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The director of "Oscar Bones" finally got fed up with waiting for various festivals to commit themselves to showing "Oscar Bones", so she put it up on YouTube - see below - I did narrative voiceover, production work, casting, and was the boom mic operator for the first day of shooting -

To all you film lovers out there, here is a short film called Oscar Bones. It is a magical tale, built around the theme that things are not always what they seem.
Fairytale movies need fairytale endings. Would you please follow this link, watch it and let us know what you think? Everyone worked on this movie for free and it was made for next to nothing, a real labor of love. Now we need your help getting it seen! You can help us do this by passing on this link to anyone you think might enjoy it.
Comment on Youtube and let us know what you think.  Happy days~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNoBQ-3ZMqw

Seriously. please -

If you go to the link & actually watch the film, then please give a criticism, as we are trying to reconvert this into a feature -

Your help is appreciated -

peter johnson/denny crane

I'm curious as to how you'd convert it into a feature story-wise as some of theories on the directions you could take that I though of while watching it would be pretty interesting.

Anyways, a few notes/criticisms:

There were a few continuity/editing errors [albeit minor] that probably shouldn't be acceptable in a feature; things like how Oscar Bones holds the book/the kid drops the coin etc.

Visually I thought it was good but I couldn't help shake the feeling half of it was green screened.  I'm not sure if its the cinematography, camera or the compression on youtube, but for a moment there I had half convinced myself those boxes where composited together and it wasn't all live action.


Anyways, story-wise, for a short it was ok, but to be perfectly honest, I was left wanting more: there was a lot of the kid looking around, but not much of Oscar Bones, who I definitely wanted to know more about.  I understand that this is just a short and I would imagine that it would be more developed in the feature. 

The narration is ok for the short film, but I also don't know about it's validity in a feature format.  Don't get me wrong, the voicework was great [ :teddyr:] but I find its a better tool to drive the story by action rather than narration unless the narration is complementing the action.  If the narration is the sole driving force of the action the film can be sluggish and uninteresting, especially if the characters aren't doing much [which is what I felt about this one to a fashion]. 

I was also confused by the garbage bag the lady had at the end.  I kind of understand what it was all about, but for a second there I kind of expected the kids body to be in it; murdered by Oscar Bones [but thats just the horror movie buff in me thinking of it.]  I don't think it was spelled out well enough in any case.


Anyways, the soundtrack work was great, the foley could do with a slightly better mix [that could be improved with more editing time] and I wasn't the biggest fan of the kid [but then again, he didn't do much, so maybe that had something to do with it.]

I see this story being developed further.  If you forgive the terrible pun, its bare bones at the moment.  Something that came to my mind was Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" which may be a good source of inspiration.  I'm not saying to rip it off of course, but there are some elements in the story which may be of assistance to your story: the story is essentially about 'the people who fall through the cracks' in some magic underworld in London, and homeless people are essentially it's inhabitants.   In any case, I wanted to see more of the world that Oscar Bones lives in. 

Maybe having him take the kid on some crazy adventure through the magical world of wishes or something along those lines.  Not in a creepy pedophile way though, that's a different kind of movie.  :wink:


Hope it helps and sorry it took so long to watch it and give feedback!  [I hope it doesn't come across as too negative either, I just believe its better in these sort of ventures to mention what didn't work more than what did, and just say 'awesome work dude, thats the best thing I've ever seen!]


Good luck with the feature work!

Dean, thank you for some considerate observations - I think the suggestion that Oscar take the kid into the Netherworld, rather than essentially abandoning him to work it out on his own, would make for a great story line, should we really do take it to feature length.  I think the Gaiman suggestion is an excellent one, as I am a huge fan of Gaiman, and one reason Gaiman's stories work is that they conform to classical fairy-tale structures, just as Joseph Campbell outlines in "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" - Oscar really is a "Fairie", as in "The Fair Folk", and as such is an unpredictable Trickster as well as a Wish Keeper.

No, the boxes were all built by hand & all the backgrounds really were outdoors.  No green screens.  The light is just oddly murky in places - this was originally written as a 120-shot film but that was cut by half due to constraints -

peter johnsn/denny crane

Yeah I like that idea of Oscar being a sort of Loki-trickster type, as well as a wish keeper.  Didn't see enough of him in the short to make his personality clear enough [he sort of groans and lunges, but that's about it] but in a feature length version I can see that character taking on some pretty interesting traits, kind of like The Marquis de Carabas in the earlier mentioned Neverwhere [which is incidentally a TV series too, though i've just read the book]

Gaiman's alway a good source to use when talking about modern day-set fairytales as he has a wonderful way of combining 'old things' with new ideas.

Ol' Joe Campbell is always a good person to read about the heroic journey as well [I studied way too much Campbell in my Myth and Media class in my Cinema Studies course at uni]

Expand the universe! Have more things happen!  I don't need to tell you this stuff as you already clearly know it, but this fantasy stories are made or broken by the personality of the characters more so than the ideas they represent.

Anyways, good luck expanding it out, its definitely a film I'd want to see!

Quite a serious aside/nothing to do with the film, as they did not remain friends - but my wife, Dixie, did play chess with Joseph Campbell at Yale, long before he became a "Personality" - He was a fellow to have coffee with - nothing more . . .

peter johnson/denny did you ever know my ancestors in time and space crane

Oscar has been taken down from YouTube, due to it being accepted into the Boston Underground Film Festival - will play in Cambridge, MA on March 24 -

peter

"Oscar Bones" is now an official entry for the Cheyenne International Film Festival - we are officially on a roll . . .

Seems like I missed the boat on seeing this posted on youtube. Good luck with the festival circuit.  Any idea if it will turn up online later down the road??

No, I have no idea, as it is currently being featured at both the Boston Underground Film Festival and the Cheyenne International Film Festival - and there are other possibles.
When it may re-occur in the Public Domain is unknown to me -
When it again becomes publicly available, I will launch it into as may sites as I am able to -

peter