watch Amends (Student Film)

[Steve_in_MD]

I'd love it if someone would take a look at my new short film. It was for my Digital Film Production class at my local community college. We had the entire 15 week semester for pre-production, production and post-production of one short film. I was the writer/director and co-edited with the DP. I'm proud of how it turned out, although there are a few things here and there I would have liked to change, but didn't have the time. Would love some constructive criticism, things that worked, things that didn't, etc.

Amends is the story of a detective struggling to solve a murder case in a small town.

https://vimeo.com/42297513

Thanks.

 

[Steve_in_MD]

Anyone? Would really appreciate some feedback...

 

[Zensteve]

Good effort on the story.

Suffered a lot from the young actors trying to pull off seasoned adults. Why'd you not cast some age-appropriate actors?

Audio edit was really weird. Lots of off-center stuff. Btw, would have taken minutes to run that off-camera phone conversation through a filter.

Stop exposing the camera to the background while not lighting the actor in the foreground.

But yeah... it was entertaining.

 

[rayw]

@ 0:07 The shaky cam is atrocious.
Lighting and color balance are great. Probably could use a little post coloring of various values, though.
@ 0:30 The audio at that initial conversation is all over the place. What can you tell us about how the audio was recorded?
The over-the-shoulder shots were fine, the sequence ran a bit long but it was acceptable. I would suggest opening up the aperture some to reduce the focus on the distant backgrounds to maintain attention on the principle subject actors. This issue is prevalent throughout the film.
@ 1:36 florescent lighting, followed by...
@ 1:39 tungsten lighting. Gotta color balance each and every shot - and then - color correct some more in post. What NLE are you editing with?
@ 1:49 Is that the pole that holds up that noxious tungsten light in the background? (Don't do that.)
Need a wholllllle lotta sound blankets in narrow little rooms.

@ 2:29

@ 3:30 Wide angle lens bends the light pole at near left.
@ 3:31 That audio is... yeah. That.
@ 4:09 Subject out of focus while background is in focus
@ 4:59 1. Hey! Someone white balanced for tungsten light! 2. Subject leans forward out of focus!

Alright, I'm just going to start jumping forward at five second intervals.
Mostly it's just white balancing & color correcting issues with a few more out of focus issues on the side.

I don't know if you want to concentrate on the technical aspects of your filmmaking or if you want to try to swing both that and storytelling at the same time.
The story was ho-hum for me - but I don't care for mysteries and detective drama not one little bit.


Personally, I feel anyone is better off making five three minute films than three five minute films. A single ten+ minute film is just a huge hit or miss investment for everyone.
Practice makes perfect and you/we learn so much from the issues unique to each project.

Good luck!


Ray

 

[Steve_in_MD]

Good effort on the story.

Suffered a lot from the young actors trying to pull off seasoned adults. Why'd you not cast some age-appropriate actors?

Audio edit was really weird. Lots of off-center stuff. Btw, would have taken minutes to run that off-camera phone conversation through a filter.

Stop exposing the camera to the background while not lighting the actor in the foreground.

But yeah... it was entertaining.

Thanks. I think the story was pretty good; nothing groundbreaking but I am happy with how the script turned out.

The film was shot entirely during like 2-3 hour periods in my film production class, so casting age-appropriate actors wasn't really a possibility. I'm more concerned with the story and the technical stuff than the acting at this point, until casting older actors is a possibility.

Truth be told, I know literally nothing about audio, especially audio editing. I didn't do a full sound mix, all I had time for was adjusting the levels. Audio is something I'd really like to learn more and experiment with more over the course of the next few projects I take on. And I didn't really know what to do with that phone conversation...

Lighting is admittedly spotty in parts. Another thing I need work on. I'm trying to learn more about it, though.

We kind of dove right in with this project. In my film prod. 1 class, we did three small projects, but I wish we had learned more about the technical stuff; my teachers are more focused on the creative aspect of filmmaking, so I feel like lighting and audio especially could have been a lot better with a little more instruction and practice. This was for my prod. 2 class, so it was basically just diving in and taking on a pretty big project. I learned a lot though.

