The Window

By:DarkHeartProductions

"From the makers of "Black Button" comes the third short film from Dark Heart Productions - "The Window".

- Finalist in the upcoming ROME INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
- Shortlisted for TROPFEST, the world's largest short film festival.
- Front Page Feature on www.youtube.com.au

"Julian feels compelled to travel to his local pub. On arrival he finds his friends and family there celebrating, and they have some important news." " 

REVIEW

 Concept
The concept is pretty great, however the twist comes too late in the film to save it.

Direction
Its nicely done and you don’t see any major faults in direction, editing or camera work. However, sometimes the camera closes up on the people a bit too much for my liking. However, the last scenes where the whole story comes together, the director is pretty much spot on.

Acting
My major beef with shorts are that generally acting is pretty poor. And this short suffers in the same way. Moviemakers should at least go to the trouble of having trials for the actors.

The main actor was very dull in his delivery and half the times he seemed to be in a rush to speak! The guy playing his dad however was brilliant. His speech, his expressions were some of the best I have seen in short movies. You might have seen him in other shorts too as he is a professional actor and it showed.

Conclusion

Sometimes it’s nice to have complex storylines just to keep the viewers on the edge and interested. But, with a muddling storyline comes great responsibility :) – you need to make sure that everything is tied up properly in the end and it does not leave the viewer confused or disenchanted in the end. The storyline as I have said was nice, but neither acting nor direction could match it.

Score: 5/10

Black Button

 

By: DarkHeartProductions

"PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING
'The Box' is NOT a rip off of 'Black Button', nor vice versa. More details below.

-YouTube Awards 2007 - Top Six Finalist, Best Short Film
-WINNER: Fitzroy Short Film Festival (Melb, Aus)
-WINNER: DearCinemaFest Short Film Festival (Int.)
and more...

Mr Roberts finds himself awoken inexplicably in a white room. A man sits before him at a desk and in between them stands a black button. If Mr Roberts pushes it, he will receive a briefcase filled with millions of dollars. Or he can take the key to the door and leave penniless. The catch? Pushing the button will result in the death of a human being. What would you do?

EDIT 1: Some people have observed a similarity in the premise of this film and an revival episode of The Twilight Zone in 1986. Please note (1) We had never seen the episode and only learned of it long after we'd finished the film. (2) The Twilight Zone weren't the first to do it. There was a short story before that, which was in turn based on an old premise called the 'Faustian Bargain', around since the 16th century (deal with the 'devil'). An almost identical premise exists in several cultures. Richard Kelly is even making a film with this premise called 'The Box'. (3) Our film is similar in premise, but different in plot, characters, dialogue, aesthetics, setting, moral meaning, religious undertone, twist etc. Each version, including ours, aims to bring something new to an old idea. Please have the respect to not accuse us of plagiarism.

Additionally, we have no particular religious affiliation; this is a fictional work and its ideas are designed to encourage thought and debate, not comment on any particular theology.


Our first professional short film. We made it for $200 and shot it on the stage of our old school in Melbourne, Australia. Fortunately, professional actor Robert Grubb agreed to act in it for free after reading the script. This film took nearly a year to put together, working on it in stages and creating the 'white' effect on a home PC. Please note that the younger actor, unlike his father Robert Grubb, has no formal acting training whatsoever.

The Making of "Black Button" is now on YouTube.

Two of our other shorts have been released on YouTube, 'Campsite' and 'The Window'. Click on our profile if you'd like to see them and subscribe for updates on new films. Thanks!"



“God will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able. But will with the temptation also make a way to escape.”

This is how the Black Button starts and this is probably the best way to summarize it too. Black Button is about temptations and how one deals with them.

The script was really nice and dialogues were really powerful. You can tell by the use of the words that the writer had really put a thought to it. However, the acting did disappoint me a bit. It did not do justice to the level of writing. The older guy was good and gave nice expressions and his diction was faultless, but the younger guy (his son I am told) was way out of his depth. His acting was really poor. He should have watched Keanu Reeves in the Devil’s Advocate for pointers. Not once do you feel sorry for his character.

Overall the idea was excellent, the direction good but I do feel that the characters could have been a bit more expressive and tried a bit harder. 10 out of 10 for the idea, 6 for the execution. 

Remains (שאריות)

By: Tal Haring

"Short film about a disfunctioning family and a girl's dream of escape."


It’s been an hour since I saw remains. I am sitting on my rooftop and watching as the sun slowly descends and the shadows start to appear. A cold wind is blowing. And really that’s how I am feeling inside too – cold, shivering and sad. And that’s how Remains wanted me to feel.

This short creates a desolate scene showing a girl who is having a hard time with her family. I won’t go into detail about the storyline but what I would like to talk about is the atmosphere generated by the movie. Its gloomy, its depressing, its melancholic and yet its amazing! The director doesn’t create this sense of despair with cheap tricks, but he makes it happen through the little details, the very lightly played soundtrack in the background and specially the sawdust!

Yes, the way sawdust has been used as an expression of despair in the movie it really speaks volumes about the direction of the movie. You don’t often find such creativity in a short, but Remains excel at it.

The acting while not brilliant, cannot be criticized either. Its not going to win any awards, but it’s not going to deflect the moviegoers’ attention either.

Yes its sad and despairing at times, but that’s what the maker wants us to feel. And now as the sun has completely disappeared and the cold wind blows I still sit here feeling very low. And frankly I am loving it!

Nostalgia - Young Love

By: wildcardpix

 "Directed by Matthew Toffolo"

Thing is I don’t like romantic movies. I would rather watch paint drying. But, this job means that I have to go out and watch shorts belonging to different genres just to please my readers. And that is why I watched Nostalgia. I won’t talk about the story because I hate romantic stories and the storyline wasn’t much different from any other romantic movies.

But, to add to my misery the movie was poorly done too. Flashbacks are a good way to do a movie, but this movie went overboard with it. Why have them in black n white? Surely the moviemakers didn’t think that the audience would be dumb enough not to distinguish between the scenes happening in different times!

On top of that the acting wasn’t that great. The actress did all right and tried to do her job honestly, but the guy did not seem up for it! He lacked passion of any sense through out the movie and a love story devoid of passion makes a horrible experience for the moviegoer.

You won’t shed any tears while watching this movie, you might shed a tear or two for me who had to watch it and on top of it review it. The great Roger Ebert, in his famous review of the movie North, used the word “hated” ten times in the space of three sentences. And that’s exactly how I feel about this movie.