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Check Out "Needs and Wants" Short Film

K

KwasiWatson

Check out my first short film called Needs And Wants based on a common teenagers life. A teen feels that he is an outcast to society and will do anything to be recognized. Unknowingly he sells his soul to the devil for good looks to fit in at school and realizes thats its okay not be like everyone else. Everyone check it out and tell me what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlCP3hzTtVY&fmt=18
 
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Fun little movie. When Jerome is on the pay phone, there is a round vignette filter that is applied (I'll assume something or someone was on the right side of the screen that you didn't want us to see). It hits after the cut, so there's a second where we can see the full frame before the filter hits.

You could probably stand to bring the hilights down slightly and the mids up a little bit (The darks don't seem to quite hit pure black either (could be the youtube compression as the widescreen masks don't hit black either). This will help to get rid of some of the "video camera" feel to it. I thought the shot choices were pretty good. You may want to push the color slightly toward orange as well to get rid of the bluish cast that the outdoor shots have and warm up the picture slightly.

Acting is obviously amateurish, but not bad considering...it looks like the actors were having a good time.

The widescreen mattes jump around a bit (interestingly, I didn't notice on first viewing) in size. Making them consistent throughout may add to a more polished feel.

Sound seems far away (camera mounted microphone), but is still understandable...so I don't mind that much.

All in all, a good first time out. This little film feels bigger than it is, well done.
 
Yeah I completely understand and agree with everything you said.The project was rushed and shot in only a few hours. I wanted to do a re-shoot for a few scenes but couldn't due to a deadline, leaving me stuck with microphones or people in the camera.Also it was my first time using the Panasonic AG-DVX100A so I only knew the basics of changing the settings.I'm learning a lot as I browse through the forum. Do you think its possible for me to enter into a film festival since I don't have rights for the music?
 
I agree with knightly on most things.

My main issue was the bluish tint throughout the movie. Even if you can't get the perfect settings on the camera, you can still color grade it on the computer. Also you had one or two fade to white transitions, where the widescreen matte also lit up. I'd put your matte in at the very end so any effects/transitions you do on the clips won't affect it.

The rest of the movie I liked. Pretty funny, "A black napolean dynamite." lol. And the cinematography was pretty nice, especially since it was your first film. I really liked the titled camera angles in the beginning. Personally, I would have used them after he gets the makeover to get the feeling that everything is out of whack and not right.

If you want to enter it into a film festival, there's plenty of composers on this forum and other forums. Many of them will score your film for free.

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My favorite part was the E.L.O. poster on the wall!

No, just kidding. I'll agree with the above. I think this was very well done. I tend not to be so concerned with such technical details like camera settings and coloring. That's why we have Knightly. I liked your story it did look like everyone involved was enjoying themselves. Thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks everyone for your comments..I realized why the mattes kept changing. In that particular scene a microphone was completely in the way and the only way I could have covered it up was making the matte larger.All those mistakes taught me alot!
 
I look at several things to help tell the story and the one thing you did that others miss is in the costuming.

Red on the devil. Great job.

Good first flick
 
knightly said:
<feign attitude="insulted">Missed this comment before...what does that mean?</feign>
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This was meant as a compliment, K -- don't worry. ;)

I was actually having this discussion with the Bophe team recently -- how when we first started a few years ago, we all basically the same amount of nothing. But over the years, our specific interests have led us to develop different degrees of expertise at different things. That is why we work so well together as a team -- because now we can all bring our individual strengths to a project. I think the same thing is true of the members of this forum. We all have different things we look at when watching a movie, based on the things that interest us the most about movie making. Having all of these different strengths coming together makes for a very well rounded group of people.
 
John@Bophe said:
This was meant as a compliment, K -- don't worry. ;)

I was actually having this discussion with the Bophe team recently -- how when we first started a few years ago, we all basically the same amount of nothing. But over the years, our specific interests have led us to develop different degrees of expertise at different things. That is why we work so well together as a team -- because now we can all bring our individual strengths to a project. I think the same thing is true of the members of this forum. We all have different things we look at when watching a movie, based on the things that interest us the most about movie making. Having all of these different strengths coming together makes for a very well rounded group of people.
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I can relate to this. I lean heavily on the technical side, studying everything down to its finest detail. I can mentally calculate with frightening accuracy the trajectory and ultimate color temperature change throughout its journey of a beam of light leaving my light source, bouncing around the room and finally entering my camera lens. I can visualize the effect the CCDs and camera settings have on that pinpoint of light for every sensor element it touches. My symbiotic relationship with my camera allows me to feel the electrical charge as it leaves the CCDs and travels through its various digital transformations ultimately to land on the recording medium.

Okay, well, maybe not. :D
 
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