give me some feedback please

[lucidstudios]

ya so i made a few doc's over the past year, all student projects so i know ive still got much to learn, if you could check out a segment or 2 and give me some feedback/ critique on things to think about it would help make me a better filmaker.


Thank you in advance for your time.

the flims can be found at

http://www.youtube.com/lucidstudio

 

[bmowell]

Your dialogue during your "real life" shots works well because it blends in with your ambient noise pretty well. However, your dialogue during your sit-down interviews needs to be shot with something other than the on-camera mic. It sounds too hollow and doesn't match well with the "real life" shots. When you go from a "real life" shot to a "sit-down" shot, you want the dialogue to be fuller and more present in the "sit-down" shot.

Case in point: During "Life after Garbage" there is a scene with the girls cooking in the kitchen and it sounds good and then you cut to a sit down interview with the three girls and it does not cut well. I'm used to hearing interviews done with either laveliers or a boomed hypercardiod. Either would improve your sound quality dramatically by removing the room echo.

If you WERE using these instruments during your interviews, you should have picked a different room. The room the girls were in had entirely too much reflection. If you COULD'T pick a different room, you should try to get the mic in as close as possible to minimize the reflections.

It would cut much better, because it's what people are used to hearing.

Just my opinion. And I realize that you may have been limited by the available equipment.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the first part! I think you did a good job!

Couple of other things, and I realize you were probably limited by your equipment:

1) I liked the "real life" scenes, but visually your interviews were too flat. A cheap light kit could solve that. I'm sure you've already become familiar with three point lighting.

2) Your composition on the shots with her parents were distracting. I would probably have pulled the camera back a little bit, used a little lighting and recomposed the background to something either less plain but not distracting. If a background is TOO plain it can resemble a mug shot. If you immediately go to a close-up of someone you've never seen without some type of wider establishing shot I personally don't think it flows very well. It's like suddenly hitting a brick wall.

Again, this is all just my opinion.

I REALLY liked your choice of music at the beginning of the piece. By the way, I attended a documentary filmmaking class last fall and your piece looked and sounded markedly better than anything anybody in my class shot.

One last thing: If you've got the cajones, ask your talent not to use profanity. Explain to them that it makes presenting something to an audience much easier. Why? Because the people who aren't offended by it are NOT likely to miss it, and the people who ARE offended by it are going to feel like they've been unnecessarily assaulted.

Hope all this helps.

Brad