just finished first film

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plnmbdt801 said:
So this is my first film and i am done now after a lot of stress and no money. So i made a story board a script and did all editing on my own. I had a little help from a friend on the sound and hope people are willing to give me some honest feedback. thanks and enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ1GL51H8Xg&feature=share&list=UUZv2sHLlqHbJXrpXG9MTQSg
http://youtu.be/oQ1GL51H8Xg
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ1GL51H8Xg

Nice attempt but to me it falls a little flat on the movie look. What camera and lens did you shoot this on? The story was a good idea and I think you have potential. Keep practicing.
 
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Quit watching at :37.

We knew from the second the man entered the frame that he was going to walk to the car shown in the distance. So why did you have to show him walking all the way over there? It was pure torture. The shoe tying thing was a bit long too. Indeed, the morning hygene routine has been done to death. So, with that, the shoe tying, and the long walk to the car, you're torturing people, not entertaining them.

My advice: Those three clips should total 4 seconds of screen time -- combined! Pare your footage down as much as possible.

Good luck.
 
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The scenes where he's getting ready are a bit long, to be fair. Also when he closes the door at the very start, the camera man is visible in the glass. Just watch for small things like that which can destroy a viewers belief in the story. If they're enjoying it and are absorbed into your films world, a small mistake like seeing a boom mike or the reflection of a cameraman can really ruin it for them. But good effort anyway, and good luck with anything else you try your hand at.
 
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A nice first film. Now the real work begins. You need to make five more.
Learn from the mistakes you made with this one.

First: never use music you do not have the rights to use - show respect
to the copyright holder just as you will want others to respect your copyright.

Second: edit! Get to your story in a short film. I know you storyboarded
and did the editing yourself so in the future think of how you can tighten
things up. I see a lot of short films - you should watch a few; as Guerrilla
says that morning routine is done to death. The chance is boring - you’ve
seen foot chances before so play around with what you have seen and
add you own, personal creative touch. This was just bad. I bet you can do
better.

Next time try to use some lighting. Yes, your image is exposed and in
focus - now try to use light well. The audio was quite good especially in
comparison to many of the shorts we see here. You’ll get even better in
time.
 
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Well thank you all for taking time to give me some, great feed back. It's to bad some of you were only willing to watch to the 37 sec mark, i do feel it go better after that. The story was not about a boy getting ready, the intro mas nothing more than a dream if you did not get that. I was trying to tell the story of a boy dreaming within a dream that would late help him decide what it was he really wanted to do. Thanks again Directorik you seem very helpful and i appreciate you feed back.
 
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I'm glad to help.
plnmbdt801 said:
It's to bad some of you were only willing to watch to the 37 sec mark, i do feel it go better after that.
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An excellent lesson to learn. Many people will not watch a movie they don't
like within the first few seconds. It's better to make a movie that captures
the attention of the viewer right away rather than hope they stick around
until it gets better.

On your next movie try to intrigue the audience within the first 30 seconds.
Consider a percentage based comparison; your movie is three minutes and
several people stopped watching at around thirty seconds - 16% of your
movie. If you made a 90 minute feature it would be as if you hoped people
would sit through a full 15 minutes before it gets better. Grab your audience
from the first seconds.
 
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Many people will not watch a movie they don't
like within the first few seconds. It's better to make a movie that captures
the attention of the viewer right away rather than hope they stick around
until it gets better.
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Exactly. And I have quit watching a number of films here less than :37 seconds.

It's to bad some of you were only willing to watch to the 37 sec mark, i do feel it go better after that.
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This is a common response, but not a good enough reason. The film has to stand alone and compel us to keep watching. It HAS to open with a bam! wow! to get beyond :37 seconds.

Good luck.
 
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A good discipline in filmmaking - whether writing or directing - is to begin each scene at the last possible moment, then end it one beat early. I don't know who originated this concept, but I certainly strive to practice it, and my manager reminds me of it constantly.

