Feedback on first edit requested

[sfoster]

Hi guys, I have the first edit done for my short comedy Friend Zoned
Would anyone like to give me some feedback? It's funny and hopefully not a waste of anyones time

Directors.. were any of the edits particularly distracting to you? Is there excess fat I can trim for sake of pacing?
Audio guys.. how much of this is going to need ADR?

Everyone else.. don't watch it yet, it's not finished
No color grade or audio post has been done yet

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fXW9ojNbXuo&vq=hd1080


Thanks for taking the time to help

 

[baoliun]

First 2 minutes are waaaaaay too long.

The line about bring vodka,not necessary,thanks sounds too "rigid" imho. I am not exactly sure what do you want to say with it,but if you would cut it out I doubt anything will change. That is usually the sign of unnecessary scene.

3.34 I would preffer a cut on action here. 3.50ish " Let's go" when they are 2 steps from the pool is meh.

3.54 guy standing on balcony is confusing. He can't see the girl as they are under umbrella,and why is he stalling if he went to grab the staff?

The search for girl could be decent if there are 50-100 people around,but when there are 5-10 its kinda ridiculous

5.57 a 180 problem

 

[sfoster]

Thanks man i appreciate the response

First 2 minutes are waaaaaay too long.

What's a good length, cut it in half ?

The line about bring vodka,not necessary,thanks sounds too "rigid" imho. I am not exactly sure what do you want to say with it,but if you would cut it out I doubt anything will change. That is usually the sign of unnecessary scene.

The only thing I'm trying to accomplish there was introduce her character so she doesn't come out of nowhere in the ending

3.34 I would preffer a cut on action here. 3.50ish " Let's go" when they are 2 steps from the pool is meh.

I'll see what I can do about 3.34. "let's go" i'll make a note to change in ADR

3.54 guy standing on balcony is confusing. He can't see the girl as they are under umbrella,and why is he stalling if he went to grab the staff?

Haha good point

The search for girl could be decent if there are 50-100 people around,but when there are 5-10 its kinda ridiculous

I thought we did a good job trying to make it look crowded but yeah I can see how it would be ridiculous. hardly anyone showed up.. I guess I could cut that scene although i though it looked neat

5.57 a 180 problem

This was definitely the worst shot scene.. happened last day as we were losing light. i think it's beyond hope

 

[baoliun]

1st dunno,maybe reshuffle some order because viewer gets that the party is going dunno 30 sec even less given montage shots. And at some point there is no more new info or story going.

I wouldn't cut the search scene out comletely,but def trim it up.

 

[Sweetie]

Hi guys, I have the first edit done for my short comedy Friend Zoned
Would anyone like to give me some feedback?

Sure

First, I love it that you're shooting stuff! Well done!

It's funny

Your concept has potential, though the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

In these kind of things, there's usually a format:
Setup (Present the problem - You're in the friend zone)
Build up (get the audience vested in the situation and the characters)
Payoff (satisfying resolution for the audience)

Directors.. were any of the edits particularly distracting to you? Is there excess fat I can trim for sake of pacing?

There were a bunch of edits that were distracting. Consider trying using some more L-cuts with your edits. It'll help things flow a little better.

As Baolin mentioned, the order is out of whack. The music video intro could be completely cut from the opening, or at least shortened to 10 seconds with faster edits, and introduce the music back in for 10 seconds on each major transition.

The length depends on your build up. You'd do well to cut it down to maybe 120 seconds with what you have. Maybe even a little less.

Audio guys.. how much of this is going to need ADR?

Yes, a lot of it, and sound design too. Room tone was captured right?

 

[sfoster]

Your concept has potential, though the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

In these kind of things, there's usually a format:
Setup (Present the problem - You're in the friend zone)
Build up (get the audience vested in the situation and the characters)
Payoff (satisfying resolution for the audience)

Specifically what should I have done differently ?
I tried having more character build up but it was really boring so i chopped all that stuff out

There were a bunch of edits that were distracting. Consider trying using some more L-cuts with your edits. It'll help things flow a little better.

As Baolin mentioned, the order is out of whack. The music video intro could be completely cut from the opening, or at least shortened to 10 seconds with faster edits, and introduce the music back in for 10 seconds on each major transition.

The length depends on your build up. You'd do well to cut it down to maybe 120 seconds with what you have. Maybe even a little less.

