SHORT: 70 second short film

M

MileCreations

Member
I recently completed the 70 second Tropfest Micro/Mobli competition which was to make a film under 70 seconds with audible laughter and submit through the Mobli iOS app.


Shot it in one night and edited over a few days with Premiere and bits of After Effects. Used a t3i with a Zoom h4n with Rode NTG-2 attached.


Now the story is a little 'interesting'. For this film I focused much more on cinematography and lighting than on story.


Here is the film


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_knuHLJ04




And here it is on the official Mobli site http://www.mobli.com/brendancherry/2...out?referer=tw


Thoughts/comments/advice for all aspects of film making appreciated.


-Brendan
 
I'll try to be as constructive as I can...but for me, its flaws pretty much all stem from the fact that IMO it's practically impossible to create anything worthwhile in 70 seconds of video. There is no story to this film and the dialogue is futile. The film would have had the same effect on me had there been no dialogue at all. That being said, though it's not the kind of aesthetic I like, it's clear that you have spent time on the cinematography, and it's definitely the best part of the film. Out of interested, why did you choose not to record the laughter with the same equipment you recorded the rest of the audio? It's very obvious that it's from a different source.
 
You're aware of the absence of story and I'm not really qualified to critique, but I thought that the first establishing shot was particularly nice, with the shadowed objects in the foreground. The laughter at the beginning confused me too, because I wasn't sure where it was meant to be coming from. It is possible to make something worthwhile in such a short time. Check out the entries to Jameson's "Done in 60 Seconds" short film festival. Granted, the entrants are able to rely on people's familiarity with big, feature length movies. Still, it's possible!

Here's a personal favourite:
 
Thanks, sorry for the late reply, I rarely even get responses on this forum so often don't look for them.

Pretty much everything you've said I agree with EXCEPT the audio was recorded with the same device with the exact same settings in the same location for the laughter. The only difference is that the Mic was slightly closer to the actor as I wasn't recording video in the same shot. The only different audio was the soundtrack and the sound of a fly buzzing around. Even the thump sound was recorded on location. What made you think that it was recorded from a different source?
 
It is possible to "adapt" the sound which was recorded closer to match more with tthe rest, but that's sound editing/mixing...

EQ, adding some room reverb to make it sound "little further" etc....
 
Thanks for the tip, I am a bit of a one man band at the moment but hopefully the budget will soon allow for some real sound editors!!
 
Hi Brendan, Congratulations on being a finalist at the international level. I never heard of this competition until I read your post. Thanks. Looks like something my group would love to do. We made this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kQW4VBw6qk) for Halloween 2012. We thought it might get us a sponsorship by GM. They did provide the car. But alas it didn't pan out. The exec's loved it, especially the production price ($100), but who'd have known they recently made a deal with Ford not to throw rocks at each other. Oh well. Think we'll try the New York contest in June 2013. --TimMc
 
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