Thread: The Slenderman
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Old 08-29-2012, 03:03 PM
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ferretchucker ferretchucker is offline
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Ah, yes, Slendy. Got to love the game.

The problem is, as Neverending stated, there are LOADS of Slenderman projects out there at the moment. MarbleHornets, as far as I know, was the first, and did a pretty good job of it (although it got too complex). The issue is, there's nothing to make yours stand out. All of the ones I've seen are either documentaries or "found footage". Whilst I understand it's quite nice for low-budget indie pics in regards to quality and technology, it's just a bit...well, lazy. These days at least.

Anyone can go out to the woods under the guise of some contrived situation and set up scenes where we glimpse the figure. Oddly enough, what would be most original in regards to a Slenderman film would be traditional story telling! You can still make it creepy. I mean, there are two common pitfalls of Youtube found-footage films that you've fallen into.

1) The Framing of the film

So the explanation for you putting up this footage is that your brother is missing and you just want him to be found. In the message at the beginning you simply refer to a mysterious figure - this is fair enough, I guess. Yet you call the film "Tales of Slender...Slenderman Found Footage." Would someone who's primary aim is to find their missing brother give it a title like this? This is why Marble Hornets was so clever. The channel name, the video titles - they were all simple and believable. Believability is the key to making found footage scary.

2) Assuming adlib makes it realistic.

It's easy to think "No script, just rough guidelines - this will free people up and make their lines authentic." It takes skill to improvise well. What often happens is your actors feel so pressured to always say something that they fill every second with repetitive, meaningless, boring dialogue. It can also impede their delivery, making it dull and emotionless.

I appreciate that some effort went into this film, but the sad truth is that you're a bit late. It hasn't nothing to make it stand out from all of the other woodland-set Slenderman found footage films on Youtube (think that sounds specific? Exactly.)
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