DVC 18 - The Unexpected Perils of Everyday Life

[Cole Seidl]

This was a stressful one.
Benji and I were sort of drawing blanks, given the very open-ended theme, and we procrastinated till the very end. Late the night before, we cranked this out. There are two things we tried to do, one of which is take the theme and run with it. We paid very close attention to the details, but perhaps not in a traditional sense, keep an eye on them, some will jump out at you more than others.

Second, we tried to incorporate the theme into our video as a genuine theme, instead of just a "task." Our strength is playing with themes, is this was a fun one to try to build a story off of.

The largest difficulties came from the fact that we had two characters onscreen at any given time, and only the two of us to film, and we were unfortunately lacking a tripod.

I was pretty happy with it overall.

The Unexpected Perils of Everyday Life on Vimeo

[Lorinda Norton]

Cole and Ben ride again. :)

First of all, I’d love to know who is who—guessing that Cole is the talkative one. Speaking of talking, dialog on this was great! I’m assuming it was improvised; nevertheless, it worked very well. “I don’t know if you’re putting two and two together right now…” Funny. Whether improvised or not, you get points on the script from me.

About the script, what’s the story on the Mountain Dew cans and swiping them off the little table? Call me old, but I wasn’t getting it. Nor did I understand the “Dirigibles” text. The text inserts threw me off at first viewing; I’d recommend losing them but understand you wanting to give the audience a breather from the one-man talking spree and draw out the story.

I laughed when I read you didn’t have a tripod, but your prop jobs worked fine. Having the camera off-kilter in the dryer was funny, plus the intentional angle near the end gave nothing away regarding a tripod. The one shot that I thought showed too much headroom for my taste was hand-held!

After watching this film and remembering your last one I’m going to say that because of your storytelling--knowing how to come up with funny stories, further scenes along, get interesting shots and edit well, you guys are ready to up your game from YouTube to serious filmmaking. It’s time to work on lighting and sound--the more traditional details. With careful lighting you can get some good images out of that old XL1, plus, if you don’t have access to audio gear, take the stereo mic off the camera, get a $20 extension cable made for it, tape it to a broom handle and you’ve got a mic on a boom. But, that means either finding someone to hold it or getting a stand. At some point, you may be forced to shell out money for a tripod, too. I hope this piece was not art imitating your life in that regard! :)

[Chris Swanberg]

Cole... a very entertaining film. Like Lorinda has said, youare a good storyteller, your shot creation skills are excellent, your editing is very good, you have some of what others spend a lifetime trying to achieve right there.

Sound is a little rough, and I suspect more help and some better sound equipment will assist you there. I did like the edit where the lead speaks a sentence that carried through an edit to a new location, the sound match was a little obvious but points for doing that!

It appears it was shot natural light. A little boost here and there might have punched it up a little.

Overall a tremendously creative and well executed entry. Like Lorinda says, time to bring your impressive skills and move to the next level!

Chris Swanberg

[Cole Seidl]

Lorinda- Thanks for all the feedback! Yes I'm the one who did all the talking. And yes, the dialog was all improv, but we knew the basic idea of what would be said, and the arc the dialog would take. (Sort of like Curb your Enthusiasm style.)

As for the Mountain Dew cans, it was just one of our more "in your face" intentional continuity errors. We were afraid some of the "errors" would be too subtle, so we added, the mountain dew cans, and the shirt changing colors to sort of hint that there's a lot of other stuff to see.

The cards were half experimenting and half hints to the arc of the characters who were essentially, losing their minds as carbon monoxide poisoning set in. But perhaps, it didn't work.

As far as equipment. We have some equipment which is shared among all our friends. It's nice to share, but sometimes it leaves us in a pickle, as it did with this video, and we were forced to proceed with out a tripod, lights, or proper sound. But I wholeheartedly agree, that we could hopefully bump the quality another notch with a proper setup (which were are working on as we speak.)

Chris- Also, thanks for the feedback. We were largely experimenting with this one, and while a lot of them didn't fully work, it was fun to do. We did unfortunately use unnatural light, and have a startling lack of light bulbs in our apartment which is a bad combo... hopefully we'll improve upon this by next time.

[Lorinda Norton]

Originally Posted by Cole Seidl

The cards were half experimenting and half hints to the arc of the characters who were essentially, losing their minds as carbon monoxide poisoning set in. But perhaps, it didn't work.

Ohhhh! Okay, it IS the fact that I'm old! That makes good sense now that you point it out.

Without your other explanation I never would have guessed that your "paying attention to details" meant turning them upside down with intentional continuity errors. Takes a special mind to follow that one...I think. :)

As always, thank you for the great entertainment. Hope you guys will be back for more!

[Chris Barcellos]

Cool film. While I too was wondering about the cards, I took it as alternate scenes being played out by the characters-- kind like, well that doesn't work lets go this way. I actually like camera movement and lighting, cause it works for this film...

[Dick Mays]

Cole,

I think you guys have a flair for comedy, and the dailog was very funny. We will overlook the tech issues if we have characters we really like to follow. Like to have seen a role reversal where Ben got mad and did something to make it even more of a rollercaoster ride.

I did catch the intentional continuity, but maybe only because we did it in ours too with the relit candle.
no one appreciates our genius!!! keeping making them.

The dialog I loved the best was "you don't need to just stand there" while he was sitting, and the whole "I know because you don't know" bit.

I like the old fashioned silent film titles and drigibles added to the mystery. Foreshadowing the gas problem. I was confused though becase i expected a naural gas leak to do them in, but a burner was lit and you can't get enough CO2 from a stove burner. the engineer in me.

I laughed, that is always good.

[Lorinda Norton]

For the record, I'm agreeing that for this piece the "as is" lighting worked, just as it did for the previous film. Now that we've seen two very funny films from these two guys shot in their apartment I am itching to see them expand and challenge themselves more, which, it sounds like they are in the process of doing.

Dick, I didn't even notice the re-lit candle in yours. It will be interesting to see if Dylan catches it, and if he picks up on what Cole and Ben were doing.

[Cole Seidl]

Dick- I'm glad you found it funny. As far as the fire and gas goes, we thought about it and decided we'd be the shot looked better with the flame, and gave up on science as a factor in the film. But all my friends who are engineering majors were equally confused.

Also, I can't believe I didn't catch the candle in yours after focusing so much attention on our continuity!

[Bill Thesken]

That was hilarious! How many times did you take that hat out of the dryer? The shot looking out of the dryer reminded me of the toilet scene in the ‘Merry Christmas’ movie, so that is a trademark of yours.
The bunny’s nose perking up when you propped up your feet with the smelly socks was precious.
A running conversation seamlessly taking place over several days, (or shirt changes) worked well.
I also liked the silent Bob type character, Laurel and Hardy, Marx Brothers also used a silent character alongside a non-stop talker. With the right story line, and some production assistance I think you could take your dual on-screen charisma to a full length comedy film.

[Chris Swanberg]

Cole, I will sheepishly admit that in the initial viewings I missed a lot. With some help from the others and with a new set of eyes, I got quite a number of things that I didn't get at all before and it definitely added to my enjoyment... Dirigibles... like Hindenburg? Terrific. Clever.

This one grows on me. I'm not done watching it yet.

Chris Swanberg

[Cole Seidl]

Well I'm really glad that the enjoyment level increased upon repetition, hopefully that continues to factor in to my projects from now on.

[Lorinda Norton]

I agree! That's a mark of a great movie--whether or not we want to see it again and again.