Scene From "The Scary Boy Project 5"

[Policar]

The audio mix isn't done yet, but here's a scene I shot in about half an hour today (45 minutes include light set up, an hour and a half including lunch.) Editing took probably about another half an hour, so this is all rough. It's about a minute long; 5.4 megabytes.

Anyhow, this scene concerns a failed film-maker who's trying to get a job at a cable station but is completely incompetent. (They say write based on what you know!) I acted in it (guess which character I am!) so there's some stuff I didn't realize was bad looking until I brought it into post. Oh well.

http://home.comcast.net/~wauhkies/jakeinterview.mov

There's a reason it doesn't start on the establishing shot which has to do with other scenes in the movie and how this fits in (and it's not just because the shot sucks, which it does.) Also, the orangish white balance is intentional, but I'm brightening the image and diffusing the blacks a little in post (most of the footage is raw, here, though.)

 

[J.R. Hudson]

Not bad Policar;

Your exposure, coloring are nicely done and everything is crystal clear. The lighting looks natural and without overkill. You have a nice selection of split edits as well although I'd like to see even a few more. My offerings are:

The opening 2 shot has a lot of headroom going on. I'd tighten this up a bit by bringing the camera down toward the floor even more more; I am not sure if you shot this 4:3 so I have zero idea on how much room there is to play in the headroom, but bring the top of the frame down to fill in this gap.

The framing of the Hiring Manager is super nice (a Full C.U.); love it but something seemed off on the framing of the applicant in that on the blonde dude the framing has him looking downwards at the 'applicant'. I would have kept the a same/similar eyeline on this myself; The camera is looking down towards the applicant whereas I think it work better if it had the same line going on; also filling in the top of the frame more; his head has a lot of room to move up there; pull back the framing somewhat and get the head higher in the frame since you are shooting a Wide C.U. on the applcnant)

It would have been nice to see some different comps/framing during the conversation. Perhaps a few inside reverses or another angle on the 2 shot (IN regards to the second veiwing of the 2 shot)

I know this is a rough, as explanined, anyway; IMHO as always. I look forward to see what this about.

 

[Policar]

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I agree that more angles would have been better, but since we didn't have time to shoot more than three angles, I'm happy with the three we shot. I think the issue with the headroom for the applicant is largely due to the backlight being placed too low so that the top of his hair blends into the dark background (I wanted to hang it higher, but there was nowhere to put it). The framing does look a little off, though, I agree.

The eye-line match issue I didn't even notice until you pointed it out, but it does kind of make the shot/reverse shot a little rougher than it would be under ideal circumstances. I'm not going to reshoot, but I appreciate the advice and I'll make sure to watch for the framing stuff in the future, especially since good continuity editing is so important to engaging the audience in a traditionally shot film.