Yes, a lot of it, and sound design too. Room tone was captured right?

Cutting it down to 2 minutes sounds pretty ambitious. you guys don't like the concept of the music video opening huh? You see music videos that open up as a story, i thought it would be clever to open a story as a music video.

It would help sweetie if you were more specific like what edits particularly were the worst for you?
Also instead of saying a lot of it needs ADR maybe it would be faster to tell me what scenes don't

 

[Sweetie]

I don't know what coverage you have, so it's a little difficult to offer suggestions. First thing, cut out the first 2 mins, 16 seconds and start at their line of dialogue: "Have you hit that yet" Remove the insert scene with the vodka and go straight to "At least you have options, there are bitches everywhere." You want to get to the line, "You talked yourself right into the friend zone" as early as possible to deliver the setup.

You may find that you can try the build ups again once you fix the setup. You can introduce the music as part of the build up where he's getting jealous.

There are other things that I'm not happy with. The lead switches his position way too fast "You're a dick, but you're right"

As for ADR, saying most of it'll need to be done is just my opinion and due to the tone of the actors.

I just downloaded your video. I'll give it a 5 minute hack job to show you a little about what I mean. It'll be far from good though as I don't have any more raw footage to run with.

 

[sfoster]

I don't know what coverage you have, so it's a little difficult to offer suggestions. First thing, cut out the first 2 mins, 16 seconds and start at their line of dialogue: "Have you hit that yet" Remove the insert scene with the vodka and go straight to "At least you have options, there are bitches everywhere." You want to get to the line, "You talked yourself right into the friend zone" as early as possible to deliver the setup.

You may find that you can try the build ups again once you fix the setup. You can introduce the music as part of the build up where he's getting jealous.

There are other things that I'm not happy with. The lead switches his position way too fast "You're a dick, but you're right"

As for ADR, saying most of it'll need to be done is just my opinion and due to the tone of the actors.

I just downloaded your video. I'll give it a 5 minute hack job to show you a little about what I mean. It'll be far from good though as I don't have any more raw footage to run with.

Thanks I appreciate that effort of a hack job, and as far as the lead switching positions you are right.
I want to switch to a reaction shot there and have him say "You're a dick, I'm trying to make a move if you'd stay the f out of the way"

 

[Sweetie]

https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D1034517_78591838_282736

[It should be up in a few mins - It takes a little while for uploading in my country]

Here is the hack job. It's a really shitty edit, but I think you'll get what I mean. I didn't hit the 2 minute, but got it down to 2:37. I'd like to see at least 20 seconds come off it. I removed the drug use stuff. It was the ugly duckling in the story.

Sorry it took so long. I got an external opinion and had a potential client ask a few questions.

 

[sfoster]

https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D1034517_78591838_282736

[It should be up in a few mins - It takes a little while for uploading in my country]

Here is the hack job. It's a really shitty edit, but I think you'll get what I mean. I didn't hit the 2 minute, but got it down to 2:37. I'd like to see at least 20 seconds come off it. I removed the drug use stuff. It was the ugly duckling in the story.

Sorry it took so long. I got an external opinion and had a potential client ask a few questions.

Took a while to process but I finally got it.
What didn't you like the drug scene? I thought it had some potential with the right audio.
I wanted them to be doing drugs in the intro party scenes too but I missed the shot

One thing that I find curious is you have gotten rid of all establishing shots at the beginning
I also thought the beer overflowing and the girls dancing with the giant bear were some of the funnier scenes in the film.

 

[Sweetie]

I have no problems with drug scenes, so it's not a personal issue. Unless you have footage to make it work smoother and better, it just plain and simply didn't work. I thought it was safe to assume you didn't have that sort of footage, as you didn't already have it in there.

As a story teller, you need to determine what's more important to you. Your story or the funny shots. There were only certain spots where you could introduce filler spots. I would have used the dancing bear shot in the first set of cut aways if your leading lady wasn't in it. It would have pulled her away from the couch, only to put her back on the couch a couple of seconds later. There just aren't appropriate spots for that footage in how I chose to tell your story.

As for the overflowing beer. I found it to be boring, particularly with the reactions of the actors.

As for establishing shots, if I spent more time with it and had access to the raw footage, I would have done a lot more with it. I also assume you're planning on putting it on youtube. With online media, you have to get to the setup ASAP, or your audience clicks on another video.

