watch The Gatehouse

The Gatehouse is my latest movie and was wondering if you can see any sound problems or whatever in the film.

The Gatehouse is all filmed in and around where i live and uploaded on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnNGcnr_xnw

any feeback is appreciated! Thank you.

I see a million things wrong with it, but before I go into detail, I want to know if my time of doing so will be worth it. So ill ask you first;

Do you want to know every little thing wrong with it, and not respond with 'its suppose to be that way, it's a stylistic effect'?

yes please do tell me. thank you!

At 0: 42 you go from a medium shot of David to a close up. When you go to the close up the camera should have a slightly different angle to it. This can be displeasing to anyones eyes, even if the audience can’t quite figure out why. Even if it’s a slight angle, a change is better. This is called a jump shot and it is discouraged always.

Yet again at 0:53 you do a strange thing where David is talking to his recorder and noting the time. A split second after a he facing a completely different angle and walking towards what seems to be the living room. The continuity (Flow) of it is thrown off. You have to make sure that we can see he is going to turn or see in the long shot as he is walking that he turned first. What happens otherwise is it becomes choppy and unbelievable.

And Once more from 1:07/1:08
David is on the couch, on the right side, leaning to the left with a remote in his hand and in a second his is the middle, sitting straight and speaking into the recorder again. Practice your editing and if possible take more shots. Two, Three, Four, Or even five takes.

There ARE jobs for script supervisors. Their entire job is to make sure everything runs smoothly throughout the shots. Ever seen a movie where the gun is in a characters left hand, it jumps to another shot and the gun is in his right? Big no no.

AND AT 1:13! Haha. No more jump cuts. No cuts from one shot to another with the same angle!

As it continues it seems to be the same problem. Work on your editing.

Now some good news! Yay! 2:03! My favorite part. the lightly is strangely amazing and the expression on his face is priceless. The shot is set up a little lazily but it works quite nicely with the feel of the film. Another good one is a 2:45. You seem to have the actors head move up in suspense as appose to a camera tilt. very nice touch.

Now for sound. Two things. The first is an idea. Why not have scenes where it SHOWS David talking and then shows something else in a different shot with him still talking use the same track? For the scene. Record him saying the whole thing. Then cut the audio and just place this over. This will help with things like volume and level control and stop the annoying “wind” effect that happens.

The other is at 4:52. You use the same ring for the old school house phone for David’s cell phone. Makes it less believable.

And of course at the end of this I realize this is all with one person.

Overall nice job.

I know this is a lot but it's what I do lad.

Mr. Daisy seemed to cover a bit of it already, but I'll write some of the things I see right off the bat. This is to help you grow, not to put you down.


-Put some music or sound in at the begining, it really downs the quality.

-You can hear the ambient change in sound from cut to cut.

-The car cut speeding off to pulling in is a jump cut, and is odd to watch.

-Your colors are extremely off from shot to shot, try learning about color correction, it can help a ton.

-When you see shots of pictures, the sound is bad, like the actor was talking from behind the camera mic, and the pans are not fluid.

-Theres a lot of jump cuts with extreme color changes which are just very uneasy to look at.

-The story seemed like you were jumping from one thing to another, and didnt flow well.

-Transitions were really bad, and didnt flow well, they just sort of jumped to the next subject.

-I could also tell at the end that it was made by one person because of the bad VO for the ghost.

Hopefully some of this helps and you can fix your mistakes on the next project.

Thank you MrDeadDaisy and CDCosta much appreciated!

I like the idea of a close up from a different angle it would make the film flow better and i will remember that for future productions. In 2.03 and 2.45 i lit the scene by placing a torch on the floor pointing upwards which i thought was perfect for the scene.

I like the idea of David talking over another shot. i did try that during his mobile phone scene which i thought worked well. then i did bring a previous shot of him walking down the pavement as a flashback.

I would like to use colour correction but it with premiere pro 1.5 it seems a rather complicated process.

I did consider adding music at the beginning or a prologue introducing the viewer to the legend however i thought the silence was more powerful.

I've been told theres potential the film could be developed into a feature? And the actor in the film was not convincing? would you agree with this?

BTW it was all filmed in my house and neighbourhood.

I wouldn't say your near ready to make a feature, theres still a lot of learning to do.

The story wasn't anything special, just a haunted house with a weird figure. Sorry if i'm bursting your bubble.

I agree and disagree with CDCosta. It is too short to really tell but I have seen a lot of "good ideas" that get made into shitty movies any ways (not comparing yours)

I'm sure if you spent the time constructing the story or met with a indie screenwriter in your town (or on the web like me!) then you could always develop it into something else. Like why is David doing the work he does? Who was on the phone? Why is it haunted? Blah blah blah. Send me an email if you need more help.

Mrdeaddaisy@live.com

Great opinions thus far...I have a few...

* The digital zoom (or jump cut) to a xCU on the actors face was distracting (and slightly pixelated).

* The sound design needs a lot of work. Your levels jump all over the place.

* The story isn't interesting and your lead actor is flat.

* Some music would totally help set the mood when going to the Gate House.

I have to run to work, so I don't have time to post too much. Keep up the work.