What the **** is wrong with my movies

the first thing i noticed is in the cinematography. when introducing a new location and charaacters, it is always good to start off with a wide angle shot of your location and the characters within it... to orient the audience as to where the characters are placed within the space. all of your characters (except smitty) were introduced from close-up shots which gave no orientation as to how they related to their envirnment. it felt very claustrophobic in the opening scenes. have your characters enter/exit locations with a wide shot. also, try to mix close-ups with medium and long shots to add some variety.
 
too many teen movies with this same exact concept. your intentions were to make everyone feel like they just watched something really f*cked up. i didnt feel that way at all. coke line too fake too. all just constructive critisism though.
 
epsilonbass said:
I'm going to have to disagree with this one. I believe in pick an actor for the part they can play, not for the part they resemble. When an actor knows that a part resembles themself (and trust me, they'll know) they will begin to feel that they know the character through out (besides who's better to know someone than themselves), however there will come a time when your interpretation will differ than the actor's interpretation, and will argue that that isn't the character's correct motivation. In other words if at any point you have the character act in any way other than the actor see's himself, than he's going to become beligerent.

just my two cents.
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When I said amateur, I actually meant non-actor. Even so I stand by my comment. You can get a decent performance out of a bad actor if their own personality is closer to the character they play. There are actors with talent and there are some that, well... not so much. You're never going to direct a bad actor to a good performance. If you play to their strengths you end up with a better usable performance.

As far as dealing with a beligerent actor? It's really quite simple. Don't use them. They are fairly easy to spot after only a few conversations with them. The bottom line is, any actor, that at the very least considers himself a professional, wont have any of that BS baggage.

Honestly, I find local stage actors to be some of the best people to work with in no to low budget productions.
 
One of the biggest things I noticed was the very unnatural and akward dialogue. There were too many lines where the actors are explaining things that don't need to be explained. Secondly, I think your short could have been shortened to less than 5 minutes, cut down unnecessary talk and focus more on the action within the scene. Lastly, the intro with the coke line and all is a bit juvenile, don't ya think? I know you're 17 but putting that in your short isn't going to give you any credibility and it certainly isn't going to make me think "wow, this is some gritty hardcore stuff". Actually, I thought for a short film dealing with the issue of crime and betrayal, I couldn't help myself from laughing while I watched this. I thought the guy at the end got shot in the leg? How is he kicking the other two and walking away?

All in all, you have a lot of work to do. But honestly, you're only 17 and you have more than enough time to improve so don't give up ;)
 
Christopher Barry said:
If you have a passion for it, keep going man! :thumbsup:
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Amen. If filmmaking is something that you truly care about and feel that you just need to do then you should keep doing it. Read as many books on the subject as you can, read everything here on wonderful dvxuser :thumbsup: , and keep your ideas flowing. Get creative, and try to expand skill set. And don't give up!
 
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