• READ BEFORE POSTING!
    • If posting a video, please post HERE, unless it is a video as part of an advertisement and then post it in this section.
    • If replying to threads please remember this is the Promotion area and the person posting may not be open to feedback.

watch Home Again :: My second short film...input? :)

T

threeplusnine

Hey all!
I recently posted up Robot-7, my other film, and got a lot of good feedback. I applied it here, I hope!
Check out the film I just did, again it was pretty quick. Writing, recording, editing took about 4 and a half hours on this one.

Please please please watch it in 720p HD as it looks nicer that way :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUj2xJUmT-A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUj2xJUmT-A


ANY comments are appreciated! Please make criticism constructive :) I hope to keep improving my hobby.

Everything was shot with a Canon Rebel T1I (500D) with a 50 mm f/1.8 lens.


SPOILER // Explanation of the film:
The film follows a girl who believes she is home again after she was held in a mental institute for a while. She is very excited to be home and engages in her favorite activities. At the end, it is revealed that she is still unstable and still in the mental institute; she only believes she is back home. The entire time, everything she does, takes place with her sitting in front of a wall (or mirror, this is left ambiguous) talking to herself).
 
Last edited:
that1guyy said:
It was so simple and elegant. I liked it. However your panning seems to be a bit jerky. Try loosening or oiling the thing that you use to pan.

Or use a rubber band to pan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj6fMcJ18aA
Click to expand...


Glad you liked it :)
Gah, a few of the pan shots were handheld because the last video people said panning was too jerky too
That rubber band trick is nuts! I'll soooo try that sometime. The tripod is as loose as it will be, I figured I would oil it...I'll try both! Thanks!
 
I thought it was great. The only problems I see is with the camera movement at the end, it was jumpy and some sound issues. Other than that, I thought it was great. Also I think it's amazing you did that in a few hours. Everything I do takes days, even weeks, probably because I have to go through an ethics board. and fill out paperwork.
 
Just cinematographywise:

I like the focus pull at the beginning, BUT then you have to jigger it a little at the end to find the sweet spot. This is where a follow focus earns it's cost. If you're going to do that kind of a pull, you really need to nail it for maximum impact. It was kind of uneven in speed too, not very smooth.

Having the apperture cranked open gives nice shallow depth of field, BUT having it cranked like that the whole time makes the DOF always so shallow you're having to constantly pulll focus all over the room. That gets a little cliched some times. Mixing shallow DOF with some deeper focus would make the shallow have more impact. This probably requires lights.

You give her the "Warner Brothers Haircut" in most of the shots. The very top of her head is cut off. That's not always bad by any means, but in a master, it's kind of weird.

She's very cute, not a bad actresss, and you mixed the shots up prettty nicely, and did some good things with shots.

Hopefullly constructive criticsm as requested.
 
Hunteq - I took multiple shots of that final scene...on the PERFECT one (in terms of the pan steadiness and framing).....my hand was covering the microphone and her words were not as sharp. I was pretty mad, and worked with what I had. Otherwise thank you for the input :D!

Gonzo, In the future I will re-do the pull-focus scenes to make sure it looks perfect. I agree I jiggered a bit. I was sort of just hoping (wishful thinking) nobody would notice xD I can't tell that well on the LCD screen if it's perfect or not, so perhaps I should just take multiple shots of everything just to have them. In regards to the rest, I just got the camera 2 weeks ago and I haven't tinkered with the intricacies yet. That being said I don't know how to adjust something like aperture on a DSLR without a different lens. As for lights, I'm 17 years old on whatever budget I can afford so I *WISH* I could do lights but I can't :P I'll definitely keep everything you said in mind though. Any advice how I can adjust things like aperture to affect the DOF?

The framing issues with her hair is mostly due to limited space in her bedroom & the 50 mm being a very tight lens... I'll be getting a wide-angle lens next chance I get.

She is adorable! She's a theater girl, she's applying to a bunch of arts schools mostly in New York. I'm glad you liked the most of the shots in general -- could you possibly inform me some specifics on what you felt were "good things"? Thank you for the time!!
 
