Two of my short films

Urian

I haven't seen threads posted about short films before, but I just wanted to put this out here anyway and get some input from you guys. Hopefully there isn't some "film" thread I'm missing, if so I apologize. These are two little movies I made with my canon T1i DSLR last year that got me into film school, one of em a music video the other a documentary. Thanks for watching.

What Heaven Allows: http://vimeo.com/7623000

The Contractor: http://vimeo.com/6497307

Crit's are welcome, but first I'll lay out the crit's I'm already extremely aware of. Some of the cuts in the music video are off with the music timing, it's an easy fix I've just been lazy. The Contractor has a lot of shots that should go on longer, but didn't because either my dad would call me or move out of the shot if a shot was on him. Even though it is a documentary I wanted it to feel like a film.

Dr Sanchez

I watched both of your films. You have an interesting style, and have found exquisitely beautiful shooting locations.

What Heaven Allows

Honestly? I didn't understand this, it was a sequence of landscape and first person walking shots. I know you've mentioned that the cuts are not polished, but the pacing did not start off well, I almost immediately lost interest with the long shot of the plane taking off (40 seconds was way too long). It just feels like random shots thrown together in no particular order.

Technically it's good in terms of aperture, and focus (except for one of the walking shots where focus seems to shift suddenly) The camera work, for the static shots? Awesome, you have a really good eye for framing landscapes. Hand held, is overly shaky, and very noticeable when you are not using a tripod (I'm sure you know that, but switching between static and hand held shooting styles doesn't flow well). Compared to the static parts, the hand held walking down the roads seemed really amateur.

I didn't really notice that the editing didn't match for the music, just because except for cutting on the beat, generally, there is very little you can do with landscape shots with little/no action in them for a music video. I will say that the shot of the guy (you?) walking up the hill when the music starts to build was particularly effective.

I'm being really harsh here, maybe it is supposed to be open to interpretation? I don't know, I'm very tired.

The Contractor

If this wasn't called The Contractor, up until the five minute mark with the phone call at the building site, I would have had no idea what was going on. And even then I wasn't really sure. It just wasn't clear.

The film really needed a stronger narrative, similar to your first film, nothing is really happening. At the beginning, just some sort of explanation on what is going on, who he was and what he is trying to do to bring some context would have been hugely beneficial.

I'm sure you already know this, and I know all too well how difficult sound recording is for this type of shoot. But the first half in the shop and car are really poor audio wise. Especially whilst he is talking with the radio on (had no idea what I was supposed to be listening to). I am assuming in the second half you are using radio mics? The audio quality in the second half is very strong.

This is a real nitpick, but I could occasionally hear your fingers against the side of the camera on the building site.

Good overall shooting style, there were times where it was weak, where the camera was just sort of drifting off during hand held shots? Your static shots however are still gold.

One particular edit that really didn't work for me; The last two shots, you cut from a mid close up, to a more angled mid close up of the contractor. These angles aren't different enough and the cut doesn't work. Each cut needs to tell us something new. Just off the top of my head, it would be much more effective if you went from the mid shot to a wide shot providing us with a location, then closing to credits.

Congrats on getting into film school by the way. Do you mind me asking which one you got into?

Urian

Thanks for the words, Sanchez, I'm in complete agreement of pretty much everything you said. Not that I'm saying I'm a genius or anything, but most of the issues pretty much came from not using any money at all on either movie. If these were proper productions they would have both been fully realized. I'll talk about what you brought up, this will be long so forgive me.

What Heaven Allows was just me filming stuff I found interesting on a hike in Scotland. The reason I went to Scotland in the first place was for myself, not all to make a movie, that idea just kind of came in when I got to the highlands and realized how beautiful it all was. What I was going for in that music video was to establish atmosphere, and the long opening shot was to kind of ease the viewer into a trance-like state, almost. I was dictated by the music so the opening was longer than I wanted, though I did want to start with that shot even from the pre-planning state (pretty much just brainstorming) which happened about halfway through my 2 week trip. A re-edit might be a good idea to establish the "journey" aspect of it instead of a disorganized series of images, but the overall objective was atmosphere and some kind of sense of place. The amateur movement shaky-camera parts were for kinetics, once again dictated by the song. I didn't like those shots either but I didn't know what else to use or even shoot in the moment. But then again, like I said, just being there was why I went and I didn't really take filming as seriously as I should have. I could have used my tripod way more than I did and done a much better job all around if I went into with the mind to make a movie, but I didn't. I'd love to go back with a better quality DSLR and maybe two lenses and possible even a proper mic and do something better. Oh, and yes the only person you ever see in it was me. In fact, I was the only human being out where I was hiking on all 3 days I hiked. It was amazing.

