a good thing.

Why does it not allow people to leave comments on the site or page that your daughters movie is on?

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This is true. Alex was the chief editor and photographer, just as Sarah will be for his film which starts shooting next week. However, I do want to say, and I have a copy of the ORIGINAL script, if anybody wants to see it, that Sarah wrote in almost every one of those edits into the script. Sarah was also in the editing room 95% of the time (she has a little problem with arriving on time) and she and Alex thorughly discussed all the shots and lighting. I will be trying to post their next film, probably in December.

But I do want to thank you, TUS, because you're one of the few who probably understands all the hassles you have to go through with a time limit, especially considering all the releases, forms, permits, access to all the actors, extras and locations, etc. Last semester was a good learning experience but the five movies really didn't cost much and most of the locations involved Sarah's place or ours or one friend's. Also, she was a one-man film crew, except for the occasional boom operator, and she could use whatever sound, movie and music references/songs/clips she wanted since she knew the films would never be shown anywhere.

I'll start by saying that I've never been to film school, nor am I familiar with what would be considered typical of student films, but I was pretty impressed by this. It blew most of the amateur YouTube films I've seen out of the water!

Like others, the plot didn't seem too coherent (intentionally so), but I love ambiguity, and it seems that if Sarah were looking to expound upon this, it might make a better lengthy film. I'm always interested in the sort of films that question reality by presenting the plot through a character's distorted perspective. If anything, it's usually great food for thought.

... and I liked the Asian guy. The deleted scenes you described could have added positively to the character, but I like the randomness of his appearance as it is. The unexplained panic that it evokes puts the viewer into the main character's shoes, which is something that typically works well in this sort of film.
Kudos to Sarah for going against the grain of commercialism in the name of artistic integrity! If there are two things I advocate more than anything else, they're individuality and creativity.

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I don't know about the comments. It seemed as if anybody could post comments up until yesterday, so I'll talk to Sarah about that. If I can't get ahold of her earlier, she is coming over for the weekend, if only so I can watch the flick properly since I'm still getting screwed when I try to watch it. Boo!

Thanks a lot, re93, since I respect your opinion a lot. It's obviously unfair for a proud papa, but I thought that Sarah's and Alex's film also blew away most of the other films shown that evening, at least on a technical level. I'll admit that I preferred some of the original sound to the added-in sound, but even on the big screen the only part which bothered me was at the "concert". Most of the other films were also good and heartfelt, but there was a certain safeness and repetitiion to most and a boring predictability to some of the others. Obviously, if my child had made them, I would think they were gold. I think my other faves were a documentary about people eating potato chips because they just can't help it and a sweet flick about some lonely guy who thinks he's too much of a loser to introduce himself to his new class, even though he's an awesome artist nobody would know unless they look at his journal.

Anyway, I'm happy to find that Sarah has some potential fans for her upcoming work.

Hope you're doing alright this week health-wise, Mark.

Thanks. I was doing pretty well, but then I drank some light beer.

Yeah I agree with some of your sentiment, but I was really refering to the editing from an artistic point of view. My mum's partner is a freelance television producer/director and always sits in on the editing process. The editor is really just technical support for her (with only occasional guidance and artistic input), so even though she isn't twiddling the knobs; she's still directing and making the majority of the artistic decisions. Though it has to be said she does a lot of rudimentary editing on her Mac these days before going into the editing suite. Now I understand I made an assumption earlier as everybody works differently to a certain degree, but mark's subsequent comments do seem to back this up.