My first (short) film (5 minutes)

[Randall_Oelerich]

http://borealpictures.com/preview/TheWish-iota-websized.mov
Title: "The Wish". Okay this is my first short film ever, so constructive criticism (feedback) sought, but my skin is not the thickest so try not to deal out too many lashes of the cat-o-nine-tails! It might stream, it is a Quicktime .mov about 111MB, 15-20 minute download with broadband.

Downsized of course for the web. Five minutes without titles/credits. Okay this is my very first film ever, just a short film with one actor, one location. My goal was to have fun so I would find out if I would like filmmaking. I had low expectations, given that my filmmaking skills are, well pretty much zero, and I did everything myself for this film (except acting, boompole) including operating the camera, video and audio editing, soundtrack using canned music; Adobe After Effects for titles, credits and special effects. I installed Sony Vegas Pro and Adobe After Effects and Soundforge and didn't even know how to use them and it likely shows. But I learned a boatload of stuff just doing this little short film that I can apply to my next short film.

I also have 3 months remaining to do more editing to patch this up for a short shorts (<5 min) film festival here in my town of Duluth MN that is in February 2009. I know there are a few jerky playback points, I am trying to fix those, something with how my clips are set up in Sony Vegas. I will likely work more on the black particle special effect, new at After Effects so that was the best I could do with just a few hours teaching myself the software.
~Randall

 

[jls4]

Get your thick skin ready....

Just kidding. It's not that bad. Many of your problems are basic things.

Screenplay could have been a little better because it seemed very long to get to the point. Editing would also fix this. My opinion is to say about 60 seconds of her being hurt, then go into "I wish I could..." (not to give a spoiler)

Cinematography was okay, you zoomed in and out which was weird. Would have been better if you had went from a zoom in to a static shot or another shot, either through a dissolve or straight cut.

I liked the opening shots and how you did the text.

The acting was okay, but it's hard to get awesome actors unless you have a plethera of them lying around or you go seriously SAG.

Some of the FX could have been better. After Effects and Particular are your friends and could have helped you out greatly for the few things you were trying to do.

Overall blows the crap out of my first movie, does okay with my second. Your main problem is mastery over equipment/software and lack of equipment/help/software. So that's not a bad place to be in for your first piece ever. Give yourself a pat on the back, it was definately better than 50% of the stuff I've seen even from more experienced "filmmakers".

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

Thank you, and fwiw I agree with all your critique. I do need a better particle effect, I wanted something more like smoke, and the particles I made seemed too 2D, boxy edges; I just ordered a book on After Effects and another book on Video Compositing, so I hope to learn and get better at that. I live in northern MN so film actors are definitely hard to find up here, my actress did her best, cheap, our goal was for me to learn film and her to practice film acting, and have fun, so I guess we accomplished that. Yeah, cinematography, my first attempts at even using a camera following an actor, hard but not as hard as I expected; I should have done master snot, medium, closeup, cutaways; I was pretty scatterbrained during the shoot to be honest-- I learned I need to block out my shots with storyboarding next time around, more planning in advance for shots, definitely. My zooms were actually digital after the fact, using pan and zoom tools of Sony Vegas Pro, because I forgot to get the closeups during shooting, ouch.

I could chop out some footage if it would make it tighter, any votes on what to chop out? The film is destined for the short shorts film festival in Feb, just has to be 5 minutes or less (not including titles, credits), so I would be okay making it shorter if that makes it better (i.e. if 'less is more').

Were you able to hear the volume okay? My friend downloaded it and said he could hardly hear the audio, including music, and he said he had his audio turned all the way up. I can hear it fine on my end. Then again he was using his laptop, and has a wife and four rug rats bouncing off the walls and playing jedi knights and all that, I wonder if that created distracting noice interfering with his ability to hear my film?

 

[jls4]

I could hear it fine. Didn't have any problems with that side of it. don't worry about the scatterbraininess - happens to all of us. On my last shoot, I didn't storyboard at all. It still worked out most of the time because I got the basics. Close / Medium / Wide

Sony does a pretty good zoom. I didn't notice it at all. but I guess I was also looking at a small image vs it blown up on the big screen as some festivals do.

 

[craigbowman]

Things I liked:

The opening was strong until the talent reached the cemetary.
You had a story to tell.

Things to work on and think about:

Don't cross the I-Line.
Don't be afraid to move in and compose your framing. (ie. Lose the Zooming)
Tell the story in context. The newspaper thing suddenly showing up?? All you need to do is have better labelling on the tombstone. "Taken from us by a drunk driver" would have been a suitable epitaph and you don't need the magical newspaper.
Try telling the story visually instead of all the soliloquy for everything. Imagine if Alfred Hitchcock's pyscho didn't have the shower scene and used soliloquy and magical newspaper clippings. All the terror would have been drained right out. So our drunk driver does a fade into her at the wheel drinking, radio blasting, cut to kid on her bicycle, kid looks over her shoulder, screams, cut to shot of upsidedown spinning bicycle wheel, cut to a shoe nearby, cut to drunk driver still on her way fumbling with the radio. Now you are telling the story and using the medium to convey the story with a lot more emotion. It also tells us the person looking at the tombstone is the drunk driver so by the time you fade back to her looking at the tombstone we know.

 

[Hans Moleman]

Something to think about is motivated editing and shot placement. We fade to birds, and different angles in the car, but for what reason? As the viewer we arent given any new information, and that makes the shots extraneous.

