The Exchange - Short Action Film (Feedback Please?)

[alexrokz]

Below is a short action film I directed about 6 weeks back. I cast two of my friends with no real acting experience (so it's a bit wooden at times) and got a friend from my film class to be on crew with me. I used a Sony HVR Z1E with a basic shotgun mic (boomed), and we filmed under a noisy overpass. We shot in about 2 hours, and editing took about a week. Please tell me what you think. I know it's pretty rough around the edges (dialogue a little quiet at times etc), but it was really for the technical experience. Please give any constructive critisicm. Seriously tear it to shreds if you want (but please stay nice!). I'm 16 years old and I'm keen to learn.

Enjoy.

http://youtu.be/EboJ0hct7rs

P.S I recommend watching in 1080p!

[DRthunderMD]

I liked it a lot from a technical standpoint. Audio could have been cleaned up a bit I'd say. And parts of the screenplay seemed a bit cliche in dialogue. I think you could have given them each a little more character rather than the usual lines. I enjoyed it though. Keep working hard man.

[alexrokz]

Thanks for replying. Yeah, I know what you mean about the dialogue, I made the mistake of having the mic level too low, so bringing it back up in post increased the background traffic noise with it (major editing facepalm moment!). Nice learning curve though. Audio can make or break a film I think, I took much longer on the audio than the visuals. Even more so because of all the fixing I had to do! I recorded all the punch sounds myself, and the jacket zippers and bag rustles were all recorded and added in too, with a shotgun mic in my house. Even though its still a little rough, it was a big improvement over how it originally was haha! Next time I'll be less flippant about the mic level, and save a lot of time in the editing room haha.

Yeah the script was pretty cliche, as I said it was really for the technical experience, next time I'm gonna spend more time on the writing, and hopefully make the production a little more fulfilling plot-wise.

Glad you enjoyed it.

[backfirepictures]

Agree with DrThunder on his points, one thing I noticed (that I see with a lot of no budget action) is that the when the actors are handling the prop guns they do not compensate for the drastic weight difference and thier movements look like they are holding something plastic without any weight or substance.

[Wolverine237]

You took yourself too seriously. Action movies are ten times better sprinkled with humor.

[Murdock]

The hand to hand needs work.