not bad.
One thing i've noticed is the pace of edit. every cut you have is like this:
Nothing happens - Something Happens - Nothing Happens.
For example, in the begining, scene in the car: Nothing happens. Girl asks the guys a question. He answers to her. Nothing happens.
Otherwise each cut has "hanging" feel to it; stop, go, stop, go, stop, go..
But overrall its pretty good for a first video! keep going
Really, really helpful point there. Watching the video back again, I was almost a little embarrassed by how blatant that was. Thanks for the tip, it'll definitely come in helpful for future projects!
One thing I really liked was how you used the POV and the focusing at 4:17, but you shouldn't've used it so much throughout the rest of the short, to make it more impactful at the end of his imagination sequence, when you go really out of focus. Like the other poster said, it definitely had a pace to it, and that being so noticeable isn't really a good thing, but I'd understand if you had that purposefully...But yeah for a first, it was definitely well done, a few other things, I didn't watch the credits or anything, but music rights is always a big deal, and most of the time if you email whoever does the song they'll give you permission, especially if you ask nice and if its not a big commercial project. I don't know how covers work (for Blackbird), but I've done mostly specific competitions so I use stuff that's been CC licensed. Although I do agree with using music especially when audio quality is so poor, seriously you should just buy a H2 or a Tascam, they don't run too expensive, and you can make a boompole from household stuff, or not even use one at all
On the first point about focus, agreed. I think I became a little trigger happy with the new DSLR setup. The main 'where is my mind?' cover was created by a man named Maxence Cyrin. I attempted to track him down online, but the closest I could find was his facebook fan page, which only had a link to his booking agent. He's also French, which might pose some sort of barrier. Are there any universal tricks that you know, besides just researching and hunting the guy down, that could help get me contact information of some sort? A very vague question, but worth a shot. We've saved enough for the h2, and we're planning on that being the next acquisition. Boompole wise, we did make one out of old track gear, but that might have been our undoing - we overestimated the ability of the mic, and relied on it too much to pick up noise from afar.
It had that quirky/indie/right-outta-Sundance vibe.
I hope that the next few points are constructive and help:
- There's one crap scene in the middle (the one in his bedroom where the 'real' girlfriend nags him about the film) which is out of place with the pacing and cinematography of the rest of the film. Firstly the room is too dark, secondly you've suddenly got lengthy shots on sticks with no camera movement whatsoever. I get that you want to offer this as a juxtaposition to the sunnier dream sequence that comes after, but that sequence just doesn't look right. And there's too much dialogue- you know the limitations of your audio and some of that stuff is just exposition.
-I think you're slightly overusing the DOF. DSLRs have great capabilities here but sometimes it's overused. There's an early shot where the depth of field works nicely on his face (and the naggy gf is out of focus) but then they both go out of focus. Again I understand why that works from a storytelling POV but the shot is kind of on the long side and just looks a little mucky. Likewise the focusing from the old camera's POV is really nice but you then use it on some shots that aren't from the camera's POV and, to me, that's kind of distracting.
- The acting was really good, worked really nicely (except for that one scene I mentioned above). I know that you don't own the rights to that music but try, try, try to get music composed that has a very similar feel because that worked perfectly. I don't know if you've seen a film called Submarine by Richard Ayoade but your film had a very similar 'nostalgic montage' sort of feel. That's a film that's worth catching for the sake of reference but I don't think it got a very wide release Stateside.
- I would ditch that postscript at the end. The final shot (tilt up to the 1 Hour Photo sign) is kind of disappointing. Especially given the fact that the stabiliser on the DSLR, only during that car park scene, is noticeably bad. I don't think we need that at all- fading to black from the scene at night with the pretty lights would, to my eye, work better. By that point the audience has kind of forgotten that this is him imagining his life with this other girl (although you've established the clues with the driving scene) and then, once they've finished the film, that'd come back to them. I just think the bit at the end is sort of an anticlimax once you've reached this emotional high.
But, as I said, it was really nice- well acted and well shot. For a first attempt it's pretty damn impressive
On the crap shot - agreed, we were cringing a little when we stuck it in the timeline. The shot was initially intended to be a quick sequence at a local walmart, but we were kicked out last minute. We considered taking out the 'real' girlfriend entirely, and beginning with the walk to the car or him taking shots by himself. Do you think that'd be an option worth considering, or would it impact the plot in a negative way? Also, are there any pointers to finding a proper balance between tripod and handheld shots? Would the balance have been acceptable absent the room sequence?
On the DOF - Agreed, the new camera format made me a little antsy and I ended up abusing it. In terms of shot length, was the pacing (not in terms of action, but overarching length) alright in the montage? The girlfriend portion is definitely in need of improvement, but could the imagination portion be used as something to model future pacing off of?
I've tried to see Submarine before, yes! I'll make sure to check it out, it looks brilliant to me. Thanks for the suggestion.
Interesting last point, about the final shot. I'd wanted to give the ending a sort of twist, instead of being a straight-up love montage with an assumed happy ending. I liked the idea of a crashing-back-to-reality concept.. Do you think it would be possible to keep the first reality shot in (close up, face), and
then cut to black? Or would it inherently degrade the climax?
Thanks a ton for the comments, they honestly really helped!
Good for a first film. You need to work on rule of thirds though.
Thanks, I had some difficulty implementing that when there were always at least two characters in the frame. Could it be solved by making the frame a little wider, and shifting it this or that direction?
Again, thanks to everyone for the feedback, it really helped.
