Trailer For Upcoming Short... Looking For Critique!!!

PeckDun

PeckDun

Member
We just finished our "first" short. I say first because we did this really horrible horror short which came out... well horribly (we rushed it). Anyway we put more effort into this one, and I would really like to hear what you guys think as I've learned alot from you all scouring these forums for knowledge. The good, but more importantly the bad as I only want to improve as a filmmaker... Thanx in advance guys...
Oh and no CC yet...
Love and Lost Trailer
 
Some nice looking footage, good work! Here's a few suggestions I have, mostly nit-picky type things.

The audio could use some work - more than anything else in the trailer, this kind of sticks out (the echoey quality of it) as being an amateur effort. As much as we all tend to focus (rightly) on the quality of our images, remember that sound is equally as important - some might even argue more so, in terms of feeling polished. Filmmakers can get away with degraded quality in the image, but the audio has to be dead on or you'll always lose people.

I would change the font to something else, and maybe even remove most of the text from the trailer. The font that's there now makes me think of a wedding video. But in general, when I see too much text in a trailer (describing the plot, and so on) it gets very old. I think simply having excerpts from the dialogue would work fine and draw the audience in without beating them over the head.

The slow motion at around 1:10 in the trailer could be done better - but I don't know if that's just for the trailer or if you're using it in the short as well. If it's in the short, I think it would be worthwhile to use something like Motion 3 (with optical flow enabled) or Twixtor. Or you could always use After Effects, that would work if you're on a PC as well.

One super nit-picky thing is around 0:39, when she's pulling the envelope out of the mailbox, there are some jagged edges on the side of the envelope that might either be compression artifacts or maybe it's because sharpening was turned up too high in-camera. You could always put a very slight blur on the image to take it out, or just lower your sharpening next time around. Generally it's better to sharpen the image at the last possible stage, i.e. when you are finishing your edit.

Overall though it looks really nice, I especially like the lens flare you got in the dolly shot at 0:19, very nice, and also good job getting the rain to show up at 1:07. Like Lake Films said, with some color correction to put some contrast in the images, it'll look really good.

A solid first/second effort!
 
I'd echo the things that oedipax said. First thing is lose the font. it really takes away from the quality of the piece. Although I did like that little line that formed between the title at the end there.

The things you can't fix but I'm bringing up cause it may help you next time are the sound and the girl's acting. She has that stacatto unnatural sound to her rhythm that bad actors usually have. Don't know if you were forced to use her but I would've gone a different way. The sound, oedipax already pointed out. Not sure how to fix this since I end up with the same thing in my videos. You point the mic in the right place, but it still ends up sounding echo-ey. Is it a cheap mic? Something you're doing in post? I'm learning too.

Indoor shots looked a little video-y to me but I thought all the outdoor shots looked great. Very professional. My favorite shot was the letter falling and the camera following it. Really cool and unexpected.
 
Thanx guys, some kind words and good insight (as only I expect from here)
First, Yeah the font is not my Fav. either and am changing. The echoey quality you speak of is something I added in post but came out alot stronger than I wanted so I'm fixing that as well... The slow-motion was for the trailer only but yeah it is sketchy i agree... I just noticed the jagged edges after you mentioned that. I think it's a compression issue because I usually film with all my settings at the default so I could have more flexibilty in post. The stacatto sound is from the v.o. track which there is a little of in the film. It is my BIGGEST pet peeve to this point and she coming back to redo THANK GOD! but overall I'm happy with her acting but all the v.o. stuff came out sounding so "read" I can't even listen to it anymore. The mic i use is a rode ntg-1 which I'm usually happy with (since it's my first one) It's usually the guys holding who drives me nuts. when will people understand how sensitive these things are UUUGGHH!!! but I have a friend who is "hopefully" fixing the audio. Thanx guys keep "em coming... once I CC it and work out the sound issues I'll def. repost. oh and Kidco I have the 100B.
Thanx again guys...
 
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