The 5:48 Short movie

chrismagicc

chrismagicc

Well-known member
This short is an adaptation of a short story by John Cheever. It was shot on my GH 1 in 108024p with the kit lens and a canon FD 35mm f2.0.
for sound we used an edirol r-09 with a shotgun mic plugged in. (we had gain problems sorry)

there is jello noticeable in the subway scene because i was shooting handheld :(

criticism is wanted!

this is just a rough cut, color correction and some minor transition adjustments are still needed

enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/7927504
 
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Overall very nice job. With the exception of those unfortunate jello shots, the picture quality is very good. Think with some grading it could be excellent. And your rough cut contains some really nice editing.

In your final cut you might consider tightening things up a bit in the bar scene as some of the shots seemed included more because you could rather than to advance the story. You have some really good cuts in the beginning and it's moving along nicely. But then we come to the bar scene and the focus on the bartender breaks it. Fewer shots of him with just enough to establish serving the drink and then your shots of the guy taking a drink. tapping his fingers, etc. might work better.

That jello is definitely a shame. Too bad it's in a major scene because it's a real distraction. The only way I could see it working is if those shots were from her POV - hinting at a distorted reality and adding some tension. You might even consider giving that whole scene a different look in your grading and maybe even do some time remapping so it appears purposefully out of kilter and helps mask the jello. Just a thought.

Jello aside, I think once you've done your final cut, audio work and some grading you'll have a nice piece of work there.
 
Very well done. Yeah the scenes at the subway show "jello" but overall it shows that 1080p is excellent on the GH1. A lot of people who believe that "mud" on 1080p is an excuse not to shoot with it are simply wrong. Excellent work.
 
Its compelling - I bet the final cut will be very nice.

I just want to find out why you kept going in/out of focus at certain places. Was this deliberate? Or was your lens opening just too wide that it made focus difficult?

Regarding the jello in the subway, I notice that you were also handheld everywhere else but not much jello was visible. Is this because the subway had quick/small vibrations that quickly moved the camera around?

Also, in the last scene, I would have prefered an additional angle showing girl from behind the guys shoulder looking up, as well as a reaction shot while he was on the ground.

Anyway, good work! And good luck on the final cut!
 
Thank you John! I was perfectly happy with the 108024p as mud was not to be found! I even did some fast pans after takes and when i imported the footage mud was non existant, so i am very pleased with the codec. I just wish it was less blocky
 
thanks for the criticism Randy! The focus was a bit hard to control because i had my eyes on the lcd, one hand holding the shoulder rig handle and the other holding focus, but i think it turned out fine.

The jello came out because i was just holding the camera, where as the other shots, i used my diy shoulder rig. Being in the subway was fun so my hands were shaking with adrenaline haha!

I am not sure what your trying to say in the last bit you wrote about
a different angle, but i will look into it! were you talking about the acting? because yes she could have been more harsh in the end, but then again it was improvised as the script was pretty bad and the actrors didn't memorize their lines....
 
Looks good , most of the shots are OK ,if it would be me i would avoid so many wide shots because it looks like regular cam on infinity most of the time.Some estabilishing shots are ok but then you could cut to portraits.
 
On the Vimeo page it said you'd like criticism, so here goes.

Your shot design ranges from, at times very amateur, to very professional, with only slightly varying shades in between - very little "middle" ground here, either mostly-good/very-good, to mostly-bad/very-bad.

I liked the following shots:

4:50-5:10
5:30
6:35-6:45
10:47-11:01
3:11-330 - shot is good - sound is too boomy
3:35-4:06 - obviously your "money" shot - not sure about the color grading, but the shot itself is very well done.

Shots that need work :


1:30 - Harsh shadows, unflattering angle, white walls, too much noise in the sound, just not an interesting shot.

6:03 - Everything that you'd want to be in focus, is out of focus, and vice versa. I'm guessing that perhaps you did not have a permit to film in the subway and went stealth, and that's probably why...not having stabilization, maybe only doing one take - I don't know, but it's all out of focus., the framing/light, everything is really off here.

2:52-2:55 - Too wide, odd vertical angle.


---------

The big problem with this film is inconsistency across the board.

Sometimes the sound is good, other times it's quite bad.

Sometimes you've got very interesting shot design, sharp focus, good exposure, nice movements, etc., and other times it lacks nearly every one of these elements. It's hard to become immersed when you have several beautiful shots that look "hollywood," and then have other shots that don't live up to them in any way.

It almost looks like there were 2 different DPs on this project, it's hard to believe that the same person shot the whole thing (if this is indeed the case).

So what's the good news?

