Hope and Disappointment short film

Hi everyone,
A few days ago, I finished this 3 minute short film about how people’s hopes for the future work.

Questions, comments or critiques?

I don’t get it, I guess it just went way over my head. Why would the girl be waiting for somebody and only have the color of the car and the license plate number to go on? That seem pretty weird, why didn’t the guy question her about that? And the end was just bizarre, why would he also be waiting for a car? It didn’t explain why he would be waiting for the silver coupe. I guess I just don’t understand it.

The acting was good, and so were the shots, but I didn’t like the music that went along with it, it made me feel sick inside.

Thanks for watching!

It’s the kind of film that you have to try a little harder than average perhaps to “get,” and I’m not telling you that you necessarily should put more thought into it or anything like that. If you don’t like it, that’s okay with me. That said… You might be over thinking the answers to some of your questions. Often when people give completely unnecessary details that they can’t possible know, it’s because they made them up. The question of why he’s waiting for a car is the point of the film, I suppose. I think there are enough clues even in the dialogue to answer that, though if you notice the cinematic clues it’ll probably be a lot clearer.

I’m surprised you didn’t like the music, nearly everyone else has liked it. This music was really just a sample track we made to get ideas flowing, so I’m not too surprised that at least one person didn’t like it.

Again, thanks for watching and commenting, I’m always glad when people take the time to at least mention that they saw my work.

Damn… I still don’t get it, and I have watched it about 11 times now, lol. I probably just take it too literal, so I’m not sure I would ever be able to understand it. They do not actually know if a car will pick them up, so they’re HOPING a car with those descriptions will pick them up, but that seems very unlikely to happen, so they would… in the end be very DISAPPOINTED?

By what I can gather the film takes place over the course of a few days. The male actor changes his clothes once but the girl does not change her clothes. She has also not eaten her apple over that period of time, either that or her black backpack is filled with apples. I’m not sure if this has any significance or not. I would guess that she doesn’t really exist and he has been talking to himself for days because of too much stress with college and the break up.

Funny enough, on the second time he meets the girl, he has milk, which might be the cause of me feeling sick instead of what I assumed was the music. You see I had drunk about 2 gallons of milk when I posted that. But it also might have been the that it subconsciously reminded me of the piano music from the 2 girls 1 something or other video. It’s been along time since I saw it but ever since subtle piano music playing in the background does not work well with me. I really don’t know though, wish I could give you a better explanation.

BTW I really liked the shots from 0:50 to 0:56. They really showed his loneliness I think. And the worst part was when he was talking about Shakespeare, I didn’t like his acting there.

and I have watched it about 11 times now, lol. I probably just take it too literal, so I’m not sure I would ever be able to understand it

Thanks! I can’t believe you actually went back to it for a rewatch, not to mention more than once. I tend to be a little bit crazy about finding patterns and hidden messages, but I tried to make the film work on a literal level as well. I’m not sure I succeeded, but that’s why I’m really not too concerned whether anyone “gets” it, because I put just as much effort into coloring the images as I did into creating a metaphor.

They do not actually know if a car will pick them up, so they’re HOPING a car with those descriptions will pick them up, but that seems very unlikely to happen, so they would… in the end be very DISAPPOINTED?

Wow, I am impressed, you are very close. They know perfectly well that the car will never come because they made up the descriptions. Mix this with what she says about future and past, and the sentence at the end credits. The past equals disappointment, and the impossible future is never the past.

I would guess that she doesn’t really exist and he has been talking to himself for days because of too much stress with college and the break up.

This is an interesting theory which I never even thought of, but it makes total sense, especially since the girl’s introduction has her seem to appear from nowhere. It wasn’t my intent when writing this, but yeah, I can totally see that. Personally, I dislike movies that rely on the “it was a dream” twist, but if he’s hallucinating in this particular film I don’t think there is any twist, it’s just part of the fantastic reality. Which means that it’s irrelevant whether it’s technically true that he’s dreaming/hallucinating, because it has no effect on anything else in the film an the themes remain intact in a film whether it’s realistic or fantastical.

Funny enough, on the second time he meets the girl, he has milk, which might be the cause of me feeling sick instead of what I assumed was the music.

Originally, this film was about 7 minutes long, but when I heard about Project Greenlight I cut it down to under 3, as per the requirements. The milk factors into the plot in the full version (which we’re still working on), but in this cut it’s pretty random. Maybe you subconsciously noticed that it shouldn’t be there?

BTW I really liked the shots from 0:50 to 0:56.

Thanks!

