SuperJew

[egproductions]

Ok here it is. The compression caused the opening scene to loose some of the darker details that you can see in the original, so dont worry the whole short isn't like that. And I was having issues with the office scene audio. other than that i am pretty happy with the video. You know its good because it didnt go over to big in conceptual art school :) Please post comments and enjoy.

Running Length - 00:12:38;00
Size - 50MB

http://eden.rutgers.edu/~egabor/Transfer%20Folder/SuperJew.wmv

[Jeremy Ordan]

Well here will be my short review...

Sound needs a lot work, completely distracting, not only in the office where it sounds like on camera mic but other places as well. The editing was nice and I like the comic book feel that you had. A couple of nice depth of field shots, but ultimately, as a Jewish person myself, I found it to be completely stereotypical and didn't break any bounderies. The places where you could have really used the culture weren't fully exploited and the jokes just weren't funny. It's a nice project, I just think it could have used more work from the script and then moving forward. Just not my cup of tea.

[STORYTELLER32]

Well first I have to say, kudos to you for taking the time to shoot something. You'll only get better by practicing. So many people talk about the camera and how cool it is, but in the end it's a tool to accomplish something which starts on paper.

That being said, i'm guessing this was done for fun, but even so, you're asking for feedback so I have to be honest.

The compression was fine, but the aspect ratio of the frame was squeezed from the left and right. Just FYI for next time.

The sound was pretty bad. In the few places you did ADR, it was really noticable. Mostly because you didn't take room/location tone to drop it in as a backing layer to unify the audio so it sounded like the dialogue was recorded at two different locations. Was this boomed or did you use the on camera mic?

I think I disagree with Yankee on the editing. The comic book panel thing was a cute technique but it moved so slowly it stopped the flow of the narrative in its tracks. There were lots of places where the editing of the narrative could have been much much tighter. Some scenes could even be dropped entirely and it would likely help the flow of the story (and fix some character issues in the script) because even though this was a 10 minute film, it felt like it was an hour long. That's not only a result of editing, but of script structure. The script is the foundation for any narrative. There were things in the story that went against the grain of your narrative and of your main character. If its not working as a script, it won't work as a movie.

The acting, well, obviously you didn't use real actors so I can't really go there. But it didn't help the already weak script. I'm jewish too and I didn't find it funny. In the end, this flik shouldn't be more than 6 minutes in length. If it were tighter, it wouldn't lose the audience so quickly. But I'm afraid it would still give that "groansome" feeling in watching it.

It was a cute idea and a lot of time went into it. But more time should have been given to pre-production.

All that being said, you should continue to shoot more. You'll only learn by doing. Best of luck-

[Barry_Green]

When discussing editing, I find that a very valuable exercise is to try to get your program to run in the shortest amount of time possible. In screenwriting, when someone asks Michael Hauge's advice on their screenplay, his stock advice is "cut the dialogue in half." He says that without even looking at the script, and he says he's right 98% of the time. I'd say try the same thing here -- try to cut your running time in half. Every second of screentime is precious, don't waste any of it. Lop whole scenes out. Cut reaction shots. Tighten tighten tighten. Respect that your audience's time is valuable, and pack the maximum impact in every second of screentime. It's rare to see a first-timer's short film that couldn't be improved by cutting at least 1/3 off the runtime, if not 1/2.

I think there were many places where you could trim this down significantly, and I think it'd be a valuable exercise to try and will help to refine your storytelling skills.

[egproductions]

Thank you, i see some good advice here. I know the pace is way to slow. About the script itself; i'm sorry you found it stereotypical the whole idea was not to make stereotypical jokes about jews but rather to point out how ridiculous it sounds to an outsider when people make stereotypical jokes about an everyday jewish person. The whole superhero idea is just a metopher for his identity and wether he is going to conform to social pressures from the gentile world. so rather than it making fun with stereotypical jokes, it is making fun of stereotypical jokes (all of which i find myslef having to deal with on a day to day basis.) As for audio i know it was horrible, i had to shoot this thing alone and act in it. So i couldn't get another person to help with a boom, i did lay down ambient audio for all the scenes however so i dont know why it came off that i didn't. oh ya and i am almost 100% sure the PAR is fine, its looks fine to me and my settings were proper.