I have revisited this short recently to redeem my opinion of the writer of "dingle." The structure of this is what the viewer should take from it as the actual content is just naive motivation speaking on art and love. Adam creates this self-awareness between the characters and viewer deconstructing the elements of film-making "folding" us into the project. This is most effective during the "story" section. Playing off this structure provides the film with its humor (a far cry from the American Pie-esqe frat boy humor in "dingle"). Unfortunately Adam did not allow the two main characters to play around with the viewer's self-awareness and make this a truly deep project. The two "love" birds stayed in character the entire film never giving the actors a chance to play a character within a character. Expose them, give them freedom to explore that space between the realities of their characters and the actor/actress we know they are. We never get the feeling the actors are involved in the creative process.
Another problem with this is that fails to follow the story formula that is being commented on. If you are going to engage the idea of the love movie and add another level to it, you need to hit the story arc that audiences are familiar with: boy meets girl, they fall in love unexpectedly, miscommunication breaks them apart, and a public setting profession brings them back together. This failure disconnects us as viewers and weakens your structure.
Love is a cinematic notion. What and how we love is for our culture based in ideas that have been informed by movies. We long to feel in relationships like we did while watching romance movies. Film DOES have the power to shake our emotions but you miss the point that films define for us what love is.
Additionally, the direction is boring and standard. Little to no camera movement or interesting camera angles. It fails as cinema in that sense. There is nothing cinematic about it as far as the camera is concerned. The editing is decent and works to bring this film to life. Finally, the writer needs to avoid the preaching about art and love. The last section where Adam's surrogate talks about what "love is" exposes a certain naiveté that is laughable. Every moment in a relationship is not the greatest feeling of your life. It's a mixed bag, a notion your film avoids. Adam, forget about the preaching, it is not important or needed. We as the viewers don't need this 7th Heaven moral lesson or pep talk. Keep developing innovative structure ideas and fill it with material that annotates the structure or vice versa, then you will have something that moves. Despite this shorts failings, I applaud its originality in the way-independent often disappointing NP2K film world.
Another problem with this is that fails to follow the story formula that is being commented on. If you are going to engage the idea of the love movie and add another level to it, you need to hit the story arc that audiences are familiar with: boy meets girl, they fall in love unexpectedly, miscommunication breaks them apart, and a public setting profession brings them back together. This failure disconnects us as viewers and weakens your structure.
Love is a cinematic notion. What and how we love is for our culture based in ideas that have been informed by movies. We long to feel in relationships like we did while watching romance movies. Film DOES have the power to shake our emotions but you miss the point that films define for us what love is.
Additionally, the direction is boring and standard. Little to no camera movement or interesting camera angles. It fails as cinema in that sense. There is nothing cinematic about it as far as the camera is concerned. The editing is decent and works to bring this film to life. Finally, the writer needs to avoid the preaching about art and love. The last section where Adam's surrogate talks about what "love is" exposes a certain naiveté that is laughable. Every moment in a relationship is not the greatest feeling of your life. It's a mixed bag, a notion your film avoids. Adam, forget about the preaching, it is not important or needed. We as the viewers don't need this 7th Heaven moral lesson or pep talk. Keep developing innovative structure ideas and fill it with material that annotates the structure or vice versa, then you will have something that moves. Despite this shorts failings, I applaud its originality in the way-independent often disappointing NP2K film world.