archived-videos Where Are We Going - Short Film

[Sweetie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwL6eq_Ew08

Here is my first (we'll call it first, ok, first in the last 2 decades) short film as a Director. Please feel free to pick it apart, it's the best way to learn. I know there are issues so you're not going to hurt my feelings and you may even come up with an angle that I didn't see, and hopefully learn from.


Logline: With the repossession of her parents jewelry and the threat of her house to be repossessed next, Ariana helps her sister Lucy struggle through the loss of her parents. A story that will touch everyone.

Crew:
Directed & Edited by Michael Puccini
Written and Produced by Carolyn Wagner
DOP: Timothy Carr
Gaffer: Michael Peterson

Starring:
Carolyn Wagner as Lucy
Kaylea Caulfield as Ariana Graham
Darrin Davies as the Debt Collector
Michelle Gabriel as Auntie Joan

Equipment: Shot on a Red Epic with a Tascam DR-680/NTG-3 on a stick for audio.
Budget: About $300 for food only. We were blessed with a lot of people bringing what we needed.
Shoot dates were Jan 2 to Jan 5, 2014.

For those who care, I'll post the extended version in a couple of days so you can see how the script was initially done (and hopefully give feedback to whether we were right to cut so many scenes). We promised to let someone show that tomorrow to help their acting promotion campaign.

 

[Sweetie]

No feedback? No one likes or hates or has suggestions at all?

 

[trueindie]

I do want to give you a critique. But do you really want to hear it, even though you say you do? I know I usually don't care about critiques. Coming from amateurs like myself and other people on the internet, most of it doesn't mean anything. Most people can take critiques and shove it, and put it in their own films, which they never seem to do.

1. In terms of story, I wan't interested in it. That doesn't mean anything, other than, "it's not my type of story." I'm sure it's somebody's type.

2. In terms of execution, although you guys had three days it looks unplanned. If I just look at the shots of the outside doorway through the hedges, it just looks like somebody said "Hey, let's do the shot through the hedges, it's going to look great. We can use the crane and have a bunch of leaves in the foreground and it's going to look very pretty." Because I have no other explanation as to why I was looking at people knocking on the door through brush? If you had even used DOF, in those shots to blur out the foreground it might have looked better.

3. You have an 8 minute film and you don't even take 30s to establish your scene, to acclimatize your viewer with the setting before the story goes forward. You don't always have to do that, and it depends on the story what you want to do, but here, it seems it might have been appropriate.

4. Framing. This is just my personal preference. Take it how you will. I noticed while watching that I didn't like the look of it, and I was wondering why. And then I was going through still images from the film Moneyball this morning, and I realized that in your frames the faces sometimes cover almost half the screen sometimes, but I'm not sure that is necessary unless you want to capture a facial expression. In many films the faces and body are 1/3rd or 1/4th of the frame. I was going to give you some examples, but apparently I can't upload attachments here.

5. Also in terms of lighting. Sometimes I thought things were too bright. Also near the end, everybody seems to be under some sort of pink light. What's the reason for that?

So I'll leave it there. Hopefully I haven't antagonized you enough. I was weighing my options between antagonizing you, and just leaving you a comment on your submission. I know how it feels when nobody replies to your hard work

Anyway here are some pictures from moneyball. I uploaded them to my site. I think you should see them. Just look at the framings. It's chest and up, chest and up, or one side of the frame, or an establishing shot. I've got lots of pictures of lots of movies, but I think these four will do for now.

I hope we're still friends. Steve Waugh is my favorite Aussie. HAHA

 

[photon]

It's very good overall, but some things need more work. There are some issues with audio editing: you can hear "the gaps" between lines of dialogue. Also the score doesn't fit the mood in some of the scenes. Needs more grading: some of the shots are very unimpressive for RED footage. Also I'm not a fan of having opening credits.

 

[Sweetie]

In terms of story, I wan't interested in it. That doesn't mean anything, other than, "it's not my type of story." I'm sure it's somebody's type.

That's more than fair. I have to say after watching it as many times as I have, I'm over it I'm not personally that much of a fan of dramas anymore.

In terms of execution, although you guys had three days it looks unplanned. If I just look at the shots of the outside doorway through the hedges, it just looks like somebody said "Hey, let's do the shot through the hedges, it's going to look great. We can use the crane and have a bunch of leaves in the foreground and it's going to look very pretty." Because I have no other explanation as to why I was looking at people knocking on the door through brush? If you had even used DOF, in those shots to blur out the foreground it might have looked better.

You have a keen eye. That's how it felt on production too. It was a very steep learning curve. I made a lot of mistakes and my inexperience allowed a lot of errors to creep in (that really shouldn't have). Not trying to make excuses here. A big lesson learned is a lot of people want to get involved. If you fail to force good pre production work, people are willing to avoid doing that hard work and the production suffers for it.

As for the crane shot, it was basically, look through the bushes to make the shot look pretty. I think you're right about the DOF too.

You have an 8 minute film and you don't even take 30s to establish your scene, to acclimatize your viewer with the setting before the story goes forward. You don't always have to do that, and it depends on the story what you want to do, but here, it seems it might have been appropriate.

I get what you're saying. It's something that I'll have to consider in the future. I'm not quite sure if I can see a way to do it (meaning, I'd love a suggestion/example or two on how you'd do it - and then I'll hopefully have a penny dropped moment)

Framing. This is just my personal preference. Take it how you will. I noticed while watching that I didn't like the look of it, and I was wondering why. And then I was going through still images from the film Moneyball this morning, and I realized that in your frames the faces sometimes cover almost half the screen sometimes, but I'm not sure that is necessary unless you want to capture a facial expression. In many films the faces and body are 1/3rd or 1/4th of the frame. I was going to give you some examples, but apparently I can't upload attachments here.

Part of it again, my inexperience. I have to take that one on the chin.

Also in terms of lighting. Sometimes I thought things were too bright. Also near the end, everybody seems to be under some sort of pink light. What's the reason for that?

That was a combination of the DOP trying to experiment with green and pink lights, with no color grader (on a time deadline, so I had my own hack job at grading and failed rather miserably) and roasting the actor to a crisp on the previous day (she was substantially sunburned). I hope we're talking about the right scene.

The brightness is me with the color grading. By the sounds of it, got it wrong. Back to learning for me.

So I'll leave it there. Hopefully I haven't antagonized you enough. I was weighing my options between antagonizing you, and just leaving you a comment on your submission. I know how it feels when nobody replies to your hard work

I hope we're still friends. Steve Waugh is my favorite Aussie. HAHA

All good mate. Thanks for reviewing. I'd rather have someone pick it apart and learn something I wasn't quite aware of (which you did) than have the placebo effect of "I like it" and not learning from it. So if you're up for it, continue to pick it to shreds. I'd really appreciate it.