Short film: My first film shot on the 1100D/T3. Please give feedback I truly need it!

Ebrahim Saadawi

Ebrahim Saadawi

Carbonite Member
Hello everyone. This is my first post here but I've been a reader for a long time. I am blown away by how knowledgable you guys are!

Anyhow, I am Ebrahim Saadawi, a 17 year-old student from Egypt.

I made my first 5-minute short film and I could really use critisicm and feedback. I have no experience in filmmaking and before this I'd never produced a frame of video. So this was a first-time trial. I learnd everything in a week or so from my uncle who is a famous and respected filmmaker here.
It took 2 days to shoot and edit the film, for a local charity organization. It was shot on a Canon 1100D T3 (below t2i: does 720p@30fps, no manual controls or microphone jack) though I was able to install Magic Lantern and it was essential to give me manual control over exposure. It's a Godsent!
The film was entirely shot with a 50mm F/1.8, and an 18-55 for a couple of wide shots. I only had a cheap 10dollar tripod for stabilization thus I had to do a little bit of post stabilization and had to settle for some jello-y shots to give me the look I needed.

The film got surprisengly popular here in Egypt and went on several projections throughout the country. But I don't find that enough feedback/indicator of how good I am, so I am here to ask the experts.

Your thoughts are really important to me, do you think I should continue in videography and making films or just focus on my medical career?:D I really have no idea what to do and your opinions will greatly affect my decision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=FIn01DXXlCc
 
For a first film I thought it looked very good. It wasn't interesting enough to post on my blog though, or else I just didn't get it. Not sure what to make of it, in total.

The part with the phone call didn't make any sense, and it took a bit long to happen. What is the meaning of the phone calls?

I thought you had a very good handle on covering the visual aspects.

One thing, the chess moves were obviously set up in a way that only an extremely terrible player would allow. Pawns taking high value pieces so easily -- it was too obvious. More thought on the game itself could have helped.
 
mail4joeg said:
For a first film I thought it looked very good. It wasn't interesting enough to post on my blog though, or else I just didn't get it. Not sure what to make of it, in total.

The part with the phone call didn't make any sense, and it took a bit long to happen. What is the meaning of the phone calls?

I thought you had a very good handle on covering the visual aspects.

One thing, the chess moves were obviously set up in a way that only an extremely terrible player would allow. Pawns taking high value pieces so easily -- it was too obvious. More thought on the game itself could have helped.
Click to expand...

Thank you sir this is just the kind of feedback I need. Thank you.

To elaborate, the film is in fact about a political war between three parties that's been going in Egypt since the 25th of January Revolution. The two friends represent 1-Revolution forces 2-Islamist groups and the third one sitting alone represents the old pre-revolution regime. So the film implies that when 1+2 joined forces to take the political scene from 3, he started turning them against eachother, (using a text mesaage to each one), to a point where he makes them completely hate eachother and ruin the game, and both leave, then he can get back up again and play with it all by himself (the old regime).
[excuse my English it's not a language I ever use]

The thing about chess is that I, and the editor, know absolutely nothinf about it! So that's why there probably are many mistakes and indeed I wish it was played in a more logical way. That's something I'll keep in mind from now on.

Anyhow glad to know you think I covered the visual aspect well. Thabk you again ^^
 
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