|
First off, let me preface all this by saying that I am totally aware of some of the issues with this already. There were a couple of shots we simply didn't have time to get, so coverage isn't as good as it could have been. There was a car accident on the highway and the gear ended up not getting to the location until 2 hours after we were schedule to start shooting  . There were also a couple of set ups that simply didn't work and were scrapped. I'm also aware of some minor sound issues in a couple of places. We've tried to fix those but every time we do it degrades the quality of the dialogue so much it's not worth the trade off. Oh, and processing is taking a hell of a long time on youtube for some reason, so the HD version isn't up yet. But it really should be watched in HD if you can.So anyway, this is my second film for MCTC that I have directed. The first one was a really short 2 page thing that's not even really worth posting here. This was 6 pages of script, but ended up running a bit over the 6 minutes it was supposed to go. We shot on the RED Scarlet for everything but the hood cam. I'd really like to have some feedback from outside of the program because it's got to the point where I honestly can't tell if it's good or not because I'm too close to the whole thing. Thanks guys! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwfInVn3VUM E: The HD version is working now. TheJoker138 fucked around with this message at Jan 27, 2013 around 06:17 |
| # ? Jan 27, 2013 05:44 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2013 12:23 |
|
|
Here's my two cents. I'm a fellow film student, and thus prone to being overtly judgemental towards other peoples work (and not nearly judgemental enough of my own), so maybe take my opinions with a grain of salt. With that said, I didn't find many redeeming qualities in this film. I take it that the gist was that the old man had cheated the devil once, and the lady was one of his minions coming after him to collect his soul? Was this an independently started production or a part of a course? Were there artificial limitations that would explain the quality of the film (i.e, don't use this or that lights or such)? One of the primary issues I had with the plot of the movie was that it didn't really feel worth my time. The movie was too short for the big reveal to have any impact, yet it still felt overtly long. A lot of shot lingered for too long and the first half dragged. On the other hand, the latter half of the film moves too fast, and the main plot points are just dropped on the viewer without time for any kind of suspense to develop. The movie goes through the basic motions, but the pacing in which it's done is all wrong. The sound quality is very uneven. It often sounds like everything was recorded on location with wildly varying microphone distances. Most jarring this is in the beginning, around the minute mark where the exterior dialogue is tinny as hell, and after the cut to the interior of the car the dialogue has huge, deep bass. In the interior scenes the footsteps and furniture sounds are awfully pronounced (mic on a floorstand?). The cinematography is uniformly bad. Red's not worth much if the lighting and framing don't work, which is the case here. The lighting alternates between woefully inadequate and overtly hard. Often it seems like light sources are placed exactly in the same direction as the camera, which leads to textureless and shadowless, flat pictures. The exteriors suffer most from bad lighting, the interior scene has more nuance to it. The cinematography in general raises questions. Why are there unwarranted handheld shots? Why is the 180 degree rule broken repeatedly? Why does the headroom vary wildly down to having people's heads cut off? There are a lot of downright mistakes when it comes to cinematography here, and it serves to make the film very unappealing to watch. That brings me to my final gripe, which is one I often have with student and short films general. As a viewer, this movie doesn't really give me much, and there's really no reason to keep watching it (I only did to give some feedback). The cinematography is unattractive, combined with the first act that drags and a story that's not exactly very original, and you have a short film that doesn't feel worth watching. I think every film one makes should have something to give to the viewer, be it effects, thrills, a message or just plain eye candy, and this didn't really have any such thing. Now, this isn't uncommon with student films, and as such, I think the movie's worth should be in how much you've learned from this. I know I learn most from my failures, as they always lead to more self-meditation and more thinking about how to improve the areas that failed. Is it a good movie? In my opinion, no. What you should ask yourself is was it worth it as a learning experience.
|
| # ? Jan 28, 2013 19:43 |
|
|
TheJoker138 posted:First off, let me preface all this by saying that I am totally aware of some of the issues with this already. There were a couple of shots we simply didn't have time to get, so coverage isn't as good as it could have been. There was a car accident on the highway and the gear ended up not getting to the location until 2 hours after we were schedule to start shooting I think smug sociopath outlined the reasons the film has problems. I'll approach the other angle: your promotion. Don't preface your work with explanations or excuses on why it sucks. The audience hasn't watched it yet, and you're just poisoning the well by talking it down. Namedropping the camera just made me go "bullshit this was shot on a Scarlet" (and not in the good way). Finally, you didn't include a synopsis. Comedy? Horror? No clue. How long is it? Dunno.
|
| # ? Jan 28, 2013 21:55 |
|
|
The RED camera was a good choice, in my opinion, as it did a good job capturing the mediocre actors' boring dialogue in total darkness.
|
| # ? Jan 28, 2013 22:56 |
|