Where did your story begin?

Protagonist gets himself ready, drives to a girl's house, she gets into his car...

He wakes up. It was a dream.

Okay, so far so good. Except you need to follow up with an explanation (that is relevant to your story) as to why all of these things were important.

Why were we shown the "getting ready" sequence? What was the point of it in relation to the story? Why did we need to watch him drive to the girl's house? Who was the girl? Why was he dreaming this?

These are rhetorical questions, because there was no reason for any of it that I could discern from the story you wound up communicating. As a viewer, you've just wasted more than a full minute of my time.

I'm not trying to be mean, just pointing out that your central responsibility as a filmmaker is to TELL THE STORY. If something doesn't move the story along, get rid of it -- preferably in the writing stage. Hitchcock said, "Film is life, with the dull bits chopped out." Kubrick said, "To be boring is the worst sin of all."

I'll leave the rest of the film for you to apply the same questions. This story could be told in :30 seconds rather than 3 minutes, and you'd still communicate all of the relevant information.
 
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*drum roll*............

you wanted honesty...

audio was crap, video was too clean therefore crap (in my opinion), the angles you shot were crap, i absolutely get what story you was trying to tell, but it was crap at least the way you told it, the acting was also crap.

i would leave it like this but i got moaned at before for not leaving constructive feedback..

so lets say this:

intro title was awful, you could have had the title see through showing the video behind and zooming in to a clear screen of the vid and maybe have him boxing for a few secs then leaving to go home.

the beginning was like a video for school children.. "so kids what do we do when we wake up in the morning"

wake up, brush our teeth, get dressed and tie our shoe laces.. all of this is fine, but seriously it took so long i felt like i was at nursery.

the acting was slow... as in not normal how a normal person would act, the actor was nervous and it really showed, just relax and feel like there isnt a camera there.

the money chase was awful, is that how you would act if you was going to run away from someone about to beat the crap out of you? nope. also the long chase wasnt needed or at least needed spicing up.

did you storyboard this at all? i dont feel you did, i think you just shot it on the day as you looked into the camera..

i think you should re-shoot this and take in what i said.

out of curiosity what specs did you use to film this?

camera, frame rate, shutter speed, etc unless it was shot with a mobile?
 
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There are some flaws of course. Things could have been tightened up, story could have made more sense (like why the guy would shoot him). And some smaller things, for instance the gun shot, you should have shown the gun and then cut to black, and then heard the noise to suggest the gun shot rather than showing the gun and then having the gun shot heard when the gun clearly doesn't shoot.

But, it was your first short film, so don't sweat it. Just keep making them, keep learning, and keep improving.
 
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8salacious9 said:
*drum roll*............

you wanted honesty...

audio was crap, video was too clean therefore crap (in my opinion), the angles you shot were crap, i absolutely get what story you was trying to tell, but it was crap at least the way you told it, the acting was also crap.

i would leave it like this but i got moaned at before for not leaving constructive feedback..

so lets say this:

intro title was awful, you could have had the title see through showing the video behind and zooming in to a clear screen of the vid and maybe have him boxing for a few secs then leaving to go home.

the beginning was like a video for school children.. "so kids what do we do when we wake up in the morning"

wake up, brush our teeth, get dressed and tie our shoe laces.. all of this is fine, but seriously it took so long i felt like i was at nursery.

the acting was slow... as in not normal how a normal person would act, the actor was nervous and it really showed, just relax and feel like there isnt a camera there.

the money chase was awful, is that how you would act if you was going to run away from someone about to beat the crap out of you? nope. also the long chase wasnt needed or at least needed spicing up.

did you storyboard this at all? i dont feel you did, i think you just shot it on the day as you looked into the camera..

i think you should re-shoot this and take in what i said.

out of curiosity what specs did you use to film this?

camera, frame rate, shutter speed, etc unless it was shot with a mobile?
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I understand you are trying to help him, however, I must admit, after seeing many of your comments on this forum I am very anxious to see what your masterpiece has to offer. No offense, but if you can take a little criticism yourself, I would suggest right off the bat that you should get a better logo.
 
