I need some feedback on my first ever short film

[FREUDENBERG_FILMS]

I have deleted this thead because the short was a test only. thank you

 

[Robbie Comeau]

I don't like that the fact 80% of it was green screen. Just looked fake to me.

The audio was good. ADR?

Robbie

 

[Jon Starr]

Why was 80% of it green screened? In all honesty, the green screened aspect felt like you were just being lazy, especially with the curly fry that was CG. You couldn't get a regular curly fry? It pulled us out. Though at times the green screen look was kind of cool, like in front of the dinner.

The story kind of felt weak. When it ended I just said "is that it?" I mean where was it headed? It felt more like a segment to the start of a story or a longer film. Also the mention of aliens early on kind of gave away the ending.

In front of the dinner, it's great that you understand that you don't need to stay with us real time and you can cut things out to make things go faster, but it felt really weird. One second the girl leaves, then the next second she comes out having already ordered.

Then the guy is staring at the girl in the car and 1 second later she's in the dinner. Didn't make sense to me.

Also, when they were driving at the end, how did the girl get out? It was like she ran out of the car while it was driving, or like she somehow went through the car... really strange, even for an alien abduction.

The acting, well you can tell they aren't trained actors, nor are you a trained director. Remember, give something for actors to work off of, don't give them literal directions. Also some of the performance were even comical, like the yelling at the end. Felt like they weren't trying very hard to scream.

Gotta say though, some of the lighting was pretty cool, especially in the car.

The reason I made it was to see if I could be a filmmaker.

That's an interesting/strange thing to say. I mean it's hard to judge with a first film, as most everyone's first films really sucks terribly. I guess for a first film it's not bad, and it shows potential. Did you shoot, direct and edit it all yourself? What was your role exactly?

I think to see if you could be a filmmaker you need to keep making films and we need to see how exactly you improve. Being a filmmaker isn't just talent, it's also persistence, even after you make a bunch of bad films. If you don't have persistence, then no, you shouldn't be a filmmaker.

 

[FREUDENBERG_FILMS]

Deleted

 

[legend of the steelstring]

First I'd like to say good for you
I could tell you put a lot of work into your film.
There was a lot of good..... The lighting, keying, cc, adr/foley all were well done
It felt more like an equipment/sfx test than a short.
The story was real bad.... the dialog didn't feel real..... i didn't care about the characters or what happened to them.

You seem to have a well rounded set of tools for making films
Now work on learning to tell a story I (the audience) cares about
Location replacement through Matte painting works better for sci/fi fantasy other world environments. I would have much rather seen your actors in a real parking lot at a real diner

Keep it up I look forward to seeing more

 

[jonE5]

Im guessing sound was all recorded seperately? It sounds a bit far off, like they are speaking just a bit to far from the mic, and there is no ambient sound which is a little distracting.

I do agree you could film a few of the shots for real and it woudl go a long way. THe shot at the very end where her face is lying in the grass the grass and leaves are obviously not there. Layer the cgi with real shots and it will do wonders for your overall look.

Side note: your cgi talents are really amazing, i wish i had 10% of that.

jon

 

[FREUDENBERG_FILMS]

Deleted

 

[Jon Starr]

ADR is for the whole short film as well as Foley. In fact every noise you heard was created off camera. The whole sound track replaced with ADR and Foley. Reason was because this short film was all shot in or under my house and not on a sound stage, you could heard peope mowing there yards and cars driving past on the original sound track.

Usually sound within a house sounds much better than low budget ADR. It's just about EQing, or waiting for the person to stop mowing. Don't know how many shoot we've had to ask someone to hold on their mowing, or we've had to break until the mowing stopped. But it helps get better sound especially when you can't do really proffesional ADR.

Of course foley is alway post. Be sure to add ambience next time as well to fill the empty space.

The green screen was used to save money and also for safety. The car is a Monaro 71 model and its not registered for the road and is currently about to be restored. All shots of the Monaro with the actors was done on green screen. The whole Diner scene was a digital Matte as where moving backgrounds.

[...]

The curly fry was put in later only because non could be found for the shot. All filmed in Australia and for some reason curly fries are not a big hit over here.

So why not find another car instead? I mean it's a nice looking car, but the keyed out background was so distracting for this type of story.

As for the curly fry, if you couldn't find one, why not something else? I mean is it super important that it's a curly fry rather than a ship or a gummi bear? The curly fry really pulled me out and said "we didn't bother looking for something else and so we digitally replaced it"

Sorry to say, but it just felt a bit like lazy filmmaking. I mean sure it's tough to model backgrounds and such (and they were pretty good), but you can get locations for free by just asking, and you could have done a lot of this real world. Not to mention the begining was at an actual house.

The story was a lot longer but the short film comp that this short film is for only runs around 8 minutes so I had to cut it down as much as I could.

Even then it felt like it dragged a bit. With the whole waiting at the dinner thing. Either the dinner scene and the driving around should have been tightened up, or it should have developped soem more, really emphasizing the fact that they lost the girl.

I think the main problem was the ending. It feels like the story should have continued after that.

Thank you very much for your comments. I have already began working on a second short this one with little to no VFX work. I was wanting to push my new gear as hard as I could. I’ll be spending a little less time behind the camera this time and more so directing performances. This short film cost me around $90 AUD to make and a lot of time by myself in post.

Good to hear. Be sure to find curly fries this time, or change it if you can't.

But keep on going! Be sure to show us your next short.