I liked it. The first half better than the second half though. :yes: (well for me anyway lol)

I think the girl could've said the last lines better though. Like, with more emotion.
 
awqaw123 said:
I liked it. The first half better than the second half though. :yes: (well for me anyway lol)

I think the girl could've said the last lines better though. Like, with more emotion.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
What emotion would you have preferred?
I told her to do it pretty deadpan intentionally
 
Dude. You are the king of short-attention-span. You bumped your own thread, less than four hours after you created the damn thing. Slow down. Give us some time. We will respond.

Really nice camera-work. Nice editing. Um, you're lacking a story. I read your spoiler. I would've NEVER guessed that. The movie just kinda flew at me, and I had no clue what was going on.

Let me be the first to give you the best piece of advice you'll ever hear, regarding filmmaking:

WRITE

A

SCREENPLAY.

SPEND

SOME

TIME

IN

PREPRODUCTION.
 
Cracker Funk said:
Dude. You are the king of short-attention-span. You bumped your own thread, less than four hours after you created the damn thing. Slow down. Give us some time. We will respond.

Really nice camera-work. Nice editing. Um, you're lacking a story. I read your spoiler. I would've NEVER guessed that. The movie just kinda flew at me, and I had no clue what was going on.

Let me be the first to give you the best piece of advice you'll ever hear, regarding filmmaking:

WRITE

A

SCREENPLAY.

SPEND

SOME

TIME

IN

PREPRODUCTION.
Click to expand...

Yes I have a short attention span, if I didn't I would be more focused on one thing. But instead I'm the Student body vice president, a managing editor of the school paper, a 3-instrument multi-album musician, a 2-sport athlete and co-captain of the varsity tennis team... everything I do is all over the place. Sorry about my impatience here, I am more used to forums that move quickly.

Thank you in regards to the comments about camerawork and editing.
As for the story, I understand what you mean, but I have had plenty of people (i.e. one of the smartest guys and one of the dumbest girls I know) understand it without the spoiler -- others didn't, some do and some don't. Not sure what causes that at all though.


As for "write a screenplay"

This thing that I wrote 3 weeks ago?

HOME AGAIN
(to "what do you go home to?")
CAST
Crazy girl Briana
Friend ?

Fade in to the black screen with film title
Girl scribbling on paper at desk,
sets paper aside, pulls out diary
opens to a blank page, writes date
stares off into distance, smiles,
view onto a stuffed animal
she walks over to the animal, picks it up and smiles at it,
"You understand me, don't you?"
knocking at the front door, puts the animal down
answers door, her friend is there,
"Hey!"
"Hey! Come on in."
"What have you been doing?"
"Nothing, really."
Back in bedroom, both girls playing with stuffed animals [no sound], camera pans off and comes back to girl fixing new clothes for next day,
she runs outside and plays outside, looking at flowers and admiring nature etc.
comes back in later that day, scribbling on paper at desk. she smiles at the stuffed animal and walks over to pick it up.
"It feels so nice to be back home again, doesn't it?"
She smiles again at the animal and hugs it and sits down on the bed.

Fades to black, fades back in and she's sitting in front of a mirror
"You understand me, don't you?
Hey! Come on in.
Nothing, really.
It feels so nice to be back home again, doesn't it?"

FADE TO BLACK
END
 
Last edited:
threeplusnine said:
Writing, recording, editing took about 4 and a half hours on this one.
Click to expand...

This is far insufficient. You can do better. I mean this as a compliment. For some reason, it seems you've taken my critiques as attacks? You've got some skills. Now, stop pussyfooting around, and put some ACTUAL EFFORT into a movie. It takes a lot longer than a few hours to make a quality short.
 
Cracker Funk said:
This is far insufficient. You can do better. I mean this as a compliment. For some reason, it seems you've taken my critiques as attacks? You've got some skills. Now, stop pussyfooting around, and put some ACTUAL EFFORT into a movie. It takes a lot longer than a few hours to make a quality short.
Click to expand...

