Sweetest July Film (5d Mark 2)

A

anthonyt

Active member
 
I haven't watched all of it yet, just shots here and there. I will watch it later this evening. I have a few questions:

How old are you? Did you study film? What are your favourite directors? Did you do the editing? I'm only asking because this is far beyond what I expected to see.
 
hey thanks giving it a look ! Now to the questions, Am 22, never taken film courses, fav director would be michael mann and paul greengrass love their style owh and also nolan. Yeah was editing the footage. Great to know your thoughts. Do forgive on some aspects such as audio and camera work and lighting ! Cheers ...
 
you broke 180 degree rule ,more than once.Sound should not change between takes.Dont shoot handheld even if its suppose to be handheld use a tripod upside down.
Theres more but i dont want to do this.
 
I just finished watching it.

It was quite good. You can direct. Considering what you had to work with, it is wonderful. It is also feature length, so congratulations:)

There were some excellent sequences and I liked almost every cut. The music helped pull it together, but most films with a reasonable budget have that aid also.

I liked the shooting style a lot. Especially on the parts without music. You touched a true cinema verite style at some points. If you are not familiar with John Cassavetes, you should see his films.

The actors are not very capable and the delivery was strange and innapropriate most of the time. But congratulation to them for going through a feature. The acting did work though. Amazing but it did. If I was in a theater I might believe the acting was intentional. It does express how awkward sentimental things can be at this age even by accident or lack of training. In the same way flat dialogue and flat delivery works in extremely well directed Robert Bresson films. It's not natural but it works. I hope no film connoisseurs are reading this. I get enough hate mail already.

I did see the car steering wheel on the right, but I can't tell what country this was shot in. Why was it in English? It should work much better with english subtitles and it's very cheap to have a feature professional subtitled. The untrained actors would be more natural in their mother tongue.

Good mics would help. They can preserve the location sound and capture good dialogue even with airplanes landing. Well, perhaps that's an exageration:)

I noticed some amateur shooting diseases. Some very slow dolly moves and some ultra shallow DOF shots. They are superfluous and distracting at times. It would look better without those. DOF is a tool, don't overuse it because some people will think you are coming from a consumer camcorder and overwhelmed with the DOF adapter or SLR:) Most viewers are annoyed with DOF that shallow and not many professionals use it if they are not forced to.

Overall it was smooth, the pace was good. Editing worked well and was very modern. An excellent effort.

The execution was straight and pure, unstylized. It's refreshing to see something like this from your generation.

I deal with imaging in my profession but I didn't give a damn what this was shot with, how it handled overexposure, the rolling shutter in the handheld, the slightly angled tripod shots and everything else because I was seeing the film. Excellent.

I especially like your attitude. Throwing a feature like this on the forum and sitting bck to enjoy the comments. You invested serious time in this. You sound like a person that likes to study and learn about the craft. This takes you places.

I believe you could do a very good feature with a good script, some good actors and professionals in sound, lighting etc. I wish you the best.
 
Thanks for the uplifting constructive comments. Will definitely try to improve on some of the parts you've mentioned in the next project (DOF, Audio, Actors). I do honestly too feel that some of the Shallow DOF went overboard which was quite annoying to me as well haha but its addictive when used correctly and yeah just like a disease !

The film was shot in Kuching, Malaysia in South East Asia. Glad that pacing of the film was well received and that it manages to capture you into it and not notice much of its imperfections (over exposure, rolling shutter, etc.) as we emphasized pretty much on the story flow development and pacing.

I feel honored from your thoughts on this whole project ! wouldn't been able to accomplish this without the team either. Your suggestions and comments will serve as a motivation to me and the crew !

Once again Thank you so much for watching the whole thing !
 
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If you are working with untrained actors, give them a few copies of:

"An Actor's Work: A Student's Diary", translated to english by Jean Benedetti.

It's the basis of the Stanislavski acting Method in a very good translation. It reads like a novel. Anyone even remotely interest in acting should read it. It's an excellent book on acting but the best thing about it is that it can inspire people. Some might even go as far as taking exams for drama school after reading it. Some people are intelligent and analytical enough to massively improve in their acting just by reading this book.

There is also:

"An Actor's Work on a Role", translated to english by Jean Benedetti.

Which completes the trilogy (2in1+1).
 
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