Life and Death - Short Student Film

R

Robert Kegley

Member
This semester I took a film composition class at my high school (I'm a junior/11th grade). The final assignment in the class was to take all the movie techniques we had learned this year and apply them to our own short film.

I was in a group of 3 and the two of them were horror-movie nuts, and they wanted to make a horror movie. I'm not really into the horror genre but I agreed to go along for the sake of making a movie. After writing the script, they decided they weren't interested in doing it anymore and left. That was fun.

Also, my school doesn't have many actors, and the ones that are good are busy with theater acting.

So I made the film alone. I was the lead actor, only cameraman, and the director.

I know, not a smart decision, but I needed to get the film done for a grade.

Here is the finished product.

http://blip.tv/file/547894

Please leave constructive criticism. Or at least if you didn't like it, tell me why.
 
Composition class? Looks like you have a grasp on the subject beyond your years. I've seen college kids who can't compose an image worth a can of beans.

I would say very good for highschool level. When the 'rents were leaving and just before the father called up to the kid upstairs, was he looking at his mark? If not, it seems he was looking at something on the ground. I thought it was funny and would just mention it. I'm sure a non film maker would think twice about his looking down.

As you mentioned
So I made the film alone. I was the lead actor, only cameraman, and the director.

I know, not a smart decision, but I needed to get the film done for a grade.
Click to expand...
This really hurt you because you never had any camera movement. All static shots. Static shots can really emphasize mood and serve their own purposes, but moving shots could be used and often bring a third dimension to the camera.

Speaking of third dimensions, try using more foreground elements to emphasize depth. You had some foreground elements in some shots.


Being what, 17?, and by yourself I'd say good job!
 
Exposition seemed a bit lengthy, but considering you did most of this by yourself, you did a pretty good job. Didn't really understand the note to dad though.
 
Thoughts as they come to me: Intro was boring, i thought there was a bit too much head room in the shot with the parents, sound in the dad's voice yelling and the door closing was lacking, lighting in the kid's bedroom needs work (was there anything other than available light?), shot of the alarm clock looked good, but seemed out of place and it could have used some work in post so that the time was more visible, the lack of sound at the start of the B&W bit bothered me, the transition to B&W was a bit confusing, I can't tell if the static noise is intentional, B&W could have used some more contrast, the introduction of the killer was rather unceremonious, the little scuffle they had shortly after his introduction was lacking (although if you didn't have anyone on camera I can't really blame you), music was cheesy (although I doubt I could do any better), fight scenes needed work to look less choreographed.


I hope that wasn't too much criticism in one go. I'm in a similar spot (grade 11, lack of actors) so I know what it's like. Compositionally it was pretty good, but the other errors distracted from it.

EDIT: This is what I got from the plot: Kid is going to kill himself/run away, random cloaked guy tries to kill him, he evades cloaked guy in one way or another, and decides against doing himself in. I had to think about that afterwards though, the story didn't really jump out at me.
 
Not bad. Nice wide shot in the kitchen.

A little noisy, you needed more light in almost all of your shots.

The acting was weak, but I'm sure you're not getting marked on that.

It was a nice story, seeing that the kid doesn't want to kill him self any more (if that's where you were going)

Next time, work on lighting, and camera movement (I know you were the actor, but try and get others to act, therefore you have control of the camera and you can give it some nice style)

The music was actually well put together. The music the kid was listening to was a bit loud, I had to adjust my speakers for it.

The background/score music was great!

Overall, good job. I just thought the killer trying to kill the teenager was a tad to cheesy, and the cuts weren't the greatest.

Keep at it!
 
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