I don't feel attacked, sorry if I came off that way. I was simply explaining myself in regards to your critiques. As for actual effort/time... I don't have time and I don't have the money for gear for things like lights and shotgun mics etc. so I'm not familiar with how else to do things thats why I'm here for advice :P

oh & as for the time frame I'm talking total time. Writing the whole thing took about half an hour, over the course of a few weeks. Changes were made (as can be seen) even during filming -- and they were being made often before ever planning a day to film
 
Right.

The advice I'm giving is -- fuck your lack of equipment. Spend. More. Time.

You're fooling only yourself if you believe that you don't have more than 4.5 hours to spare for a short.

Cheers! :)
 
Cracker Funk said:
Right.

The advice I'm giving is -- fuck your lack of equipment. Spend. More. Time.

You're fooling only yourself if you believe that you don't have more than 4.5 hours to spare for a short.

Cheers! :)
Click to expand...

O.K.
what about preproduction?
I don't even know what that consists of

also -- thank you for your time, of course.
 
Last edited:
Ah, man, what have I gotten myself into? :)

Preproduction is everything you do before the cameras roll. That can mean a million different things, depending on the production. For a short like this, I would think you'd benefit by doing some storyboarding. Since you're new to this, I think storyboarding will really help visualize how it will look in post. Really put some thought into each and every shot. But that can only come after you've nailed down a solid sceenplay.

I can't over-emphasize how important screenplay is. It's one thing, if you're just wanting to do a silly sketch, or whatever. Shit, you can improvise that. But for something with a little more depth, like the short you just made, screenplay should be priority #1, and you should spend many days on it, at the very least.
 
what about preproduction?
I don't even know what that consists of


A LOT of things.
Including having virtually every shot already planned out before hand.
My last short (granted this included some set construction, a thourough casting process, and a LOT of art direction) I spent three months in pre-production. That's probably 20 to 25 hours a week minimum (I have a full time day job). So for a 25 minute short I spent 300 hours in pre-production. I also had a producer, an AD, and a co-executive producer working with me. They didn't do AS much as me, so let's assume all together they put in 300 hours as well. That's 600 man hours on a 25 minute short, and that doesn't include writing the script. That comes out to 24 hours of pre-production per MINUTE of screen time. Now every movie is different. Not every movie will need that much pre-pro, some will need more, but every movie needs some.
 
Okay...

Without the "spoiler" I would have had no idea what happened at the end. And that is a huge negative; storytelling is all about the payoff; if you have to explain anything that should be obvious you haven't done your job.
The big payoff of "The Sixth Sense" is that Dr Crowe is dead ("I see dead people").

Preproduction is organizing everything required to do a shoot and preparing for post production. This is where the shooting script and storyboards are done, casting is finalized, lists of props are put together, locations are scouted, equipment requirements are compiled, etc. Then the cast and department heads walk-through/talk-through the script with the director, the contracts for cast and locations are finalized, equipment and props are rented, the shooting schedule is finalized...

This is where you would have seen the weakness of your ending. Even though as director it's your project and your word is law - subject to the whims of the producers - filmmaking is a team sport. Your talent and craft people can make hugely important contributions to your project.

For the ending you could have had her being wrapped into straight jacket. In preproduction you would have known that you need a straight jacket (props/wardrobe), a big burly attendant (casting & wardrobe) and a "facility" (location scouting). How do you get there? Maybe she hugs daddy/mommy/friend (the illusion); the attendant pulls the arms of the straight jacket around her (the reality); the arm motions are the same. On the set you would have to duplicate distances, angles, etc. for a crossfade or whatever.

At this point with your limited resources it's okay to have wall-to-wall music, but at some point you will have to make a serious effort to delve into sound as a storytelling tool - Sound is half of the experience.

You do have a knack; now it's time to hone your skills. Put in some real time and effort on your next project. Yes, it's fun to dash something off, but serious filmmaking requires lots of preparation, planning and hard work.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top