A short made for a Halloween contest

48 hours is more than enough time to bang out a decent little 4 minute film, but the fact that you played hooky half way through your production to go to a concert kind of speaks volumes as to how serious you took all of this. Why you didn't just knuckle down, and pull off something really unique and clever, and chilling.... is beyond me.

Anyway...

I think that when you are doing a short film like this, you need to throw the audience into a very dramatic situation right from the first shot - and having a woman in her kitchen hitting meat and then clubbing some nice guy at the door doesn't cut it cuz frankly.... it's not interesting and comes off as terribly formulaic and dull. I mean, had the guy at the door been unable to speak a single word before the woman just went ballistic on him, pulverizing him with the mallet (juxtapostioning those hits with the mallet hitting the meat on the table would have been cute)... THAT would've been more attention getting.

For a short film, the audience needs to be put in a more challenging situation; a predicament that really takes them by surprise, and gets them involved. A guy waking up tied to a table is just about as cliched as someone waking up in a sweat and realizing they were "just dreaming." You need to be more clever than that. This isn't the 70s anymore.

Having said that, I didn't get the story, the point there of,  the punch line etc. Did I miss something?

As for tech feedback.... Well thought out lighting set ups would have added mood and ambiance, a more suitably creepy room likewise, and more thought put into the framing of your shots was definitely something that could have been done.

The older woman was passable in her role, but the other two were just grating on the ears; the young girl especially so.

My two schillings.

Yeah... the 70s shooting style thing is cool, but it's always at odds when your actors and their surroundings, the dialogue, and clothes, are obvious not of that period. To really capture a 70s feel, camera work alone is not going to cut it, and will actually work against you in the end, giving you a final product  that has that "shot-on-Dad's-video camera" look. And that is just not cool.

To be honest.... I have not yet seen a film shot today that comes close to the true 70s feel. Death Proof and the lot were good, but more of a superlative, kitsch take on the era, rather than a true depiction of the time. 

As for shooting.... I think that a significant number of young filmmakers today - ones that I have worked with as a make-up artist -  all have one thing in common, and that is that they do not realize the power of a long take "master shot", or shooting in long shots in certain cases. Too many "talking heads" and hand-held bob & weave about camera work can neuter the environment, that can often be used to great effect when married with stretches of dialogue spoken in long shot, with considerations made for high, low, or head on angles. IMO.