The good news is that, unless you just got very lucky (and I don't think that's the case) on your really nice shots, then you have a good eye for shot design, composition, color, etc., but, you've got to take your time to get things right, I know what it's like to be rushed on set and sometimes just have to get something in the can...but there is really a night and day difference between some of the footage here, in fact, you could probably recut the entire film using just your good shots, and just your bad shots, because they alternate so much, and you'd have one great looking short, and one amateur one.

Other than that, personally, I find the story derivative, not particularly believable, not particularly interesting - there isn't much dialogue, and the dialogue that is there is just not that good - the male actor was decent, not great, I didn't care for the female actress.

Far, far, far too many shots of characters walking across the entire frame...these shots cease to be interesting. The "180 degree" rule is broken or nearly broken so many times early on in the film that it's quite jarring.

Sorry, I guess, if any of the above came across as overly negative. I really want to encourage you!

In your good shots, you show a tremendous amount of promise, and as you go on I am sure your good composition and eye will take over and the lesser-looking stuff will become less and less prevalant. If you can be uncompromising in terms of your shot design, you're good enough to deliver stellar results.

I also noticed that you used both the kit lens and the 35mm f/2 - I am pretty sure I can tell which scenes were shot with the 35mm f/2 and most of them look quite good (a higher percentage were good with the 35mm f/2 than with the kit lens).

It might be worthwhile investing in a few more FD primes so that you'll have more framing options at higher speed than the kit lens will allow. I'll bet you bumped into this and may have been frustrated by it and just couldn't find a good workaround - there's just too much evidence within the short to suggest that you really have the capability to deliver good looking images for me to think otherwise.
 
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Not sure how long this *needs* to be - but if you cut it HEAVILY, you may be able to save this - I'm talking turning this into a 3-4min film. There's a *lot* you don't need. ADR the bad sound scenes...it's possible. PM me if you are further curious and would like more detailed scene and shot analysis. I'm really not a jerk - I'd love to see you turn this into something very good. I still think the story is not the best, but it's also not the worst, and most of the parts that really don't work can be cut...so problem solved. In fact, for whatever reason I'm really compelled by this - I may download the clip, edit it, and then send it back to you if you aren't horribly offended by this idea just so I can show you more clearly which scenes I think look really good.
 
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thisisapocalypse said:
On the Vimeo page it said you'd like criticism, so here goes.

Your shot design ranges from, at times very amateur, to very professional, with only slightly varying shades in between - very little "middle" ground here, either mostly-good/very-good, to mostly-bad/very-bad.

I liked the following shots:

4:50-5:10
5:30
6:35-6:45
10:47-11:01
3:11-330 - shot is good - sound is too boomy
3:35-4:06 - obviously your "money" shot - not sure about the color grading, but the shot itself is very well done.

Shots that need work :


1:30 - Harsh shadows, unflattering angle, white walls, too much noise in the sound, just not an interesting shot.

6:03 - Everything that you'd want to be in focus, is out of focus, and vice versa. I'm guessing that perhaps you did not have a permit to film in the subway and went stealth, and that's probably why...not having stabilization, maybe only doing one take - I don't know, but it's all out of focus., the framing/light, everything is really off here.

2:52-2:55 - Too wide, odd vertical angle.


---------

The big problem with this film is inconsistency across the board.

Sometimes the sound is good, other times it's quite bad.

Sometimes you've got very interesting shot design, sharp focus, good exposure, nice movements, etc., and other times it lacks nearly every one of these elements. It's hard to become immersed when you have several beautiful shots that look "hollywood," and then have other shots that don't live up to them in any way.

It almost looks like there were 2 different DPs on this project, it's hard to believe that the same person shot the whole thing (if this is indeed the case).

So what's the good news?

The good news is that, unless you just got very lucky (and I don't think that's the case) on your really nice shots, then you have a good eye for shot design, composition, color, etc., but, you've got to take your time to get things right, I know what it's like to be rushed on set and sometimes just have to get something in the can...but there is really a night and day difference between some of the footage here, in fact, you could probably recut the entire film using just your good shots, and just your bad shots, because they alternate so much, and you'd have one great looking short, and one amateur one.

Other than that, personally, I find the story derivative, not particularly believable, not particularly interesting - there isn't much dialogue, and the dialogue that is there is just not that good - the male actor was decent, not great, I didn't care for the female actress.

Far, far, far too many shots of characters walking across the entire frame...these shots cease to be interesting. The "180 degree" rule is broken or nearly broken so many times early on in the film that it's quite jarring.

Sorry, I guess, if any of the above came across as overly negative. I really want to encourage you!

