• COPY PANTS- A comedy short.
    14 replies, posted
Let me start off by saying that this was my first attempt at film making, [U]ever[/U]. You know how some people grab their mom's handycam and make something in their garage with their friends? Well, this is my "something in my garage with my friends". I made some amateur mistakes, but all in all, I think it came out ok for a first project. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A94YLOeuOX4[/media] [quote] A couple of friends find they have a particular pair of pants while playing games one day. A pair of pants that may have once belonged to a wizard. The two go on magical adventures with their magical pants to make money.[/quote] Some background: I've always wanted to make short films, but didn't want to settle for a handycam in my backyard kind of movie. So I waited until I could afford a better camera. I found one in a pawn shop in the bad part of town, and bought it. Before I found the camera, I took a 'challenge' to write a 100 page script in a month called "Script Frenzy". Which I did, in turn exposing myself to script writing. After I got my hands on the camera, I came up with this idea for a stupid movie about a couple of idiots that find some magical pants. I went home and wrote it. In true script fashion with characters, dialogue, scene settings etc. For some reason, my friends were stupid (and kind) enough to oblige me in this and volunteered their whole summer to the project. We set up scenes, recruited other people, and went for it. After a couple moths of missed shoots, mis-scheduling, and even a little bit of filming, we finished COPY PANTS, the day before I had a whole new full-time semester starting up. After awhile I edited it, and what you see up there is what came out of the other end. Don't get me wrong, I see the flaws. Most notably the obnoxious over exposure and the focusing problems. I make no (legitimate) excuses for them except for the fact that I blame them on my level of experience. Like I stated before, I had none. Nobody did. The actors were non-actors, which means they had never acted a day before in their lives. Other than exposure, focusing, and the occasional audio discrepancy caused by my low budget shotgun mic, I think it came out ok. Feel free to point out anything I could improve on. I already have another project in the works, so anything you guys point out will help. I also want to add that I designed the characters to be idiots, and therefore, the dialogue is stupid. Like really dumb, but intentionally so. I wanted a comedy somebody could sit back and (hopefully) laugh at. So don't say "Your dialogue was retarded", because I know, I wanted it that way. (FYI, it was originally supposed to be under 10 minutes, but came out to over 25!) I have a tumblr devoted to my short films at [url]http://mtsquared.tumblr.com[/url] And a youtube page at: [url]http://www.youtube.com/user/MikeTsquared?feature=mhee[/url] (I have no idea why it says 'mhee') You might remember the terrible trailer: [url]http://youtu.be/AEpVXH6OEB8[/url] Feel free to ask any questions, offer any advice, yell at me your insults, or the likes. (Also, the video still image selection sucks) A minimalist poster I made: [img_thumb]http://filesmelt.com/dl/Poster2.png[/img_thumb] A satirical poster I made: [img_thumb]http://filesmelt.com/dl/Mock_Poster_2.png[/img_thumb] Digg would ya? [url]http://digg.com/news/entertainment/copy_pants_comedy_short[/url]
dude, I came to this thread to watch a short, not a 27 minute long thing. It's not funny enough to hold someone's attention for a whole half an hour. I made it to four minutes forty six seconds and was being VERY patient. I'll watch the rest some other time. also, 2:04 scared the shit out of me.
Well the beginning is made to start off the story and establish characters. You have to keep watching to get the whole thing obviously. Of course there is a chance you still might not find it funny, but 4 minutes isn't anything.
if it's not interesting in the first 30 seconds then it isn't worth watching. what I watched was far too slow, boring and I couldn't even get past a minute and a half. Saying that someone needs to keep watching something they find boring just to get it better is a horrible suggestion.
Maybe if you guys watched at least half of it then said you didn't like it, that would be valid. But you can't go into a half hour video and expect to be entertained in under 2 minutes. This isn't a viral video, it's a short film.
i am not watching 13 and a half minutes of something to decide whether or not I like it. I can expect to be entertained in under 2 minutes in pretty much any tv show, movie or short film that's any good. Again, you can't seriously suggest watching that much of something is required to determine if it's any good or not. My opinion is just as valid as someone who watched it all the way through.
A two minute opinion on anything is not valid. You can't get a good opinion of a 15 minute cartoon in 2 minutes, much less anything longer. I just don't see how that's possible at all. But if you decided that you don't want to watch the rest of it judging from only the beginning, then whatever, but you can't pass judgment on it's quality.
yeah, i can
Not really. But regardless of your ridiculous standing, I'll be sure to mark down that the beginning in slow and needs improvement.
Ok, well I finally watched the whole thing. It was pretty good, I liked a lot of the jokes but I didn't laugh too often. The ending was brilliant. I think you could of done most of it better, but with what you had I think you guys got it about as good as it could've gotten. Overall it wasn't the funniest, but I liked it just for what it was. I don't think DOG-GY should have been expected to watch that much of a video to decide whether or not he liked, some things aren't for everyone. I took the slowness of the film to be part of the comedy, it helped me enjoy it. very Napoleon Dynamite-esque PROS: the music was good and well placed. the acting was over the top and cheesy, but I took it as part of the comedy. CONS: It was very slow. you could have cut out a lot of stuff that dragged it out. I think you did very good in what you were trying to do, but not everyone digs that. 2.5/5 7/10
Thank you very much for that. I would have been happy if you watched the whole thing and didn't like it, as long as you gave me your honest opinion. You finding it funny is even better. To be honest, I was shooting for Napoleon Dynamite/Nacho Libre style of comedy when I wrote it and directed it, the fact that you say that without me mentioning it is awesome. I'm also glad you liked the music. I think music is %50 of a film and it doesn't always get the attention it deserves. I searched through hours of music to find the right tracks. I'll keep in mind that it was too dragged out. That is definitely something I want to avoid on future projects. Possibly setting a time limit from the beginning will fix it. COPY PANTS had an estimated, but not mandated time limit, which is probably why it was so easy for me to let it get bloated. Which were your favorite and least favorite scenes?
Dialogue was really bad. Everything else seemed ok.
As in written badly? Which was intentional to a point. I wanted the people to be dumb. Obviously with the wizard lines. Or was it recorded badly?
[QUOTE=D0C H.;32573733]As in written badly? Which was intentional to a point. I wanted the people to be dumb. Obviously with the wizard lines. Or was it recorded badly?[/QUOTE] Well, the word choice (script) was dumb, but the delivery didn't seem dumb.
As much as it may sound like I'm trying to shamelessly defend my script, it was dumb on purpose. Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre style. Now maybe it was too dumb, I don't know. v:v:v
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