Ha, yes I watched it a lot, but I don’t know if you should thank me for that. To be totally honest with you I did not like the film as a whole, it’s not my kind of thing I guess, the story didn’t really touch me in any way emotionally except maybe from 0:50 - 0:56. The way James talked about Shakespeare actually made me cringe a little bit, it just didn’t seem how a normal person would relay information to another person. I really just watched it because I usually don’t watch these kind of things and was trying to figure it out. I’m into movies where people are exploding and everything is very straight forward. But like I said a lot of the shots were great, and it looks like you’ve gotten a lot better at them from looking at your previous works. The short “Spirit After Death” was good imo, it reminded me a lot of Children of Men at the part where they are trying to escape the “safe house” to get to the van. Lots of tension and great shots.

I too do not like the plot twist of " it was all a dream", that’s definitely been played out, but the problem is - so has almost everything else. The longer people are on the planet creating ideas, the less original ideas there will be. A lot of times I see people just mixing and matching ideas or outright coping original works.

Okay so I’ll go ahead and say what I think the film is about again - The car descriptions are not really cars that are picking them up, instead it’s the embodiment of their hopes and the future they want (same thing), and when James comes back with a smile on his face with his hopes and dreams of the future, it signifies the fact that he is ready to go on with his life again after the break up.

Was I correct?

Yeah, to be honest I don’t like the Shakespeare line either, and I won’t be writing anything like that ever again.

Thank you for even watching my other film. Horror is one of the easier genres, in my opinion. I’ve only seen one horror film before, but one day we decided to make a horror film and created Spirit After Death in a couple of hours.

I usually don’t explain my films, but I owe you at least a little explanation since you’ve taken so much time to give me wonderful feedback. So, spoiler warning for anyone who doesn’t want to hear the author’s explanation…

Yes, the cars are embodiments of their hopes. No, James is not ready to go on with his life. He’s picked an arbitrary hope that will never come, and therefore he will never be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.

That’s the “main” idea, but there’s a lot more, which I am not going to explain all of because it would take me hours to write. You are right that most ideas are taken, which is why I stay away from plot twists in favor of cinematic style. Breakup, feel sad, talk about it with random person–that’s all there is. However, the cinematography says a lot ABOUT the story. For example, I’ll explain the shot at 1:45. James climbs a stairway again, but in the next shot he’s still got a ways to go; in fact, he’s still at the bottom of the screen. He looks over to the right, towards the brickwork, which reminds the audience of the brick-surrounded bench. His horizontally-striped shirt shows how he doesn’t fit with the vertical railings, ie his surroundings, and additionally the cold blue grey of the rest of the world is sharply contrasted both with the brick to the right, and James’ red shirt. Finally, the entire shot is tilted sideways to give it a queasy, disquieting feel to contrast the even rigidity of the shots of the bench, which shows what exactly the difference between the bench and the rest of the world is.

I try to make film stories, not but general stories onto film. In my opinion, good cinematography shouldn’t be translatable into elegant text the way dialogue can just be moved between film and novel. I’m obviously still working at improving. I’m sorry you don’t like it, maybe next time I’ll make something that fits your tastes. It’s been a while since I made anything straightforward with exploding people. :slight_smile:

Wow dude, that’s amazing how much thought you put into a 3 minute film. So you thought about all that as you were writing the script? You must have thought of all those visual elements as you were shooting though, for instance, you didn’t know he was going to have the horizontally striped shirt until you started shooting, right? I guess another good scene is at the end when he’s running down the stairs toward the light @ 2:12, it makes me primed to think it is coming to the end, or that a good ending will happen.

Now your explanation of the cars/hopes makes total sense with the, “The impossible future is never the past” line. I guess I should have understood that, maybe I just don’t know how to interpret cues how I use to. Or it could be all this milk I’m drinking messing with my head. It was fun trying to guess anyway, and was a change from what I normally watch, so I thank you for that.

Hopefully the things your leaving out about the film are that the apple is actually an immortal demon spirit that is mind controlling both of the people to satiate its thirst for milk. If that’s not you can totally use that for the longer version :slight_smile:

And how could you only have seen one horror movie before?! Unless you meant you only MADE one horror movie before.

Yes, I took about four months to write the script. I told the actor to bring a lot of shirts the first day, so by the second day when we filmed that particular scene I knew he had a striped shirt and told him to wear it. I think that actor changed shirts about 80 times during the shoot. I knew what those scenes were supposed to show mentally, and I picked the shirt that best showed that.

Well, almost no one got it, so it’s not obvious.

Hmm, I’m getting an idea for a new script…

I saw the Shining a few weeks ago, and now that I think about it I saw The Village about 5 years ago, but horror really isn’t my thing I guess.