looking for critique on short film: EXIT

did you use a stabilizer? As for the cinem, the scene seemed very flat and the cuts were jarring.

I thought the story needed serious work. We don't care about the characters at all. Why is she breaking up with him? What does it matter? Who are they to eachtoher? All I know is that they were going out for some period of time. Long enough to get picutres developed at least. Even in a short film, the audience needs to become attatched to the characters in some way. "I have dreams and youre not in them" is not a compelling reason to break up with someone. At least in a dramatic sense it isn't.

That being said it's nice to see someone try to tackle a story. So few people on the internet do nowadays. What you do is very difficult. Telling a story in 3 minutes is hard.

Cheers,

Andrew
 
Since you're asking for a critique, I'll offer some constructive notes:

Overall it wasn't bad, especially for a 3 minute story. But some things did bother me.

I don't have a problem with jarring cuts in general. In this case, I have a problem with the way they're used. To often they're used for the sake of being jarring. I for one prefer them to be used within the context of the story or the emotional moment being conveyed. In this case, I think you started the jarring cuts at the wrong time. For me, I would have started them right after she said "I'm breaking up with you" and not before. The idea being, we're feeling the rug being yanked out from under him, so popping the frame by cutting that way would help place the viewer in that same emotional space. By starting the jump cuts before that moment, you made it more difficult to follow what was happening and all it did was remind me I was watching a movie.

I also agree that the camera movement was bothersome. Not because moving around the actors is a bad idea. Again, it's when you chose to do it within the scene. I think it would have furthered the emotional moment by starting it after she initiated the break up.

The biggest problem I have with the piece was when she slapped him. What was the point of that? Usually you slap someone because they did something to you. Not because you're doing something to them. A slap isn't done to cause physical pain. It's done to insult someone. This took me out of the narrative and made me think about it instead of paying attention to the rest of the story.

Overall, I think it can be improved with a new cut. I'd drop that slap first and then alter the cuts based around what I mentioned.

Just my 2 cents. Hope they're helpful?
 
I thought it was neat.. what is this film workshop? it seems pretty cool. Some nice work comes out of there!
 
I think I agree with StoryTeller about how the cuts are used and also the way in which the rotating shots are used - it's really the kind of thing that needs to be really refined in order to look good, I think there was just a few too many unnecessary cuts and the framing was awkward at times. I really liked the opening shot of the girl looking through the photos though.

The main thing that bothered me with the film though was the audio echo in the basketball courts, and the constant shoe squeaks, it really took my focus away from what was going on in the story.
 
thanks all, I didn't edit or write this, so I can't speak so much for the cuts or about the shape of the story.

storyteller - to me it is quite clear why she slaps him. Consider the sequence of events:

She comes in and tells him she's leaving him.

He comes over and tries to console her, and tries to put his arms around her.

She slaps him.

He's just trying to make everything okay again, but he doesn't get it, and she doesn't want him touching her. So she slaps him.

It seems to me that when people see a film that they don't "get", something happens in the film that doesn't "makes sense", they immediatly assume that there must be something wrong with it. The circling shots of the boxer accomplish several things - they set up the space without being static, and they kind of provide a poetic molding of the piece. Reveals and closures are seen by the punching bags - perhaps this guy sees things only in terms of boxing?

vampiresoup - while I see that the film does not give a lot of context for the characters, it does give a subtle shape to her. The film is about escaping, an exit. The first few shots of her looking at the photographs make her remember -- she breaks up with him, and then walks upward into the white space,suggesting freedom.

imryankohler - yeah the film workshop of San Francisco is a workshop where we get together every Sunday all day and talk and learn about filmmaking. In the spring semester we focus more on making films than film theory. I worked on a number of the films up there, glad you liked them.

Again, thanks everybody for taking the time to look at the film.
 
I agree with Storyteller32 for the most part. It does feel like the slap is unmotivated. This is just a symptom of the larger problem... we never have enough time to feel like anything is motivated for these characters. I really like that line, "I have dreams, and you're not in them." It reveals character. But it doesn't reveal motivation. That's what the film is missing.

Basically we have three separate scenes that don't feel like they relate. The emotions she seems to be going through in the first scene, looking at the photo, don't to me convey anything that puts me in a place to understand the second scene in the gym. And the third scene is completely extraneous. She's already walked out one door and thrown the photos in his face... why do I need to see her walk away some more?

As for the cinematography... I see what you were trying to do, and I think it could have worked, but it feels overzealous. Lots of excessive motion during a moment when I really want to just be with these two characters. It's like you're picking up the slack for your actors (or hiding their performances). So here I have the opposite problem that I have with the story: I can see the motivation for what you're doing with the camera, but I think the execution is sloppy.

Don't get me wrong, I agree it's a very hard thing to portray a relationship drama in 3 minutes, and I think there's something here that's just not quite making it to the screen. But your audience doesn't "get it" or thinks it "doesn't make sense" then 9 times out of 10 it IS because you as a filmmaker have done something wrong.
 
i agree with a lot of the comments that have been said above but i understood your story quite clearly. i just think you need to tighten up some of the shots in the gym and take out those quick cuts or get an editor that can do it the right way. maybe some better music too so we get a feel for what genre we're in. overall i thought it was a good start. maybe you could even build something out of this. it'd be cool if the end of that short had a little punchline, like maybe the woman in the photos was her sister or hell, maybe the woman discovered he was cheatin on her with his own sister, lol. :zombie_smiley:
 
hey, I didn't enjoy this short very much. The framing wasn't very good and the sound was really. The editing didn't show any sense of continuity whatsoever. The sound also gave away that it was shot in different takes. It looked very grainy and I assume you didn't have any lighting besides the normal atmosphere light.

You should work on stuff like that. Also, the story was ehh...
 
I appreciate your time to make comments, but I didn't write or edit this, I only shot it, so I can only respond to feedback about the photography. LuckyProducer, you say, "The framing wasn't very good", but this is very vague. Can you give specific examples? thanks
 
I loved this in the fact that I wanted to know more. I thought the guy had cheated on her but it doesn't seem as though he is so I'm was curious what the deal was. Was she an assassin or some crazy chick or something or maybe he was just an underachiever type and she just needed to get rid of him K-Fed style.

-Nate
 
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