Thunderdorm - 5-minute short

S

ShBm

Member
This is a short I shot for video production class. I wrote the script in Celtx in probably 20 minutes (had been thinking of ideas for a while though) and sent some friends PDFs. The idea was sort of like a dorm real world, but not so much of a parody as just a hyperbole of the dorm situation, with different stereotypical characters portraying different dorm room scenarios, and I wanted to juxtapose the uptight, Christian student's concerns with cuts to the room of those fears coming true.

Most of the actors were just my friends, but a fellow student gathered a couple other people to take roles of people who couldn't be there. This shoot definitely taught me to arrange backup actors.

I contacted the school and got the dorm room for the day pretty easily. We decorated it with boxes, duffel bags and a small assortment of clothes and blankets in a few minutes. The only props we really needed were the curling iron, nintendo controller and dogs, which were easy to procure.

Lighting was all just what was there - had to brighten a couple dorm room shots in post, but I had limited access to lighting. Wish I would have at least brought a couple lamps for it.

We boomed the walking scenes and mounted for the interiors just because there was no one to boom. I wanted it to seem reality-tvish, so the boom you can see when they're walking up the stairs was left in. Would've liked it in some more shots, actually.

Shot this in about 7 hours. About an hour and a half for the walking scenes in the Union and then 5 hours in the dorm room.

Shot with HMC150 on LONOIZ I think. Mic was an Oktava MK012.

Comments or criticism welcomed. This was really my first production (though it was pretty small-scale). I would love some advice or critiques.

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I AGREE
 
Good job. It was fun and interesting. First main thing is, try to spend more time on the script. If you wrote it in 20 minutes, then you didn't even bother to do a re-write, and as they say you write in the re-writes.

It's kind of funny, but obviously you need to work with people that act as well.

It's well shot for a first production, and it's got some promise. Keep working at it.
 
Nice job. Your pacing and timing are right on the mark. Keep posting more shorts. You wrote this out in twenty minutes? very impressive
 
Dude...the guy reading the poetry if friggin' great! You picked up some pretty good sound in a number of the scenes too...that Oktava sounds nice!

Beyond that, I'm not bothered by you writing it in 20 minutes, certainly it could be refined, but something that can happen with excessive rewriting, is that you can write *out* all of the life if you aren't careful. This doesn't mean you shouldn't rewrite, and this one definitely could have been honed a little, but I wasn't put off by it, it had a good flow, it was interesting, rewriting and rewriting into oblivion can leave you with something stale. I'd stick with the way you're doing it, write fast, do give it an edit or two, but don't edit out the life of it. What I really like about it, is that you have a good sense of showing vs. telling, which is very uncommon in film/video production class projects - they almost all *tell* the story, are too serious and meditative about things that aren't that that interesting, are bathed in voice over...not to mention every other shot is a dutch angle. You wrote and shot this straight up. No funny business. Actual content. I dig it.

I think you did a great job with this - it didn't scream "video production class assignment," which in its own right is impressive enough!

I'd definitely encourage you to keep doing this, you got good performances out of these actors for the most part, the shot design wasn't bad, and it had a lot of nice movement. All of these things can be further refined but I still think it's a nice piece that stands on its own.
 
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Thanks. I do think in the future I'll do some rewriting rather than going with the first draft, but it had to be done quickly so I could get it approved by the school.

I was happy with the acting actually. Everyone seemed to fit the character description I envisioned when I wrote it.

One thing that I was upset about was I had the OIS off when we shot the two guys walking through the union, so it looks a little jumpy to me, but I think that also adds to the reality feel, which I think there should have been more of actually. Though, I was originally going to ad in a laugh track.
 
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