My short film "Goldy"

mehnkle

mehnkle

Well-known member
I would like to see what you guys think about my first short film "Goldy".

Goldy (45.8 mb)

I made this for the Seattle Times 3 minute film contest. Top 8 get screened at the Seattle International Film festival. Because this is my first serious short film I want you guys to not hold back. Please tell me where I can improve next time and what also worked well. I had to really cut out a lot for it to cram into 3 minutes and had to throw out a lot of great ideas; however,I think in the end, even though some of it feels kind of corny, it still turned out alright. I got the rights to use all 3 songs so no worries there.

Thanks for watching it.
 
Johnny

Good job man. Great shot compositions/exposures/color correction etc... Great looking little short. The images alone kept me glued to the screen. Its nice seeing shorts that aren't dialogue driven talking heads. With video camera's and the ease of sync, it happens way too often, and I am from the camp "tell a story visually before resorting to dialogue"

Dislikes/critique:

I think there needed to be more set-up to the gold fish and drive/motivation. Maybe, instead of spending so much time with him actually buying it, and going to get it, maybe use a shot or two of him being sad at home, setting up his loneliness. (Think about how you dont actually have to show somebody traveling somewhere, but their motivations for traveling. seeing somebody just walking somewhere is boring, but if we know why they are walking there, than it can be interesting and can build on tension.) Then, he's at the pet store, gets fish, and then we see that awesome happy overhead bike shot you used for the opening title card. (great shot by the way) I understand you only have a few minutes to work with, but i think you could have arranged it in a little bit better manner.

I would like to have seen maybe a shot or 2 more of the fish in the house, with him, establishing their "bond" and his love for it, so when it dies, we feel more empathy for him.

Sorry for hte long critic. But great short by all means. Great visuals. Any Color corrections used? lights? camera settings? Good job for your first "serious" short.
 
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Keegs said:
Johnny

Good job man. Great shot compositions/exposures/color correction etc... Great looking little short. The images alone kept me glued to the screen. Its nice seeing shorts that aren't dialogue driven talking heads. With video camera's and the ease of sync, it happens way too often, and I am from the camp "tell a story visually before resorting to dialogue"

Dislikes/critique:

I think there needed to be more set-up to the gold fish and drive/motivation. Maybe, instead of spending so much time with him actually buying it, and going to get it, maybe use a shot or two of him being sad at home, setting up his loneliness. Then, he goes to pet store, gets fish, and then we see that awesome happy overhead bike shot you used for the opening title card. (great shot by the way) I understand you only have a few minutes to work with, but i think you could have arranged it in a little bit better manner.

I would like to have seen maybe a shot or 2 more of the fish in the house, with him, establishing their "bond" and his love for it, so when it dies, we feel more empathy for him.

Sorry for hte long critic. But great short by all means. Great visuals. Any Color corrections used? lights? camera settings?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the critique and I really appreciate that you took the time to describe how I could have improved my film. I totally agree with everything you said and I have always felt that I should have had more establishing shots to set up the relationship. As for color corrections I timed each scene how I thought it felt. I warmed up the beggining, added a cooler hue to the kitchen scene, and added a yellow tint to the last scene. All of the lighting was natural and foamcore was used to reflict light in a couple scenes. As for camera settings I shot in 24p, -3 Ped, Cinelike V, +3 Chroma Level.
 
Edit here: I hadn't read Keegs reply before I submitted this, but goes to show you that people can pick up on these things. I wouldn't call them flaws, just short comings. Good luck next time!

Here's my critique in bullet points.

Music - A different choice. The soundtrack doesn't really fit the mood, to me.

Composition - A lot of the shots were actually good. The crane in the beginning was nice, even the static shot of the parking lot. I thought that was great. The kitchen scene seemed to suffer from lack of space... am I wrong? One particular shot that I didn't like was the one where he began to bury Goldy. The side shot was too literal, to me. Had you gone for a dolly left from behind, it would've sold the intimacy that he had with his now-dead pet a bit more (To me. I could be totally talking out of my ass). I was fine with the color correction/choice of color. That's a director's style.

Editing - Needs tightening. The shot of the guy looking at the fish tanks quickly switches to a panning shot. The flow seems to be snipped between those two specific shots. Also, the scene where he's burying goldy. It wasn't that real. He pours one patch of dirt on Goldy, and then it cuts to a complete burial.

Acting - Guy did well silent, but maybe there wasn't enough time spent with him to really know who he was. Even if it were all silent. Why's he buying a gold fish to begin with?

Writing - Above with the acting, why? What's going on? Why does he want a goldfish? How did the goldfish die? The subject matter is emotional, it seems, and probably could've benefitied from being expounded upon first, and then shortened to the time span.

Overall - Good going. It must've been a trial to pull off a lot of these shots. You've got a good piece to learn from. I hope my first go is as decent. =)
 
Awesome story! and great Shooting!!!!! Here are the two shots I would have added to establish the "Why" question. I would have opened with him alone in his empty house, and show him being all alone...lonely, empty shots, etc. Then cut to the first scene of him riding the bike. I would have ended the same way. Great job!
 
Kholi said:
Edit here: I hadn't read Keegs reply before I submitted this, but goes to show you that people can pick up on these things. I wouldn't call them flaws, just short comings. Good luck next time!

Here's my critique in bullet points.

Music - A different choice. The soundtrack doesn't really fit the mood, to me.

Composition - A lot of the shots were actually good. The crane in the beginning was nice, even the static shot of the parking lot. I thought that was great. The kitchen scene seemed to suffer from lack of space... am I wrong? One particular shot that I didn't like was the one where he began to bury Goldy. The side shot was too literal, to me. Had you gone for a dolly left from behind, it would've sold the intimacy that he had with his now-dead pet a bit more (To me. I could be totally talking out of my ass). I was fine with the color correction/choice of color. That's a director's style.

