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watch CAPTIVE - 1st Short Film, made in NYFA

Hi guys!
Im new in this forum and it would be great to start the experience by hearing some critics of my first Film.

It's a POV experience, made for the last screening class, of the 4-week Filmmaking program at the New York Film Academy.

Enjoy!
https://vimeo.com/118958226

Thanks
 
I thought it was funny that the black guy would keep punching our POV character every time he woke up. From a story point of view, I could see that the capturer was conflicted, but at the same time he seemed super aggressive because he kept punching/knocking the POV out.

I felt the pacing was a little slow towards the end when the capturer was on the phone. The camera work was pretty good. It wasn't that shaky considering it was POV. The red color grade on the last punches was a little comical which felt weird because that didn't fit the mood of the story.

Overall it was pretty enjoyable. I have a pretty short attention span and but I was kept interested the entire time. Good work!
 
POV cam work was the highlight, really smooth, though maybe a bit more frantic looking around would have played up intensity level. also, push the pacing to help with this. but easily the strongest aspect!

story could have been better, but i got it. i think showing some motivations would have helped. didn't like the 2nd guy at the end, thought his acting was weak. fight scene worked well enough, punches were great tho!

definitely the weakest point was the sound. for this i think you need no music and only ambient noise, sharpening of the knife would be menacing, heavy panting would up intensity, sobs from the bathroom scene would have helped up sympathize with the captor, and not to mention it would be a fun opportunity to practice your practical sfx recording skills for punches, nose breaks, blood gushes, etc.
 
The adbuction / title and music were really nice, everything seemed very well put together.

I feel like the 1st character did well in terms of acting upset having to do what he's doing, but yeah the 2nd character wasn't good, wasn't being intense enough to be intimidating.

I quite liked the fight, short and brutal... nothing pretty about it, like a real street fight.

I think that it felt more like a music video with a narrative rather than a short film, did you not have any audio equipment for this project? I would be interested to see a version of this with no music and a new sound scape added (a lot of work I know :( ) so that you can play with how traumatic being a captive is.

Saying that I actually enjoyed the film, the visuals and colours were nice, shaky camera POV and the song that plays through out has the right tone for the film.
 
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