Thanks for taking the time to watch and critique, it's greatly appreciated.

 

[Steve_in_MD]

@ 0:07 The shaky cam is atrocious.
Lighting and color balance are great. Probably could use a little post coloring of various values, though.
@ 0:30 The audio at that initial conversation is all over the place. What can you tell us about how the audio was recorded?
The over-the-shoulder shots were fine, the sequence ran a bit long but it was acceptable. I would suggest opening up the aperture some to reduce the focus on the distant backgrounds to maintain attention on the principle subject actors. This issue is prevalent throughout the film.
@ 1:36 florescent lighting, followed by...
@ 1:39 tungsten lighting. Gotta color balance each and every shot - and then - color correct some more in post. What NLE are you editing with?
@ 1:49 Is that the pole that holds up that noxious tungsten light in the background? (Don't do that.)
Need a wholllllle lotta sound blankets in narrow little rooms.

@ 3:30 Wide angle lens bends the light pole at near left.
@ 3:31 That audio is... yeah. That.
@ 4:09 Subject out of focus while background is in focus
@ 4:59 1. Hey! Someone white balanced for tungsten light! 2. Subject leans forward out of focus!

Alright, I'm just going to start jumping forward at five second intervals.
Mostly it's just white balancing & color correcting issues with a few more out of focus issues on the side.

I don't know if you want to concentrate on the technical aspects of your filmmaking or if you want to try to swing both that and storytelling at the same time.
The story was ho-hum for me - but I don't care for mysteries and detective drama not one little bit.


Personally, I feel anyone is better off making five three minute films than three five minute films. A single ten+ minute film is just a huge hit or miss investment for everyone.
Practice makes perfect and you/we learn so much from the issues unique to each project.

Yeah, that shaky cam was pretty rough...and that was with image stabilization on.

Well, the audio was recorded with an Sennheiser XLR shotgun mic (not sure of the model, it's the school's) on a boom pole. That's about all I can tell you about how the audio was recorded. Again, I know very little about audio. I admittedly need to learn a lot about it.

As for the aperture, I let the DP handle all the cinematography except in scenes that he was acting in. So, I guess we can discuss that next time we film together.

We did color correct the entire film in Final Cut X. I'm not quite sure what you mean by color balance every shot. We always white balance before filming in every room/any time the light changes. I kind of like the way the colors and lighting look in those two scenes, but maybe that's just me.

Man, you're seriously the first person to notice the light pole in that shot, haha. I seriously asked like 5 people if they noticed it and no one did. We masked it out in a later shot but the actor moved his arm in front of the pole in that shot so we had to leave it. That was just a "shit happens" moment, now I know to be a lot more careful about that.

Care to elaborate more on the sound blankets?

Audio in the elevator is admittedly poor, but I didn't really know how to go about fixing that up, beyond some simple filtering out the humming in Final Cut.

Again, focus issues in these scenes are on the DP. I've noticed these; not much I could do except re-shoot which we didn't have time for. I'll try to keep a close eye on that kind of stuff next time but I also have to let him do his job without always looking over his shoulder, seeing that it's a student project.

I absolutely am equally focused on the technical side, although some of the problems on this shoot were kind of not in my hands. I guess as the director they should be but again, it's kind of hard to find a balance.

Thanks a lot for watching and critiquing, it's greatly appreciated.

 

[navmachine]

I understand the desire to balance directing with being respectful, but at the end of the day, its your film so everything becomes your responsibility. Try asking questions instead of coming right out and challenging people. i.e. does that focus look a little soft to you?
Keep making movies!
-Matt

 

[Murdock]

Good effort on the story.

Suffered a lot from the young actors trying to pull off seasoned adults. Why'd you not cast some age-appropriate actors?

Audio edit was really weird. Lots of off-center stuff. Btw, would have taken minutes to run that off-camera phone conversation through a filter.

Stop exposing the camera to the background while not lighting the actor in the foreground.

But yeah... it was entertaining.

Agreed