archived-videos Paradise - My First Short Film

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candidiva

Hello everyone, new member here! I just wanted to post up my first short film I made for my Filmmaking I course. Completing this film was extremly difficult and I was close to giving up. When you're a college student, so many people around you are unreliable. I did everything my by myself. No crew, no nothing (For a few scenes, one of myf riends was able to hold the boom mic). It was hard but I'm glad and proud of myself for getting it done. I just wanted to here the opionions of others. Be honest as you can be, this really matters to me. Thank you very much!

PARADISE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v=785n-LdGmrg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=785n-LdGmrg

I purposely didn't write an synopsis because since it's no dialogue I wanted to see if you guys would understand what I was going for..
 
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Firstly, congrats on completing. Getting a short film completed is always tough.

It's very... innocent and I got bored and started fast forwarding around 2 mins. Story was OK for an experimental piece of art form.

To make it more watchable, need to play around with a few things - the tripod shot at the beginning was jarring, aspect ratio unconventional (but surprisingly undisturbing) and there are a million tricks / ideas to be added.

However, well done for completing. Always tricky.
 
gorillaonabike said:
Firstly, congrats on completing. Getting a short film completed is always tough.

It's very... innocent and I got bored and started fast forwarding around 2 mins. Story was OK for an experimental piece of art form.

To make it more watchable, need to play around with a few things - the tripod shot at the beginning was jarring, aspect ratio unconventional (but surprisingly undisturbing) and there are a million tricks / ideas to be added.

However, well done for completing. Always tricky.
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Thanks for the input. I know I could have done a lot more with film editing wise, especially with sound, but the deadline was coming close. I appreciate your comment though. And the aspect ratio was actually not intentional, I had a lot of exporting issues, and that was the way it came out so I just left it as it was.
 
First of all I would like to congratulate you for completing your short film!

So, frankly speaking, I got bored also in watching it. gorillaonabike was right, the story is okay but it can't give us the interest to watch it until the end.

Practice more and for sure you can make an interesting film someday... God Bless!
 
Congratulations on completing the short, it feels good when you've put it all together and it's finished. Here is my feedback:

I liked that when the character was in the cafeteria it was loud with all the background noises of people speaking, and when he opened the book everything went silent. I knew exactly what you were conveying there.

I liked the ending too where he doesn't worry about picking up his phone because he's more interested in being outside in nature and it isn't a concern for him, which is in juxtaposition from earlier in the cafeteria when he was concerned about the phone due to the message left on there.

I noticed that in between each cut you could hear the "snapping" sound of the audio abruptly beginning at the start of the new cut. A solution for next time you're filming in an environment like that is to do a take where you just record the noise for a few minutes, that way when editing you can layer that noise over each cut so it is in one continuous flow across the entire sequence.

So all in all a very good effort and the best thing about making a short film and completing it is you can say that you went all the way through and got it done, and everything you learned while doing it will help you in your future shorts. So keep making them for sure.
 
Congrats on making the film and seeing it to the end. :)

A few notes I made while watching Paradise: maybe add more of a story behind it. I understand the premise, but a story can captivate people's attention and allow for others to understand the characters better.

Secondly, I would maybe add in more spoken narration: I like that you didn't use a ton of spoken narration, but I feel for this film that you could have included more thoughts of the character. I know you had him act out certain expressions and what not, but for this piece I felt it was necessary to add in a few thoughts. They don't have to be anything abstract, but something to build the character up more: their favorite food for lunch, or their favorite scene from the book they were reading, etc. Build a well-rounded character in your story. :)

Third, which is kind of opposite to my second tip... is to include more actions from the character, because sometimes we don't need to necessarily hear what they are thinking, but to see what they are doing. Their actions can show us what type of person they are (which you did achieve this effect), what their favorite food is, their favorite music, etc.

Lastly, keep making films. Your first, second, third or whichever film it is, isn't going to be amazing: not saying that you can't make a knock out amazing video, but it takes practice and dedication to the art of film making. Just stay dedicated and focused on your goals as a filmmaker. :)

Cheers!
 
PhantomScreenwriter said:
I liked that when the character was in the cafeteria it was loud with all the background noises of people speaking, and when he opened the book everything went silent. I knew exactly what you were conveying there.

I liked the ending too where he doesn't worry about picking up his phone because he's more interested in being outside in nature and it isn't a concern for him, which is in juxtaposition from earlier in the cafeteria when he was concerned about the phone due to the message left on there.
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Really happy that you understood what I was going for, especially picking up small facts like that in the film. I put a lot of thought in it. :)

PhantomScreenwriter said:
I noticed that in between each cut you could hear the "snapping" sound of the audio abruptly beginning at the start of the new cut. A solution for next time you're filming in an environment like that is to do a take where you just record the noise for a few minutes, that way when editing you can layer that noise over each cut so it is in one continuous flow across the entire sequence.
Click to expand...

If there was one thing I could redo in this film it would be the editing process. I knew I could do a lot more, especially with adding audio to hide that "snapping" noise. Thank you for the advise and input, I really do appreciate it.

Kevin_ExploringIndieFilms said:
Congrats on making the film and seeing it to the end. :)

A few notes I made while watching Paradise: maybe add more of a story behind it. I understand the premise, but a story can captivate people's attention and allow for others to understand the characters better.

Secondly, I would maybe add in more spoken narration: I like that you didn't use a ton of spoken narration, but I feel for this film that you could have included more thoughts of the character. I know you had him act out certain expressions and what not, but for this piece I felt it was necessary to add in a few thoughts. They don't have to be anything abstract, but something to build the character up more: their favorite food for lunch, or their favorite scene from the book they were reading, etc. Build a well-rounded character in your story. :)

Third, which is kind of opposite to my second tip... is to include more actions from the character, because sometimes we don't need to necessarily hear what they are thinking, but to see what they are doing. Their actions can show us what type of person they are (which you did achieve this effect), what their favorite food is, their favorite music, etc.

Lastly, keep making films. Your first, second, third or whichever film it is, isn't going to be amazing: not saying that you can't make a knock out amazing video, but it takes practice and dedication to the art of film making. Just stay dedicated and focused on your goals as a filmmaker. :)

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Thank you, I intentionally didn't add any dialogue, because I wanted his actions to say everything. I only added the voice over, just to be safe for the viewers to understand what I was going for. I appreciate your comment though.

Now when I rewatch the film, I understand why someone could get bored, since there is no dialogue. The scene where the MC is standing by himself could have been edited out. Thats like 15 seconds of non action. I really appreciate the input guys thanks! I look forward on making my next film.
 
i think total silence is a mistake like 40 seconds in.
you need some kind of ambient noise. even when movies have total silent there is still some audio there, it's just most people don't notice it.

also you need to disguise your cuts with the audio too. it's obvious when one clip begins and the other ends just by the sound. it shouldn't be.

overlay an ambient soundtrack over everything (just empty room tone) and fade in and fade out the audio for the different clips as they start and end.

also let go of the college excuse, it's people in general that are unreliable. you'll learn this lesson well as you keep making films. people suck really hard, generally speaking. until you can give out large paychecks to professionals they will continue to suck and be unreliable.
 
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