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No Budget Short, Opinions?


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I've shot this 6 months ago, no budget, only a poor LED was used for lightning, rest is practicals. The LED had awful flickering which I realized too late and had to fix it on post, gave me incredible hard time, fortunately I "did" manage to fix it.

 

I did all the audio on post which also was another pain. Both helped me learn some lessons.

 

As you can see all shots are static, shot on a tripod, I didn't have a way to move my camera back then.

 

I sent this to a few free-to-apply festivals online, haven't received any feedback positive/negative. Most people seen it in real life somewhat liked it, most obviously praising it technically, saying it to be a bit slow, as expected.

 

I took some shortcuts while filming this, I had a few more scenes that I didn't film because I was lazy (more work/outside scenes), and I did most of the work including the post which was the most tedious part.

 

I extended my list of gear a lot since then and now I have a shoulder rig and arguably a great powerful LED (without flicker!) and learnt a lot about lightning.

 

I still have some needs most important ones being a smoother way to move the camera and record decent audio.

 

Obviously gear doesn't make the film, you do. This is just some information about my situation.

 

Right now I'm planning to shoot another short (got a bit sick of them, tbh) which will have more things going on and hopefully will be better technically as well, this time hoping to not take any shortcuts on shoot and hoping to offload some work from post.

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Just watched it. Nice work. Honestly, I'm not usually much into short films due to the difficulty in telling a story in that amount of time. Few short films can pull this off, and yours did. It actually kept my attention the whole time.

 

There is only one complaint I have, and it's not really a complaint - just something I noticed - the sound effects are a little over the top. They should be blended better into the scene so that they don't stick out, but appear natural instead.

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Thanks for sharing your work. I'm gonna be honest but not trying to be harsh. I'm going to talk about things that you could fix with what you have, not about impossible gear or knowledge.

 

One of the main problem is the sound, which in my opinion is the 50% of any audiovisual work. I know you put work on it, because you can tell you think about the sound you're going to use in post, but at the same time, you can tell, even without read your post, that you don't like to do the post production work. You can tell because the sound isn't mix (which take a lot of work and time) and because you take some shortcuts (for example, when you use the same foot step when the guy step on the wooden floor and on the carpet, in the first shots). At least you are honest with yourself and tell us in your post that you don't like the post production part. That's fine, you don't have to do all, but please find someone whom likes to do post and work whit that person, pay him (or her) o try to do some collaboration, if you are not willing to do it right yourself. Maybe the problem with the sound mixing is because you don't take the time to listen your final cut in different devices. Oh, and talking about post, I believe you can do some color grading to enhance some of the shots.

 

About the cinematography itself, I really like what you pull off with the light you have. Some shots looks kinda off to me, but is a framing problem. Like the shot of the door before the guy open it. I don't like the way you cut the peephole. I know you probably was thinking about the face of the guy when he opens the door, but you can fix that with blocking and framing, and the first thing your audience look is the peephole, not the guy. I don't like the framing of the clock because the right side is in the dark and the clock limit is not parallel to the frame, but maybe I just too picky here.

I really don't like that you use the same shot about the blonde guy waving like anyone would notice even if was the same shot 5 seconds ago. NEVER treat your audience like they were idiots, because is the fastest way to lose them

 

The rhythm is slow, is true, but to me is kinda a oniric type of story, not a realistic one, so it's fine. Maybe you could cut it a little more, but to me the rhythm is whatever the story call about it.

 

 

Again, great job and keep the good work. I'm trying to be honest because you submit this, but please don't take it in a harsh way because really is not the idea.

 

 

 

Bye!

 

P.S. Really was so important the faerie light for your story? To me, if you're going to do it, make it right (with light where the faerie is going to move, or a really good CGI work). If you don't want to do that, then you should find another way to make us understand the change in the life of the character.

Edited by Giacomo Girolamo
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