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Scorer said:
I understand you are trying to help him, however, I must admit, after seeing many of your comments on this forum I am very anxious to see what your masterpiece has to offer. No offense, but if you can take a little criticism yourself, I would suggest right off the bat that you should get a better logo.
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I'm glad you identified me by my criticism, iv always said I'm harsh but let's face it, we all want to produce the best we can, this wasn't the best or near it, if he took it to a festival would it be worth looking at ? No, I'm under no illusion that with my words my own film will be heavily criticised but I have a different mindset I love Criticism it moulds me until I'm comfortable with what I produce.

We can make suggestions as producers or we can make suggestions as an audience I take both into consideration.

I'm aware my logo isn't the best but I like it, I have other concepts that I'm working on as we speak, but your comment is on board be assured :)

May I ask would you disagree with what I said about his film? Regardless of the tone I said it in?
 
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Actually that's basically what it was: your tone. I think maybe you took it out of context that this is literally the guy's first film EVER. I made my first short film like ten years ago with a crappy little camcorder, and let me tell you, his is better than mine.

That's what I meant when I said you were trying to help him, criticism and feedback are both great (though you seemed reluctant to give the latter). But I felt you could have been a little less condescending, though perhaps I'm being too sensitive. At least you watched more than 37 seconds (I think).

As for your logo, it just seems like something that could have almost come out of Paint. Its literally a word in a font that an industrial band would use, with a couple green birds. From my perspective, without knowing almost anything about your movie, it is not very captivating. Just my opinion, others could differ, and I am not sure I could really do better either. I'm not very photoshop creation savvy I suppose.
 
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Scorer said:
Actually that's basically what it was: your tone. I think maybe you took it out of context that this is literally the guy's first film EVER. I made my first short film like ten years ago with a crappy little camcorder, and let me tell you, his is better than mine.

That's what I meant when I said you were trying to help him, criticism and feedback are both great (though you seemed reluctant to give the latter). But I felt you could have been a little less condescending, though perhaps I'm being too sensitive. At least you watched more than 37 seconds (I think).

As for your logo, it just seems like something that could have almost come out of Paint. Its literally a word in a font that an industrial band would use, with a couple green birds. From my perspective, without knowing almost anything about your movie, it is not very captivating. Just my opinion, others could differ, and I am not sure I could really do better either. I'm not very photoshop creation savvy I suppose.
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Yeah my tone is harsh but if someone asks for honest then I'm not going to cotton wrap my words incase they get offended and emotionally scarred so bad that they decide to forget filmmaking and take up a job in McDonald's for the rest of their lives ( no offense to the hardworking mc'D workers)

I come from a harsh place it's how I was brought up, I'm not the only one who says things how it is, you for instance have decided to pick up on my logo to show me am example of criticism which I don't mind and have stated that I have concepts I'm working on, despite me not asking of your opinion?

And not to go off topic and turn this into something else I would encourage the OP to re-do this film with all suggestions made and see how much better he can make it.
 
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Fair enough. The great thing about opinions though is that they are free to be given on a whim, though deploying them with tact is one's best opportunity at social success. But yes, it would be interesting to see the OP take some of the recommended suggestions and see what he can come up with.
 
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Scorer said:
Fair enough. The great thing about opinions though is that they are free to be given on a whim, though deploying them with tact is one's best opportunity at social success. But yes, it would be interesting to see the OP take some of the recommended suggestions and see what he can come up with.
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Agreed
 
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Scorer said:
it just seems like something that could have almost come out of Paint.
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Yikes! A LOT of elements in the feature film I made came right out of Paint, including a lot of the promo stuff. Good thing my film has won awards and people are buying copies from Amazon.com because otherwise I would have thought you were on to something. Whew.
 
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