The cigarette is something you'll want to lose, as it screams pretentious student film.

the 'stop motion' on the newspaper? A little confusing.

On a story level, there's the problem of no arc or conflict really. What would help is to identify your theme beforehand, and write towards that. As it stands, the scene is an event, but plotless. Also, we don't really have a protagonist, as it switches mid scene.

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

Shot 1920x1080 so when I burned it to DVD @720x480 widescreen complete with DVD Architect menu with motion graphics, it looks and sounds pretty nice played in my Samsung Blu-ray player but of course that upconverts; displayed on my Samsung 60" DLP tv. I am glad you heard the sound, my friend swore he was 99% certain my audio was waaaaaay too low, so I guess I need input from others here if the master volume for the audio was whacked too low; I still think with 99% certainty it might just be his noisy apt. with four rug rats and 3 TVs, a wii, Nintendo, x-box all in the background at his place!

I could hear it fine. Didn't have any problems with that side of it. don't worry about the scatterbraininess - happens to all of us. On my last shoot, I didn't storyboard at all. It still worked out most of the time because I got the basics. Close / Medium / Wide

Sony does a pretty good zoom. I didn't notice it at all. but I guess I was also looking at a small image vs it blown up on the big screen as some festivals do.

 

[Amr Rahmy]

after you have seen the final product, what do you think you would do differently if you try to make it again?

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

after you have seen the final product, what do you think you would do differently if you try to make it again?

Excellent question. I would: Storyboard, plan out shots--I wasted over an hour on the second day morning with car shots only to use about 20 seconds of car shots, sigh. As has been said, go for closeups without using zoom (move camera and tripod in close on actress)-- I like that suggestion, as I read somewhere recently that pros rarely use zoom but rather just use fixed lenses and move the camera/tripod for closeups or master shots. I like the suggestion about an enhanced tombstone epitaph to give info rather than my flaky cheesy newsclipping magically unfolding <grin>. I need a better particle effect for the spirit possession. And I wanted to track the eye motion and have the eyes go all red or all black but I could not figure out After Effects fast enough to figure that out (I might figure that out yet in the coming month or two and redo the eye scene). Audio, audio, audio-- I would go for cleaner audio. Script was really hard to write, with only one actor it is really tough to have conflict or exposition, all I had was the one actor to have conflict with herself, or the dead girl; two people talking you can have conflict, one person makes it really hard-- not to whine with excuses it was just that I wanted to keep it really simple so I would not have to acquire two actors, I got so frustrated the year before trying to do my first film with two actors and then the weather crapped out for the season and one of the two actors got sick and opted out, frustrating. I also would have borrowed or gotten a jib crane for some high angle POV shots to make the actress look small, but one reason I did not was to keep a low profile in a public cemetery even though I did get permission to film; I just did not want too large a presence with equipment and all out of respect for the cemetery. And if I won 'Deal or No Deal' I would have hired a film composer to score the film; I was going to, but at the last minute opted to just go with canned music from twistedtracks.com as I figured heck this is just a learning film, five minutes, I really did not want to put the extra cash of scored music into the project. There you have it, the things I would have done different, and will consider on my next film.
~Randall

 

[HerzogisGod]

here's a tip on dialog: dont concern yourself with it. Dialog is the very last thing to be added. First thing you need to do is write a detailed back story. Highly detailed. Who these people are and where they come from kind of stuff. but highly detailed so you know them inside out like they were your closest friends

Dialog will spring from there. Once you understand them, their hopes and dreams and all the little details that make them tick, only then are you ready to you add your dialog. And believe me, every word and gesture will make sense and be 100% motivated.

For example, if you find out through your extensive back story that your main character hates the color yellow, and why!!! you will know that if she happens to see yellow in your story she will have an appropriate reaction.

It's called "writing from the inside out"

I am over simplifying with the "yellow" example, but you get the idea.

Tougher questions might be: What are her feelings about her father? her mother? where did she grow up? education? favorite books? does she have a favorite author? maybe she can quote a favorite line from one of his/her books. same with films and other art?

was there a traumatic incident from her past that she could reflect on while at the grave?

the actual dialog will take care of itself once you do the hard work of writing detailed history of your character.

Hitchcock said (and Im paraphrasing) "once the script is written, we can add the dialog."

Ive written entire speeches for some of my characters before i got a chance to know them. Big mistake, because when I finally did the work and understood who they were, those long speeches were reduced to a few powerful and carefully placed words.

This process tightened up my filmmaking and my individual scenes started to pop and actually drew people in.

Just some advise

But good work. And congrats on getting it finished

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

...Hitchcock said (and Im paraphrasing) "once the script is written, we can add the dialog."...

Very interesting, good to know. Dialog is my weakest writing aspect I think, but that might have helped in my first feature screenplay I wrote with the help of my mentor/consultant, a supernatural-thriller, because she emphasized mostly action, not so much dialog, and I did the dialog as the last thing as you suggest, and still it was hard.

...But good work. And congrats on getting it finished

Thank you.

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

...The cigarette is something you'll want to lose, as it screams pretentious student film....

LOL, yeah I agree, I should have just left it out. My actress would have liked leaving out the cigs since she was not a smoker. I just thought it went along with the character's alcoholism, usually the two go hand in hand, but not always.