watch Dialogue experiment

Hi people, so I'm a film maker from Northern Ireland, Belfast. I've recently gathered a few people to form a film crew so that we can practice different techniques and ideas on a weekly/fortnightly basis. We had our first meeting on sunday and shot this. It was an attempt to experiment with moving the dialogue from light to dark and showing that through camera movement. I'm wondering if anybody here could take some time to watch it (3 mins) and provide some constructive criticism. Thanks in advance if you do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIyPYuPqLOY

I watched it.

I thought the dialog was funny and interesting enough for me to not notice the camera angles, but I did notice them. I was surprised at how natural the acting was.

Please don't take my comments with any measure of right or wrong, as most things are a matter of taste in this business

- I like my movements subtle. Slow, but enough movement to be noticed. Just how I like it.
- The angle of the single shots of the girl: I was wondering what it would look like if you had close-ups of her from near where you had your wide shot. Then there would be more of an angular separation between her and her husband. Not that it's necessary, but I was just thinking about it.
- once the wife came in, the singles of the husband and wife with deadspace, didn't make sense to me. I was thinking two shots and close-ups would have worked better. But then the question is how do you match their close-ups with wider shots of the brother? So I was thinking, maybe I would have tried to use two-shots.

Hope it makes sense.
Interesting dialog indeed

Have to admit that without subtitles the accent is quite tricky for me, specially the man in the midde was a challenge.

It is really realistic and natural style short, like a documentary and that is both a good and bad thing, since many people might not want to see it, since it does not look really stylish.

I did like it tough.

cool! thanks for the feedback guys

True Indie, I like your idea about the angular seperation. I wasn't sure about the best angles to get so I kind of chose inbetween CU and a twoshot with medium CU's, was kind of pressed for time you see. I was also thinking maybe just sticking to the two CU also added to the idea that the couple were seperate, never seen together in the same shot (unless with the young guy as their focal point) so that was the idea there. The deadspace was to show the seperation between the two as well. I like the shot of the middle guy, but I don't know about the girls shot, I think that could have done with a CU, as she seems to far back on the couch, too laid back for someone who's supposed to be concerned. Glad you enjoyed the dialogue!

Itarumaa, its ironic that you say its like a documentary because I wanted to use static shots instead of handheld to specifically make it feel less like a documentary. But I totally get what you mean, I was inspired by the work a British director called Mike Leigh, specifically a film called Mean Time. His films are very realistic and natural and I think his philiosophy would be something like 'you dont need everything flashy and stylish, normal life is interesting enough by itself'. So this is something I've tried to adopt for this short, and I guess I rely on the natural dialogue and the acting. Luckily I found good actors! And yes the accents can be quite hard to understand sometimes, even for me, and I live here! haha

I'm wondering what you thought of the dolly shot towards Nathans face (the young guy), I guess this was the most stylish shot of the film. I know the camera movement is a bit shaky, but do you think it fits in well with the rest of the shots? I chose that shot to signify that this was the thing that he was truly worried about, as opposed to the static movement of the rest of the shots.

Anyway, thanks for the replies!

I think the angles are fine, acting is good, I am more of a visual guy so I think your characters are not completely in focus and sharp. You could use some more dramatic color grading as it fits the scene.