Short Film Take 2: The Trouble With Mr. Goldman April 29, 2007
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Artfully Deranged, Short Film , trackbackThis article is written in conjunction with several others and is best read in conjunction with them. Click the below titles to read/navigate between each individual article:
1. Short Film: A brief critical history
2. Short Film In The UK: Screen Yorkshire and the Independents
3. Short Film In The UK: Film Festivals and Competitions
4. Short Film In The UK: Technology and the Tiny Screen
5. Short Film In The UK: Availability, Audience, and the Future
6. ‘Okay, we’re done’: The story of my first short film
7. Short Film Take II: The Trouble With Mr. Goldman
8. Short Film In The UK: Recommended Links
You learn from your mistakes. Last year I learnt the art of bad sound recording. This year I learnt several of the things I should have learnt in 2005, namely, rehearsals, script editing, production design, and preparation. On my second narrative-based short film, Trouble With Mr. Goldman, we were basically rushing from start to finish, and it unfortunately shows.
Yet, I can’t fault my actors (who themselves would quickly admit their best skills lay in other film and television production departments). They gave it their best shot, learning their lines minutes before each take, producing some idiosyncratic and against-type performances. But the problems of essentially filming a three day shoot over two half days really hits hard when you simply didn’t prepare enough. And that was my fault. The script needed editing and cutting down (we changed a major plot point during a take on the second day) and more needed to be done to make the two main characters more interesting. I attempted to rectify one problem by cutting down the film in editing (the original cut came in at just over 12 minutes; this new version is just over 10) but that’s when I realised I needed a couple of re-shoots (best example - during a scene when Mr. Goldman first arrives, I should have filmed this entirely from one character’s perspective, but I never got the shot).
There were two things I prepared for that worked to some degree. Firstly, the scene where Mr. Goldman tells the two character’s separately, what he has to offer. I wanted to cut the two scenes together so that the conversation would only take place once, but identically to both characters. This way the audience would know they are both being offered the very same thing, whilst keeping the pace of the film moving quickly. The other thing I prepared for was to shoot in widescreen. I wanted to give the film a more cinematic look even if the production values were very low. This involved working with a 1.85:1 blanked out view finder/monitor, and adding a 16:9 mask in post-production. I also added a contrast effect to give the film a more expensive look, and to add to the dreamy sense of the story.
Talking of the story, Mr. Goldman is supposed to be a comedy (I let other people be the judge of that). It concerns this crazy idea that laziness is punished in some way - in this case, by a mad man who thinks he’s Alex from A Clockwork Orange, and calls himself Mr. Goldman. When two slackers get a visit from him one day, they believe they are in the money when he offers them riches beyond their imagination. Yet, secretly he plays them off against each other, evidentally trying to prove or disprove whether they deserve to be punished for their sins.
You Tube channel featuring some of my short film work
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