Two shorts shot on Gh2. Narrative&Documentary

S

swellman33

Member
Here are two shorts that I put together last semester. I will be applying to grad schools this fall, so hopefully both of these will be good enough for some of my portfolio. The lenses I used were the standard 14-42mm, and a Canon FD 25mm 2.8. The lense I used most however was a Canon FD 50mm 1.4 that my dad bought in Japan in the early 80's. The FD adapter has worked great, and I really love what the GH-2 has been able to do so far. Any thoughts on the videos would be great. Thanks

Chris

Only to Exist-Short film
http://www.youtube.com/user/swellman.../0/aynphnlE_NQ

Finding my Place-Documentary Short
http://www.youtube.com/user/swellman.../1/AZGWyCShT-U
 
I'll preface my comments by saying that I've never made anything better.

1) be careful when lighting with only open face hard sources since the bright side of your subject will often blow out when you try to bring up exposure for the darker side. poor lighting is usually the hallmark of amateur film.

2) what was that blueish shot tossed in around 1:30 - 1:40? Didn't get that. It might be a little too jarring.

3) pacing is good, cuts are good, most of your framing is pretty good too. you seem to have a good feel for this.

4) transition to '5 years later' worked

5) your use of score and folly is darn good.

6) you're letting far too many things blow out. the driving scene at around 3:00 - 3:30 again is well framed, nicely paced but the quality of your shooting and lighting hurt it. If you can get the lighting better it'll go from well done to perfectly polished

7) youtube compression is terrible.

8) love that you don't feel the need to rack focus constantly.

9) other than the technical aspects of shooting, it was so well done that the audio mistake at 4:53 really stands out. what happened there?

10) need a muzzle flash & quicker pull of the trigger. something there was off by a beat or two.

11) ending was a little weak, but honestly it doesn't matter you can fix that with time. you've got a good eye and a great natural feel. you can learn to shoot, light & write better over time.

Overall I'm impressed. Pristine image quality is only one aspect of a good piece and although you're weak in that area, you've nailed the parts that most of us can't seem to get right or neglect. I've seen lots of stuff better shot, but very few that had better framing pacing sound & overall feel. Keep at it, you've potentially got something special.
 
Thanks a lot for your comments. It's great to get in depth feedback like this.

To start off, lighting is an area I know needs improving. This was my first shoot using my GH-2, and so I feel like I was too worried about managing the camera (focus, aperature, etc.) and I missed subtle lighting fixes that could have made it look even better. The shots while driving were difficulut, mainly because I didn't have any form of lighting other than lights from the street/other cars.

While this is probably the 3rd or 4th cut of the short, I still want to continue working to make it better.
My main goal is to study cinematography in graduate school. I feel that is my strength, and really love that aspect of film making.
 
That was fun, and honestly a refreshing change from a lot of the stuff that's posted here... which feels like an excuse to use a camera more than anything. This felt like a story you wanted to tell, not a camera you wanted to use.

The bathroom scene had too many cuts for me. Ask yourself, "How does this shot advance the story or develop the character in a way that the others don't?" If the answer isn't obvious, then lose it. Fewer cuts (not necessarily shorter scenes, just fewer cuts) is better in general in my humble opinion. Others may differ on that of course. Cinema is subjective!

I found the lighting very nice, thought it really helped sell the short even when not much was physically happening at the moment.

However, the bit that really pulled it together for me was the sound. Sooooo many shorts have such crappy sound. All the sounds in this, however, were crystal clear and balanced. My only suggestion would be to make some of the foley less obviously foley (mainly the office papers). Either they didn't sync up properly or weren't the right papers or whatever, they just felt a little off to me.

And of course, the score was great. Didn't feel like generic library music. If I here a music bed from the Apple Garageband library one more time, I think I'm going to go insane...
 
Thanks. I really did a lot of work to make the sound connect the shots/cuts together. The foley I recorded myself (my first foley work) I just finished a sound design class that makes me want to go back and fix some of the parts you mentioned. I'm glad you enjoyed them. Ill be posted two new shorts on here soon shot on 16mm film, so hopefully those work out as well.
 
The biggest compliment I can pay is that subconsciously I was critiquing at a "Breaking Bad" level. Most of your sound, pacing and shots were top notch. And your brother was impressive too :)

Others have provided good feedback...I'd only add that there were a couple of times you lost me...some of the shots of your actor in motion were superfluous - they added nothing to the story. And for the first 1:30 I understood that he was frustrated and trying to work something out...I really wanted more of a hint though, something specific. Or maybe some misdirection...a shot of him looking at a picture of a girl...which might lead me to think his negative emotion is directed at her. Then when we see a board full of women, the escalation/switch would make a big impact.

I'll also add that I haven't made anything at this level...I've only commented because the quality of your work inspired me to do so.
 
That was my biggest fear with this cut. Originally I had voice overs and a few text effects that helped drive the story. Early feedback said that they preferred it without, so that's where we ended up. If I could re-shoot (knowing I wouldn't be using voiceovers) I would definitely shoot more more cutaways that help connect the story.
 
Let me start by also saying that these are great. So I'm looking at them at a graduate level, above what I would do with my undergrads. And as someone said before, please go with Vimeo before sending these out to schools. You can see Youtube's bad compression on gradients. Which this camera doesn't do well with in the first place, but Youtube makes it worse.

Only to Exist-

There's a black frame at 2:07.

NICELY done with showing what he was looking at on his phone. Very original and much better than actually filming the phone (which is always a hassle). It kept a phone interface feel with the smooth scrolling to the inbox, too.

It looks like he says something at 4:35 right before the cut. That was a little weird.

I loved the quick sequence of shots as he was going back to the office. And the ending was really nice. I didn't expect it, so very well done.

I liked the overall lack of any dialogue or voiceover, etc. up until the end. The only thing is at the beginning of it (after the beginning credits), I was expecting to hear at least some foley for the water or paper towels. I actually checked my volume on my computer and on Youtube's player and then went back to the beginning to see if there was music in it because I couldn't remember. I realize that this was maybe a creative decision of yours, which is fine-- it just made me think too much about technical issues when I should have been getting into the story.

The bluer and darker shot at 1:31, as someone mentioned before, was jarring to me, too.

I really liked your use of canted angle shots. Locked off and handheld, they looked nice.

Thanks for sharing with us and good luck getting into a grad school!
 
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