Editing - Needs tightening. The shot of the guy looking at the fish tanks quickly switches to a panning shot. The flow seems to be snipped between those two specific shots. Also, the scene where he's burying goldy. It wasn't that real. He pours one patch of dirt on Goldy, and then it cuts to a complete burial.

Acting - Guy did well silent, but maybe there wasn't enough time spent with him to really know who he was. Even if it were all silent. Why's he buying a gold fish to begin with?

Writing - Above with the acting, why? What's going on? Why does he want a goldfish? How did the goldfish die? The subject matter is emotional, it seems, and probably could've benefitied from being expounded upon first, and then shortened to the time span.

Overall - Good going. It must've been a trial to pull off a lot of these shots. You've got a good piece to learn from. I hope my first go is as decent. =)
Click to expand...

Thanks for all that, you made some pretty good points. I agree with you on how I should have had more detail into it. After we wrote out some preliminarty scenes and did some tests we quickly realized that more than half of what we wrote was to be scrapped.
 
but scrapping is where you learn.

Especially when you get to doing dialogue (not sure if you ahve before), rehersal and principal shooting/editing if you have the time really helps point out the flaws in peices, cause you can see how it will flow

But with the footage you have, if you have time, you could re-arange and cut together something better than what you already have, without having to do a pick-ups shoot.

Also, i agree with the other comment about music. try not to use so many different songs (esp. popular songs with vocals) for such a small peice. As an intro or outro song its cool, like the first one you had, but either stick to that one throughout, fading in and out, or use other scores from movies with the same feel.

sorry for the rambling. hope there is a piece here or there that is usefull to you.
 
Whoa....How did you you get the rights to use a portion of a Spoon song and an Elliot Smith song?!
I am currently shooting a short, and never get any answer when I try to reach a label.
 
AloysiusK said:
Whoa....How did you you get the rights to use a portion of a Spoon song and an Elliot Smith song?!
I am currently shooting a short, and never get any answer when I try to reach a label.
Click to expand...

It wasnt all that difficult; make a lot of different music choices though because you might not get the songs you want. I found out the music label and sent them an email asking for rights. They sent an email back either allowing me to use the song or denying me. If allowed, they would either forward my emal to the publisher or give me a number to call. If aproved after calling or reading the email then you're all good to use it. It also helps to have a small sample completed to show them how the music will used (dont edit in the song, just a few clips should be good) Hope this helps. It also takes them a while sometimes to get back to you.
 
The headstone killed me, sniff, sniff. The only thing I have to say is to stay away
from scenes in which a person is waking up, starting their day. In screenwriting it's
weak. Who cares that we see him in bed. Start the scene late which would be
cooking in the kitchen.

Charli
 
Good camera work.... nice story, the only flaw I saw was this:

You spend more time on the death and burial, then the the relationship between the man and the fish.

If you had shown a little more relationship with the fish, we would've developed a mutual fondness for the fish...then, when the fish died, we all would've felt it more.... Because he took the fish home and it died so quickly, we, the viewer, don't care. So why now does the man show so much care with the fancy burial? The film is a little off in that respect. I think if you just add a few touching moments when the fish is still alive, then the death will be more intense and the make the film so much better with more emotion.

Just my opinion.

D

http://www.mogthemovie.com
 
good short great shots. what lens(es) did you use. saw a lot of nice wide angles

keep up the good work :D
 
Thanks for all your kind words. I really appreciate it, I lust hope the judges like it as much. In response to Chris's question, I'm 17, still a junior in highschool. Haha, and no, we didnt actually kill the fish. When we went to the petstore and bought our living goldfish we also asked the sales person if he could give us a dead one too. We just kept in in the freezer until the day we shot the scene. And Wesley, I didnt use any wide lenses, all the wide shots just had the dvx at its widest.
 
Wow. Fantastic job man. Loved the colors! Did you have to do a lot of work in post to get the colors to pop like that? What'd you use for editing anyway?

The shot of him burying Goldy where it shows the sky behind him looked fantastic. Very blue sky... Not blown out at all. How'd you manage that? Did you just use a bounce board to bounce sunlight onto him? Looks like perfect morning sun... That's probably my favorite shot of the whole thing.

Then again, I loved almost all the shots. You have a bright future ahead of you man!
 
Gary the Llama said:
Wow. Fantastic job man. Loved the colors! Did you have to do a lot of work in post to get the colors to pop like that? What'd you use for editing anyway?

The shot of him burying Goldy where it shows the sky behind him looked fantastic. Very blue sky... Not blown out at all. How'd you manage that? Did you just use a bounce board to bounce sunlight onto him? Looks like perfect morning sun... That's probably my favorite shot of the whole thing.

Then again, I loved almost all the shots. You have a bright future ahead of you man!
Click to expand...


Thanks Gary! I started shooting the last scene about an hour before sunset so there wasn't any harsh lighting. To expose for the shot I didn't do anything special, the sky was just really blue that day so I got really lucky in that resepct. I had some foamcore with me but I decided not to use it for the shot, I liked the look of natural lighting much better.

As for the colors I basically just timed warm colors to the opening shots, the petstroe scene was basically raw, no cc there, the kitchen scene I added a bluish green hue there, and the last burial scene I timed it yellow. I also used Vegas for editing. When I color corrected I used the "Color Corrector" under video fx and then dragged the cursor around inside the midtones color space to get the look I wanted.

I want to be a director or dp someday so it really inspires me when I hear you guys tell me I have a good future ahead of me. Thanks again!
 
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