SHORT: The Retro Wars

S

Scarytown

Member
Well somehow I completely missed this forum and had posted on the Cinematography section. Anyways huge thanks to Ryan Patrick O'Hara for the feedback from there :thumbup:!

Here is a video I made with my brother and a bunch of local improv/actors groups down in a small town in Kansas:


We started filming projects under Brostorm Comedy back in December and are currently up to our 5th video. I have no previous filming background other than watching more movies than I know what to do with :)

I am looking for overall feedback due to the fact that over massive amounts of editing, I am having a hard time critiquing my own work. You can check out some of the previous comments from my cinematography thread here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?277254-Help-critique-my-video

Thanks!
 
In general it was nice to watch. It's not bad.

But....as many before you.... the sound is.... not that "impressive".

It's because it's recorded with on cam mic ?
 
Thanks for the feedback Dre83!

Sound is definitely something we have noticed being a problem. Sound was off of a Zoom H4N to a Rode NTG-1. I've delegated sound to an actual sound guy, but he's very green. Also, we ended up doing a lot of the shots in small hard-floor rooms that just plain gave us headaches. Due to the tight schedule I had to run with a lot of the actors, I didn't have much time to do reshoots and had to make due with the creaky table and refrigerator hum in the background (used a dehummer tool to help a bit, but not much) But I was working with free so I had to use what I can :)

I plan on doing a equipment upgrade soon. I will most likely lay out some cash for good sound equipment.
 
it's important to aim on the actor speaking, and to be in front of the mouth.

it's more likely to be "to much" in front, then behind the person.

And going as close as possible.

A NTG-1 does give some "strange" sound (because of the reflections) inside a place, but I think it also has to do with being to far away.

As a soundguy/boomguy it's good to ask the limits. And for a DOP it's good to say the limits and also to say when the boom can go lower
(so not only "yeah it's good there", when the DOP sees it's 484604864641864680461 miles high)
 
I will definitely try to work more with our sound guy. He seems very interested in the craft, we just need more time testing and working at it. My hope is that through experience and hopefully getting people interested in our videos we will be able to schedule out more time to work on our scenes rather than the run-n-gun system we have going now. Our next vid will most likely be a comedic music video, so I will dodge a bullet on the sound front, but after that we are doing a Reservoir Dogs type skit that will be heavy on dialog (hoping we will have new equipment by then to further help).
 
Love the direction. Great production value with the costumes. Pretty nice actor you got there (dude with the Tony jacket). Overall I like where this is heading. 80's is such a fun theme to explore and I think you're capturing it perfectly. Maybe you were pressed or had to cover a lot in a short time because the pacing seemed a little too fast. Also, I wish there were more wide shots. Just a tad confusing with spatial relation. Also, I know, I'm being critical when I enjoyed the short vastly. But when editing, cut during motion, not after a motion has ended. That'll make the transition between cuts so much more natural and smooth. Great effort, I liked it! Can't wait to see more! (where'd you get that killer jacket?)
 
Thanks for the feedback softdrinks!

Originally the video clocked in closer to 6 and a half minutes long verses the little over 5 minute final cut. I had to cut quite a bit out to make it more coherent as some of the shots didn't pull through and I was not in a position to reshoot the scenes. Pacing is a hard thing for me to master. After editing on a video for a long while, things start to blur to the point I have a hard time making judgement on how the pacing is going. I usually have to rely on critiques at that point and go with my gut feelings.

Ryan from the cinematography forums pointed out that I had some line issues as well. I'm going to try to work very hard on my next story based skit to make sure I don't break the 180 degree rule.

The motion issue was another hit I took from the run-n-gun part of this film. Some particular scenes still drives me crazy because I knew what I needed to do during our reshoots and I simply forgot about getting some of the transition scenes and reshooting some of the moving scenes.

The jacket is a funny story actually. I was watching Drive while we were getting things together to film this skit and became smitten with the scorpion jacket that Ryan Gosling's character wore. I actually remembered a jacket like that from my childhood. However, when I went to look for one I found out that it wasn't really an American 80's jacket. The scorpion jacket was actually based on vintage Korean souvenir jackets. Well what I was remember from my childhood was actually my Dad's jacket that he bought when he was in the army, stationed in Korea in the 1980's. Luck would have it that he still had it tucked away in the closet in good condition. Now I believe my brother is wearing it permanently :)
 
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