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watch My First Film Short! (Video Included)

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urufan56

Hey,

About a month ago my friend and I finished a film short for a competition in our church. It was both of ours very first "real" film short and It took first place in the competition! I was just posting this to see what you guys think about it and what we could have done better.

NOTE: We didn't have much time to put it together and we were on a budget of almost nothing.

The short is about patience and how two brothers deal with each other and have to use patience to get along.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_EwulHXgEc
 
urufan56 said:
I was just posting this to see what you guys think about it and what we could have done better.
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I am new to indie filmmaking, I just signed on to this forum and am honored to be the first to view your film. I think you have a bright future in filmmaking ... if you work hard and never give up. Talent is one thing .... never giving up is another necessary ingredient.
 
Aside from a few sound issues, overall good job, especially being your first. I agree with Vic, always work hard and never give up.

Welcome to this site guys!
 
I enjoyed it. Since sound was mentioned, I'll go into something else.

One of the problems, right off the bat, is the camera work and placement. I thought that it was extremely well done for a first film -- but you aren't going to get better if we don't give you some constructive criticism.

99% of your shots are not static. The camera is either rotating on the tripod, or is handheld. It can be distracting when the camera is jerking around (on a tripod, or in your hands). An example of this is in the very first shot. A car drives by the camera, and then into a garage. At the end of the shot, even though the garage was well in the shot, your camer man decided to continue moving the camera in small jerks. The same thing happens for pretty much all of your shots. you don't need to have your actor perfectly in the center of the shot. Don't worry about moving your camera every time the actor is off center. In fact, if you watch most professional films, it is rare to see an actor in the exact center of a shot.

I also don't expect you to get a professional steadicam or anything... But you can build a DIY steadycam for no more than 10 bucks, and improve your handheld shots 10 fold!

Another problem, is the sheer amount of shots you have. You have very few wide shots, and A LOT of closeups. This is probably why you want to move the camera so much. It's completely impractical to have a new shot every time the character walked past the camera, and I'm guessing that's why you didn't have many static shots. My question is, why not simply do a wide shot? Instead of having the camera rotate every time a character walks by, why not have the stand a bit farther away?

I've said this many times on this board. I was not born a cinematographer. I'm not good at planning shots. I'm not good at composition, or any of that... But I feel strongly about not using too much of the same type of shot. You need to vary close shots, moving shots, wide shots, etc. I'd be making the same complaint if every one of your shots was a wide shot. Mix things up!

Finally, my last concern is with the editing. The main character is sprayed with water. He gets up, and starts walking left. The next shot is also of him walking screen left -- but it is not clearly obvious that some time has passed. At first, I thought, "What? How did he end up on the other side of the house?", because at that point, I thought he was chasing his friend/brother (whoever it was). Not sure what actually happened there, the shots appeared to be continuous, when they were not supposed to be.
 
Thanks for that! Yea it was our first film and we didn't have enough time to iron all the kinks out. But thanks for the advice!

Finally, my last concern is with the editing. The main character is sprayed with water. He gets up, and starts walking left. The next shot is also of him walking screen left -- but it is not clearly obvious that some time has passed. At first, I thought, "What? How did he end up on the other side of the house?", because at that point, I thought he was chasing his friend/brother (whoever it was). Not sure what actually happened there, the shots appeared to be continuous, when they were not supposed to be.
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Do you have any advice on how to better "pass time" in the film? What I could of done?

Thanks so much for all the advice! :) :) :) :)
 
urufan56 said:
Thanks for that! Yea it was our first film and we didn't have enough time to iron all the kinks out. But thanks for the advice!



Do you have any advice on how to better "pass time" in the film? What I could of done?

Thanks so much for all the advice! :) :) :) :)
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No problem.

You simply need to make it apparent that one shot is not followed by the other. What you managed to do is make a continuous sequence. Because the character was moving to the left (and never stopped), in both shots, it appears to the viewer as a continued sequence. If you have already done all of your shots, you probably don't want to go and reshoot something, just because your actor started moving in a certain direction -- this is why I attributed the problem to editing. There are many ways you could've handled this. You could've cut the shot before he stood up, or before he started walking. You could've faded the shot to black, and faded the next shot in (I don't mean pushing them into each other like you did). I'm just glad you didn't use the "Some time later" technique.

Also, his line, "I'm going to get you, buddy", is another reason as to why I thought the shots were related. I thought the actor was "going to get him", when in fact, he was actually going to get his mail, some time down the road.

As you can see, there are at least a few things you could've done with the use of post production magic -- but I would strong recommend planning your shots out. It may be a lot of work, but it will reward you in the long run. Make story boards! Don't worry if you're an artist -- they don't have to look good! They just have to help you plan your shot out. There's nothing wrong with using stick men! Either way, Story boarding is an important part of pre-production.
 
Grats on pulling first place, guys. :cool:

Gonna rattle off a few things I hope you find helpful. (Yes, it's constructive)

1) The first 1:10 is not relevant to the story at all. If scenes are not adding to the story, they take away from it and make it harder to set the pacing. Your story starts when the fellow walks outside with his drink to sit down on the swing-seat. It doesn't matter how he got home, or how much he likes walking through his house.

2) Check if your camera has a manual White Balance control. That will help match up your scenes. A good example is in the cuts between 0:36 and 0:46, where there's a drastic shift. If your lighting changes, it's time to white-balance again. If you don't have a manual white-balance, not much to be done, I 'spose, aside from trying to keep lighting as even as possible.

3) That dream sequence was pretty freaky. :yes:

4) At about 2:50 (waking up and grabbing book), it's really dark. That's a good opportunity to use some kind of practical light (maybe switching on a bedside lamp or similar) to illuminate our actor. Probably have to re-angle the shot as well, or we'd be looking at the top of his head. Getting creative with practicals can be a life-saver, if your lighting kit is limited.

5) There's definitely something up with the sound. I'm not much of a sound-guy to even know what to look at there. Ever hold a seashell up to your ear? That's what I'm hearing in most (but not all) the footage. Maybe it's a compression artifact. I dunno.

6) I just have to ask... was the crickets/cicadas noise really in the background for most of that, or was it added in later for ambience? You can even hear them inside, at some places. That's a lot of insects in your neigbourhood! :eek:

7) Nice call on adding thanks for the open-source music in the credits. There's a lot that don't thinking, "Oh well, it was free." Props.

I'm thinking about doing film-work for a career!
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You're off to a good start. :D

I wish I'd started as early as you. You're already out there doing it - and the more you do it, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. It's hands-on trial & error sometimes, but there's no better substitute for improvement (and the satisfaction it brings) than by completing a project, taking the lessons learned from it, and applying them to the next film.

Nice little story, with a good message.
 
6) I just have to ask... was the crickets/cicadas noise really in the background for most of that, or was it added in later for ambience? You can even hear them inside, at some places. That's a lot of insects in your neigbourhood!
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To answer your question; yes, that noise was outside noise. The microphones we were using were very sensitive, and therefore we got some extra noise.
 
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