Dateable Text Commentary

This is a combo of all of the segmented play-by-play/analysi that were posted.  Enjoy:

I usually will give an internet video about a minute to entertain me before I stop watching... thought it would be interesting to review Dateable based on the first minute of movie. If this wasn't my work I probably would click off it, which says more about my internet usage than the quality of the video.

:03- "Oh you are just getting right into it" That's right we are, there was 3 or so pages of setup for this thing that we just didn't have the shooting time or viewing time to work in. So it doesn't exist, and I think this is for the best. We are just cutting right into the awkwardness and the viewer can try to figure out with the actress what is happening.

:07- The terrible tone becomes apparent, all J's idea and it works for me. I showed one batch of friends and the sound made one of them visibly uncomfortable. As long as they are feeling something I will take it.

:31- The skinny trick is something I saw on vimeo.com video tutorials the night or so before shooting. Turned out ok even though I didn't properly explain it to anyone involved. And yes I know my head is reflected in the microwave.

:40- Actor appears. It would have had more of an impact if I didn't briefly cut to him knocking, but I needed that shot for transitions sake.

:48- The actresses line seemed a lot better in my head than it sounded spoken. I think if this situation happened in real life the woman would have asked him to leave, but I guess maybe a back story for this would be that she has experienced so many crappy guys/loneliness that she still might try to make the best of it.

52: Actor sounds like he is asking a question instead of telling her how it is, also I don't think I gave him specific instructions on what he should be looking at.

59: This line was only used as a transition, I thought about cutting to someone creepy in my parking lot, or a shot of me doing something creepy to lead up to my last minute addition to the movie.

1:00-1:05 A last minute transition that I shot a couple days later. Kind of guessed on what time would be most inappropriate for our actor to show up. J found the sound clip which I decided to reuse towards the end of this.

1:05-1:08 One of the many lines that would have been funny coming from someone else. Awkward dialogue is not our actors strong suit, and yet I continue to make him say it.

1:08-1:20 Again there is nothing really funny on this line, just showing how unprepared she is for this date.

1:20-1:45 25 seconds to eat 1 funion. Well worth it.

1:45-1:47 Ripped this transition off one of J's projects that he did before we were friends.

1:47-1:58 Late title. I love late titles.

1:58-2:07 My hand, my gut was also in this but I zoomed in.

2:07-2:23 I originally wanted the film to cut to a cheesy infomercial with this dialogue for the instructions. I got lazy and ended up having our actress read them straight from the script. Its one of those things that I tell myself that I will fix on the remix but I seriously will never work on this video again.

2:23-2:48 That picture of J is the whittling down of about 4 pages of script in the unshod prologue. He also cut most of himself out of the latest thing we did for a 48 hour film festival. Future projects may evolve into a "Where's Waldo" style search for his presence.

2:48-3:00 Funions #2! J put these parts together and I was afraid he was going to spend another 30 seconds on it, but he really made the right call and gave us a concise but funny version of what happened before.

3:06-3:33 And here is where the video becomes unfacebookable. And its another one where I think someone else could have handled the line better. But it exists and it proves that this person is unredeemable and not just autistic.

3:34-3:43 Then we go back to them pretty much existing in two separate little movies. Not listening to each other by either choice or nervousness.

3:44-4:16 When Dateable was going to be made 9 months ago, we were going to have the actress play a song or something. As cast members change the plot and tone change. I think this works too.

4:17-4:58 Some vaudeville for the audience. Lines I came up with on the fly I believe. I don't think they would have worked without a 4th wall break. I think if this were two have a laugh track this is the only time it would play. We used the song from that terrible TV show. Charlie Sheen rest in peace.

4:59-5:28 I really should have figured something out for these instructions. Close to two minutes of this movie is our actress reading from the script. Maybe I'll give this to J to re-do now that he is trying to be an editor.

5:29-5:37 We had shot our actor asking the actress if she farted/worse, but I couldn't do that to her so I put this in from the beginning of the shoot. Doesn't quite make sense but transitions well to our music video.

5:37-5;45 J was quite pleased with the businessy public domain music he found for this.

5:46-6:02 This was supposed to be very early on in the video but I think it works better here. I had to do a zoom in to avoid the counter top that didn't have food on it. It sort of work.

6:10 -6:20 Everyone was quite shocked that our actor had that much cash on him. I think he is a drug dealer.

6:21-6:25 We then transition from Jason's musical montage to mine. I think it worked well. That flower in a glass ball has special significance to MY GIRLFRIEND, she was not pleased.

6:26-6:47 Common sense, and common sense's nemesis J both said get this part out of there, but this thing is already way too long so I kept it. It gives our actress a brief moment of not being crapped on and it makes the next part at least have a little bit of impact.

6:48-7:00 This whole dialogue is a bit nails on the chalkboard because it should have been rewritten for them.... its just too shrill coming out of these two. But we move on.

7:01-7:27 Writing out these timestamps makes me realize how long all of this is taking. I need to go through this video with a pair of garden sheers and get it down to 5 minutes. The phone image took a while to get because my dog kept running over to see what was going on.

7:28-7:48 Again we hit dialogue that our actors can't pull off.... and the awkwardness of movement, bad direction and lack of planning. That's what we are about here at films with friends.

7:49-7:59 And here we set up a possible sequel that no one really wants. With our actor's hand on the door knob, is this date/video finally over?

7:59-8:05 Just when the audience thinks they are done. The story train made it to its destination but the writerrorist called in a bomb threat to delay them. I do like the hand shots, all J... all J. It was my idea to reuse the clock sound though.

8:05-8:11 Our actress was adamant about using a line about rotting eggs, I did her a favor and cut it.

8:11-8:43 And I give the people what they want by spontaneously appearing in the movie. I don't know if I prompted anyone the first time I threw myself into it but they were dying out there. Doubt I helped but gave our actor a reason to leave our actress alone and rejected for the last time.

I like how our actors idea of improv is "yeah." It was a long shoot and I think we were all eager to get home. An alternate ending was that MY GIRLFRIEND and dog arrived during one of the takes of him leaving, it was so awkward that I really wanted to use it, but she is afraid of being on camera (probably a vampire) and I didn't feel like having a fight over this dumb movie.

And that is that with Dateable, as of 10/25 @ 9:48 we have 1010 views... a shockingly high number for a 10 minute movie with one location and no nudity. I will now try to forget this video ever existed and move on to the next one. I sincerely appreciate everyone who was involved with this; in presence or in spirit. I apologize if I was harsh on your filming, acting, or personality; but this was a long video and I ran out of things to type about.