archived-videos Blind in Time

[Hood_Man]

Hi there, Im Chris and I'm a 3rd year student of Film and Video Production at Uni (Uiversity of Glamorgan, Wales). I'm currently in my third year, but I want to post a film I made in my secondyear that I've only recently had time to upload to the internet.

The film was made by myself and a few of my fellow coursemates earlier this year. Since I'm trying to get as much feedback as possible I'm pretty much posting this all over the net (I hope that doesn't count as Spam ), so I hope you're not offended that I'm simply copying and pasting the same thing here as I've done elsewhere, I don't think I could go through typing it all out all over again.

Anyway, here goes:

Blind in Time
This is my second year major project for my course Film and Video Production (studying at a University in Cardiff called the Atrium), and it was made by myself and a few other members on my course. Like most projects we all dabbled in every stage of production, but I mostly directed (co-directed with my mate Rob) and editted (with my mate Sophie), and as a group we all contributed to developing the ideas of the film. Scriptwriting and producing was taken up by the remaining 3 members.
The actor playing Isaac is a good friend of mine (Liam) from uni, and the actress playing Becca is a mate of his. The doctor is a (pretty bad) cameo by me (like most student films we ran out of actors, and having a beard at the time made me look a lot older than everyone else... apparently).

Anyway, the story is basically about a guy called Isaac, a migraine sufferer who experiences visions of time being distorted all around him whenever he has a headache, causing the world around him to stop or speed up dramatically. Throughout the course of the film we discover the cause of these visions, and find out the truth about what's really going on in Isaacs world.

...that makes it sound a lot more pretentious than I intended, but I suck at writing synopses.

Ayway, here's the link to the film;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoKLTlm4wWs

It's under ten minutes in length, so if you have time to watch it please leave comments (either here or preferably on youtube if you have an account), and any constructive criticisms you may have. I'm used to lecturers tearing my work apart so although my ego still struggles to accept criticism I'm hopefully mature enough to listen to it and, hopefully, learn from it (not sure if that sentence contradicts itself or not ).

p.s. Although we got a high mark for this piece (75%) I'm still not 100% pleased with the sound. Watching it back today I thought about tinkering with certain scenes, such as the time skipping by the road early in the film I though about adding a sound like quiet electrical disturbance sounds (I know what I mean, even if I'm not conveying it very well ), and almost immediately after that there should be a sound of a lift door opening. The echoeing in the doctors office is just dreadful, but we were too rushed to do anything about it unfortunately.

I've kinda lost the will to do anything else with it now though, since it's been marked and everything. If I don't leave it be I'll never be pleased with it.

This was filmed on a Sony DCR TVR950-E (my own camera) and editted on Final Cut Pro, if you're interested.

 

[black gun forge]

wow i really liked that!!! some of the cutting was really good the story was good the only thing im going to say is the convesation with the doctor wasnt very convincing

 

[Fernando Smallhands]

This was enjoyable to an extent, but could (in my opinion) have been better edited i.e. a bit snappier as i felt some of the shots were a bit longer than required. The acting was overall good though, but i feel some of the camera angles were a bit so so, in that they didnt really add anything to the story in the way it was told.

overall pretty good effort though, and you definitely have a knack for storytelling

 

[M1chae1]

I thought it was a different take on a standard story-line concept. I think you guys put your own flare on it...and it was pretty interesting. However, there are some things I would change with the story...

*

Spoiler

When the doctor brought up Rebecca...her not being fine should have been more smoothly integrated. I think the dialog was too quick and skipped over some realization the main character should have had...instead he jumped right into the line, 'I know she was in the accident, but she was fine, she's OK'...this isn't subtle enough of a transition. It felt rushed...

* Most of the hand-held work should have been on the tripod.

* There were a few out of focus shots.

* I liked the time shifts...stopping...skipping...fast forwarding. Well done and interesting. One interesting point...

Spoiler

when he falls to the floor in the lobby and time FF...wouldn't people see him on the floor? It's different when time stops...no one would see a change. But when time FF, people would see him on the floor kneeling down for a few minutes, and probably would try and help...ah well...doing time movies are tough.

* The acting was pretty good...no complaints there--other than the doctor...he was a little dry and boring....and of course, he was too young. But anyway.

* The sound needed a lot of work. Much of it was too echoey.

* There really wasn't any interesting lighting. Did you have a lighting designer? Did you use all practical lights? It was flat and boring.

* The ending could have been slicker. It was a little rushed.

* The credits were very low rent...not that it's important to the story or overall movie...but one thing you want to do as a filmmaker, is learn how to make professional credits...art direction on credit sequences is actually pretty important.


Cool work overall. If the technical aspects and production value was upped a bit, this would have been much tighter.

Good work.