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[CourtneyLauren90]

Hello everyone,

My name is Courtney and I have successfully completed the four week digital filmmaking intensive workshop at the New York Film Academy. I have been behind the camera for 9 months Please take a moment and check out my final project, The Red Carnival. I would appreciate comments and critiques! http://youtu.be/sxGWr_YXJYs

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[directorik]

A nice first effort. I, personally, did not like your color palate
choices - it was distracting. But I loved the use of black and
white.

It could really use some tightening up.

Your description on YouTube doesn’t match what I saw. No
way could I understand that there was an assassin making
a drastic choice just by watching your movie - that aspect
needs to be explained and even then it’s quite a stretch.

[CourtneyLauren90]

Hey thanks for your response! Yes the color's were a bit bright, I was going to play with some color corrections but I still have a lot of practice with that. This was just a short piece of what is to come and I will be sure to go more in depth about the assassin in future video's.

[CourtneyLauren90]

Also, I was trying hard to use red as symbolism for death love and danger all at once.

[8salacious9]

can i be blunt, the actors were awful, and the gaps between conversations in the beginning were making me want to hit my head off a wall, the lack of emotion in the actors was painful and quite frankly made me dislike it.

like in my view, a movie can only be good if its told right, and these guys did not tell it right.

[CourtneyLauren90]

*sigh* yes I know but being low budget and new at this I didn't have much access to actors with experience, this was a final project for NYFA during my four week digital filmmaking workshop. It will get better! But I think I'm going to lay off the dialogue for a while until I find better actors lol. It's just going to take some time. But thank you!

[8salacious9]

Originally Posted by CourtneyLauren90

*sigh* yes I know but being low budget and new at this I didn't have much access to actors with experience, this was a final project for NYFA during my four week digital filmmaking workshop. It will get better! But I think I'm going to lay off the dialogue for a while until I find better actors lol. It's just going to take some time. But thank you!

yeah just as an audience POV i find it annoying when i see crap actors, i was lead actor for my secondary school throughout all the years and performed in over 30 plays at the royal albert hall to private audiences, but iv done a few other things too for e-learning videos, for companies which are now closed down due to recession (dunno if that says much)

iv got a short film im planning to do soon, i plan on recruiting actors from a drama school near me which there happens to be 3 or 4 drama schools quite local, im sure someone will want to be in my film, and the thing is, even if they arent as good as i want them, they want to be actors, and will have at least some experience of emotion on screen, so why dont you try to approach them, it will make the world of difference to people like me who criticize actors for their characters.

oh i forgot to mention, that your shots were nicely done!

again im a harsh critic but i like to be honest and prefer people are the same with my work!

best wishes
Alps

[CourtneyLauren90]

Thank you very much and I appreciate your honest critique it's going to help me out in the long run! That is a really good idea, I think I'm going to look into some schools in my area and go from there! Thank you so much and good luck with your short film!

[Budget:0]

Courteney, I'm not going to critique the actors because there really isn't a reason to. Yes, they were bad, but on a low-budget project you can't exactly get Oscar winners.

I thought the shots were nice, and I liked the black and white. I agree with DirectorIK on the color palate, though.

I thought the dialog was all written well, or at least it seemed to have been from the way it was said on screen.

I've never been a fan of "Later.." cards, but I realize sometimes you have to use them to convey what you need to.

Overall, my suggestion is that you drop these actors and fix the color palate.

And I will be watching...via my subscriptions.

EDIT: The opening scene with them on the phone would be improved by just doing an O.S. voice for the person the other line. That's how I would've done it.

[CourtneyLauren90]

It's funny what you guys are all saying about the color palate, my brother is a photographer and he said the same thing! I think I might put just out a black and white version! I don't think I'm going to re-edit this one over again though, this was actually a second version that I re-edited once I finished the 4week workshop! I will keep in mind all of your tips and I am going to build on to the story though for sure! This is helping me so much!

This was my first attempt at using dialog in film but the story telling will get better I am practicing!

Thank you for taking a moment out of your day to check out my film!!!!!

[knightly]

Thread moved to appropriate forum. Welcome.