Do you think the story flows better now?

 

[sfoster]

for the drug footage i have a side shot i could use too, but the other stuff got messed up because she had her sunglasses on.

I know what you're saying about the setup.. I will consider this.
Not sure if I like the story better your way or not.. it adds some stuff and takes away some stuff. and the story is still suffering from a lack of suspense, but I can't tackle that until i get my actors for ADR

 

[Sweetie]

I guess I also forgot to mention that in the silence moments, you could put small parts of your music in there to push the transitions better. It's still a very disjointed hack job on my part.

The point I'm trying to push is you have to tell your story. Anything that doesn't tell your story, pull it out. If something doesn't work, pull it out too.

Your story is a fairly simple concept. You could fill it in more with good solid dialogue, strong and interesting characters and good solid sub-plots and keep your audiences attention for longer stretches of time, though I don't think that has been shot otherwise it would have been included.

There are many other ways to tell the story. You could use titling to make the story more obvious. You could put a snappier, shorter version of the party scene in the middle if you've successfully grabbed the attention of the audience. I'd also like to see the twist at the end to be stronger, clearer and delivered better. It just kind of ends abruptly.

There's also nothing that makes your lead likable. He's just an uncool guy trying to score. A lot more could have been done with love triangle with the other girl that he ends up going with. Making it obvious that she's is in his position and she is in his friend zone, while wanting more. You could have approached the position where the lead girl was talking with girl 2 where girl 2 realizes that she's also in the friend zone and so on. Playing off those two scenes can lead to comedy if executed right.

Just so I'm clear, I'm not saying my way is better. It's just a snapshot overview of how I would have considered approaching it.

 

[Sweetie]

and the story is still suffering from a lack of suspense

If you want more suspense, you really need to think about how you're going to achieve this.

Are you going to need to reshoot to be able to achieve this? Is this a possibility?

 

[baoliun]

Another thing not related to edit,but nevertheless important - is it really about the Friend zone?
From my impression it was about dick "friend" and easy girl to call it nicely.

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

You have already gotten some solid advice here. I understand where you were going with the story, I don't think you quite made it there. Reordering the footage is certainly called for here. If I had access to all of the footage you shot, I could suggest how to arrange it to make more sense. I do not care for the ending, it isn't a true payoff. Plus, your MC switches his emotions way too easily. If this guy was really pining for the hot girl for that long, he would not rebound into the other girl's arms that fast. Also, there is no real confrontation between the MC and Dave over him hitting on the hot chick. They should have gotten into a fist fight, or other emotionally charged confrontation, over that.

 

[sfoster]

I don't think I can reshoot, but I can change some ADR with a reaction shot to make the friend vs friend confrontation more energized. I also want to make jenna say that his friend his cute when they first meet, to start building the tension.

I understand it's probably a good idea to drop the alt chick from the beginning, it doesn't add much but to make it feel more like a party so that's something I will consider.

Most of the footage I have is just longer conversations that ended up boring me in the context of the film. I'm still learning how to write dialogue and seeing it play out ineffectively was a big help. Almost makes me pretty nervous for next time

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

The opening seems a bit unnecessary and even sometimes boring. It's long and doesn't move the story forward in any way other than showing us that the people who made the film had a fun time.

There's lots of focus, exposure, and camera shake issues. There is also lots of audio problems, mainly concerned continuity. In some shots you hear crickets, in others you do not.

There's some breaking of the 180 degree rule.

It drags. It's very long and sometimes... boring.

There's no payoff or really anything interesting that happens. The story is very loose and uninteresting as well sometimes.

I think that some music, tighter editing, and possibly reshoots would greatly improve the film.

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Sorry if I'm being too harsh. Best of luck

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Maybe you should do a few rough cuts of the film, and have us judge. Maybe those "long boring conversations" aren't as bad as you think. Fresh eyes can really help.

 

[sfoster]

trust me if you think that was long and boring you really don't want to see the other conversations lol

also i don't know why people keep bringing up audio when i said in bold in the op that i haven't done any of the audio work yet .. eh

I'l definitely make the beginning shorter, and maybe intersperse some of that party footage throughout the film

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

Cool.

I'd look over everyone's advice, and make a few cuts. Think outside the box.