In your good shots, you show a tremendous amount of promise, and as you go on I am sure your good composition and eye will take over and the lesser-looking stuff will become less and less prevalant. If you can be uncompromising in terms of your shot design, you're good enough to deliver stellar results.

I also noticed that you used both the kit lens and the 35mm f/2 - I am pretty sure I can tell which scenes were shot with the 35mm f/2 and most of them look quite good (a higher percentage were good with the 35mm f/2 than with the kit lens).

It might be worthwhile investing in a few more FD primes so that you'll have more framing options at higher speed than the kit lens will allow. I'll bet you bumped into this and may have been frustrated by it and just couldn't find a good workaround - there's just too much evidence within the short to suggest that you really have the capability to deliver good looking images for me to think otherwise.
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wow guys this is great!

You were not harsh at all (maybe a little cause im only 16) but seriously, thank you for your feedback!

It's funny you talked about two DP's: This was for school and my group consisted of 6 people, so everyone wanted to do something. I was behind the camera for every shot, but for a few of them I let others in the group do the composition. I don't want to brag but every good shot you pointed out, i set up.
But some of the bad was me too. This was mostly because of time issues, and having four other people telling me to hurry up.

for shot 1:30: We used one of the parents offices and it was all shot on one day, so putting an interesting painting or moving the ugly grey shelves was not going to happen and because of the crappy f4.0 lens, i had to light the office. We didn't have a softbox or an umbrella for any of the lights (250watt lowels) so i had to tape white paper in front of a couple.

For shot at 6:03: This whole scene was shot gorilla style and i didn't want to bring in my shoulder rig as to draw attention and get us kicked out. The first shot was not setup properly and exposure was off too plus the jello, but at least we got the scene done!

Another kid was doing sound, but we had to make our own boom out of a painters pole, so if you moved it too much, it would hit this metal screw, hence the random bass blobs during some dialogue.

I had to break the 180 degree rule because we didn't get enough walking footage in SF

thanks again!
 
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thisisapocalypse said:
not sure how long this *needs* to be - but if you cut it heavily, you may be able to save this - i'm talking turning this into a 3-4min film. There's a *lot* you don't need. Adr the bad sound scenes...it's possible. Pm me if you are further curious and would like more detailed scene and shot analysis. I'm really not a jerk - i'd love to see you turn this into something very good. I still think the story is not the best, but it's also not the worst, and most of the parts that really don't work can be cut...so problem solved. In fact, for whatever reason i'm really compelled by this - i may download the clip, edit it, and then send it back to you if you aren't horribly offended by this idea just so i can show you more clearly which scenes i think look really good.
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this sounds great!
 
chrismagicc said:
You were not harsh at all (maybe a little cause im only 16) but seriously, thank you for your feedback!
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1. Okay, if you would have prefaced this by saying you were 16...WOW...okay, well that only makes the strong points of your film...well, even more impressive...but if you've got the eye, you've got the eye, and it sure seems like you've got it. To be completely honest, given how good your best shots were, I assumed this was a larger production. It just makes what you were able to accomplish all the more impressive.

2. You have an awesome attitude towards all of this, and you express yourself very, very well on this board (especially for being 16). I sure hope to see more of your posts and comments going forward, you are definitely an asset here.

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Keep making films!
 
zero budget, shot in two weeks and edited in two weeks. This is of course after we wrote the script and story-boarded.

sorry about the age thing...but i am definitely going to Film School!
 
chrismagicc said:
The focus was a bit hard to control because i had my eyes on the lcd, one hand holding the shoulder rig handle and the other holding focus, but i think it turned out fine.
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haha, actually I was thinking you were doing it on purpose, which is why I asked. If it WASN'T your objective, then thats probably a cue that you have to work on your focusing skills.

Regarding the end shot - I was saying that maybe a reaction shot of the guy while he was down on the ground would help. But it looks like you ran out of time at this point, which is why you only have one long take.

And yes, I also wondered what 5:48 meant. I thought it refered to the length of the video.
 
yeah focusing definitely needs work, but aside from that i am happy!

the last shot was a last minute "ooooh wait this would look really cool!" type of thing, so i sat on my dolly with the camera in my lap and i had a friend slowly push me. :)

the name refers to a short story written by John Cheever from which we adapted this short film. Hence the name 5:48. In the short story, the main character, Blake, rides the 5:48 as it was a train...
 
chrismagicc said:
the name refers to a short story written by John Cheever from which we adapted this short film. Hence the name 5:48. In the short story, the main character, Blake, rides the 5:48 as it was a train...
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In which case you could have also started the video in the subway, with the other scenes serving like flashbacks. Of course, because you started in the subway, you can include a shot of the train schedules where it shows the 5:48 train.

Regardless, good start, lots of possibilities.
 
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