The Axe Murderer Needs Feedback!

[mussonman]

[mussonman]

anyone?

[TheArtist]

Acting is good considering. Story and dialogue are funny.

Now for the technical aspect, sound was well handled but I felt the images over saturated and contrasted. Also, the framing is odd, many times you have the right side of the frame completely empty with the actors looking to the left. (the thumbnail is one of those moments)

You shoot it with T2i ? Did you sharpen it in camera ?

[mussonman]

Originally Posted by TheArtist

Acting is good considering. Story and dialogue are funny.

Now for the technical aspect, sound was well handled but I felt the images over saturated and contrasted. Also, the framing is odd, many times you have the right side of the frame completely empty with the actors looking to the left. (the thumbnail is one of those moments)

You shoot it with T2i ? Did you sharpen it in camera ?

I have the sharpness turned way down IN camera, but I added some sharpness in post... and I was experimenting with some funky color correction

[mussonman]

Originally Posted by TheArtist

You shoot it with T2i ?

and yes.

[TheArtist]

Okay, it looks kinda weird. Maybe your compression settings. Or whatever you did in post. But apart from the looks, there are other things you can focus on.

[Shanked]

Nice work. Your actors did a pretty nice job overall. The performance in the very beginning is a little rough, but they seem to slide into character and stay there after the first bit. I think you handled your center lines fairly well. There were one or two awkward cuts, but they're aren't drastic. You jumped the line for the climactic shot though. Not sure if you did that just cuz you wanted the backlight from the sun, but it's not good to jump the line on your punchline. For one split second, you'll be confusing your audience as they process the change in orientation. And this is not a good confusion. This is not a desired effect.

For any shots that need re-framing, like the bearded guy being too low or the three-shot being too blank on the right, you can zoom in in post and re-crop. This is of course will hurt your image quality but unless you're projecting onto a big screen, I doubt that image quality will matter that much. For a short film like this, it's better to get the framing right than to worry about image loss on just one shot. And on that note, your audio was pretty nice. That is a HUGE victory. More important than image quality by far.

When you cut away to the lightbulb and the other dark image -- the flashback I would presume -- the story tumbles a bit. You're relying on the audio to provide the drama there, but your audio isn't really telling us much. At best, it's cliche. Sorry. You have the right idea though. You just need more of a story on the cutaway. Solution: grab your sister or your girlfiriend and record a sick and twisted bit of dialogue that you can lay on top of the light bulb image as VO. I mean, that's IF you really need the flashback twice.

If you wanna get picky, you should clarify: just why exactly does your bad guy get up when he does, to go butcher his friends? There should be some trigger and you should set that trigger up earlier in the dialogue or set it up with the light-bulb VO. So when he does jump up with the axe... it is both surprising and inevitable.

Your axe blood looks like ketchup. Is that part of the story?

Otherwise, nice job overall!

Shanked

[mussonman]

Originally Posted by Shanked

Nice work. Your actors did a pretty nice job overall. The performance in the very beginning is a little rough, but they seem to slide into character and stay there after the first bit. I think you handled your center lines fairly well. There were one or two awkward cuts, but they're aren't drastic. You jumped the line for the climactic shot though. Not sure if you did that just cuz you wanted the backlight from the sun, but it's not good to jump the line on your punchline. For one split second, you'll be confusing your audience as they process the change in orientation. And this is not a good confusion. This is not a desired effect.

For any shots that need re-framing, like the bearded guy being too low or the three-shot being too blank on the right, you can zoom in in post and re-crop. This is of course will hurt your image quality but unless you're projecting onto a big screen, I doubt that image quality will matter that much. For a short film like this, it's better to get the framing right than to worry about image loss on just one shot. And on that note, your audio was pretty nice. That is a HUGE victory. More important than image quality by far.

When you cut away to the lightbulb and the other dark image -- the flashback I would presume -- the story tumbles a bit. You're relying on the audio to provide the drama there, but your audio isn't really telling us much. At best, it's cliche. Sorry. You have the right idea though. You just need more of a story on the cutaway. Solution: grab your sister or your girlfiriend and record a sick and twisted bit of dialogue that you can lay on top of the light bulb image as VO. I mean, that's IF you really need the flashback twice.

If you wanna get picky, you should clarify: just why exactly does your bad guy get up when he does, to go butcher his friends? There should be some trigger and you should set that trigger up earlier in the dialogue or set it up with the light-bulb VO. So when he does jump up with the axe... it is both surprising and inevitable.

Your axe blood looks like ketchup. Is that part of the story?

Otherwise, nice job overall!

Shanked

In response to all the statements regarding cheesiness, (such as the axe blood being ketchup, the backlight from the sun, and the murderer's flashbacks) it was a parody of bad horror movies, so the cheesiness was important. And thank you for the critique.

One thing I'm surprised is that you say I did a good job on the audio. I thought that would be the first thing anybody criticized, since I don't have an external mic just yet.

[Gabe Mahomet]

Just looking at it director-wise, that was amazing. One of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

[mussonman]

Originally Posted by Gabe Mahomet

Just looking at it director-wise, that was amazing. One of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

Well, thank you, sir. That has made my day.