sucrofilms
New member
Check out my new short film. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwPJVwAUHU0
New Short Film!!!!!!
- Thread starter sucrofilms
- Start date
Jon Starr
Veteran
It's okay for one of your first works. To tell you the truth not a lot happened and it felt a lot longer than 3 minutes.
A few problems were:
1) The beginning was just way too drawn out. They were walking and walking and walking and walking. Laying over dramatic music won't add to the suspense. The fact that it was evenly lit and sunny didn't help either.
2) the movements/acting was way too staged. I'm assuming your young, but one thing to note for future projects is to learn how to make things seem more natural. The walking is slow and obviously we can see they were told to walk from here to there. Make things look more natural.
3) When he picks up the camera, it's in the corner of the frame and we can't make out that it's a camera, so a sudden close-up to see what's on the screen is a bit weird as we don't know where it's coming from at first.
4) Some strange cuts. Mainly the cut at 2:10. The problem with that cut is that the angles/shots are far too similar. When you cut to a shot, it has to either be significantly different size, or has to be angled about 30 degrees from your previous shot, or else it creates this strange "jump" effect that looks a tad unproffesional.
5) The overall pacing of the film, not just the beginning, was a bit too slow, which is why it felt longer than it was. Horror film suspense moments can be drawn out, but something needs to be happening (or developing) to keep us going. All we had is "guy walks" "guy finds camera" "guy studies camera" "guy dies." That's very little to happen in 3 minutes. I can see it being done in under a minute.
Anyways, looks like a good start. Keep on going!
A few problems were:
1) The beginning was just way too drawn out. They were walking and walking and walking and walking. Laying over dramatic music won't add to the suspense. The fact that it was evenly lit and sunny didn't help either.
2) the movements/acting was way too staged. I'm assuming your young, but one thing to note for future projects is to learn how to make things seem more natural. The walking is slow and obviously we can see they were told to walk from here to there. Make things look more natural.
3) When he picks up the camera, it's in the corner of the frame and we can't make out that it's a camera, so a sudden close-up to see what's on the screen is a bit weird as we don't know where it's coming from at first.
4) Some strange cuts. Mainly the cut at 2:10. The problem with that cut is that the angles/shots are far too similar. When you cut to a shot, it has to either be significantly different size, or has to be angled about 30 degrees from your previous shot, or else it creates this strange "jump" effect that looks a tad unproffesional.
5) The overall pacing of the film, not just the beginning, was a bit too slow, which is why it felt longer than it was. Horror film suspense moments can be drawn out, but something needs to be happening (or developing) to keep us going. All we had is "guy walks" "guy finds camera" "guy studies camera" "guy dies." That's very little to happen in 3 minutes. I can see it being done in under a minute.
Anyways, looks like a good start. Keep on going!