The Contractor was a similar deal. I went out with my dad on one day of work and pretty much shot as much as I could, and I only had one battery so I had to be conservative with how much I had the camera on. The only tools I had, like my other movie, was the camera and the lens. It has a directional mic built-in, so no radio mics were used. It picks up audio pretty well in close shots. I could make an entire essay about how many things I wanted to be different, how many things I wanted to add. I'm actually writing a feature-length script about this subject and my Dad and all that. Thank you for the tips about the shots, I actually haven't thought about some of the cuts you mentioned. Cinematography is actually what got me interested in filmmaking in the first place, years and years ago. I'm looking forward to learning about the ridiculous complexities involved in realizing what's in my head into the real world in film school. Lighting, cameras, lenses, all the technical stuff. Learning to be a proper director will also be fun.

I got accepted into the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. I'll be starting in september, though I haven't gotten financial aid info yet but I figure that should work out fine. It's about a 2 hour drive from my house, so I'll be living up there but it's near enough that I'll get to go home on every break. It's an amazing school, very very expensive but It's probably the best place for me aside from UCLA and any other equally impossible places to get into. Zack Snyder and Tarsem Singh are ACCD alumni, so that's also nice. Michael Bay is too but he's not exactly an influence for me..

edit: I'm watching What heaven allows again and yeah you're so completely right about the handheld static's not working. No excuse to not have used a tripod in a lot of those shots. Well, live and learn.

edit 2: And regarding the last two shots, again I know exactly what you mean and I've actually been thinking of doing a re-edit and just taking out that last shot and cutting to credits with the mid-close. The last shot just feels awkward when closing out the shots that came before it, though on it's own I do like it.

ಠ_ರೃ

Urian, you got to avoid these shots where you just film a character's back all the time as they are walking through a scene, as in The Contractor. Be more aggressive and get in front or find some other creative angle.

Urian

I would have loved to do that, and will next time I'm in a situation like that.

Also, Sanchez, I put together a little movie kind of summarizing my trip to Europe, it only reuses 3 shots from the music video but it's much easier to follow and actually has something of a narrative. Here it is: http://vimeo.com/10794303

Dr Sanchez

OK, I just watched it. And you're right, it is more clear, a summary of your trip to europe. It does that. There isn't a narrative here though. At all. Did you intend there to be?

I like your music choices however, and I was really hoping music was going to kick in at some point...

The audience this film is aimed for would be people who ask, 'hey, how did your trip to Europe go?' And with this film you could show them. Because without a narrative, the film of your trip is essentially a slideshow of photographs you've taken while abroad. There's no hook to keep people watching to the end.

On a technical note, the only major problems were the wind blowing against the mic in some of the outdoor shots. And the audio popped on occasional cuts. And you know my feelings on handheld walking shots.

I liked the shots in the airport.

Are you at film school now? These films were made half a year ago. Do you have anything new?

Also, you mentioned you used a directional mic for the Contractor. When he is talking to the guy getting into the digger(?) the audio quality and levels remain the same for both in shot, even though they are at least 20 feet apart. Good camera mic I suppose.

Urian

I think the opening establishes some sort of narrative as well as impetus for the images to come. It may be a very very thin narrative, but it still is one. Guess it comes down to personal definition.

The sound of the wind was intentional, it (at least to me) builds atmosphere. And I haven't shot anything new since October, no. I did what I set out to do, which was get accepted into school, and now I'm basically just writing and getting other things done before September comes, which is when I start up school. Knowing that i'll be making movies with proper tools, technology, and manpower come September makes me ambivalent about doing anything else with the T1i. I really enjoyed doing the stuff I've shown here, and I think they get across some general sensibilities, but once I have real stuff to work with this will all seem like a joke.

Jimpy

Whether you know this already or not, your handheld is pretty good. Just the right amount of bounce to make it natural. Like someone said before though, even if it is on the fly, you still need to compose your shots. Don't be afraid of making it 'fake' and getting cutaways of faces etc because people won't notice.

You'll notice any show that uses handheld to make it look real compose their shots and have quick edits to make it more natural. MTV is pretty big with this and you'll notice that there shows that try to be 'free and natural' actually have a rhythm which can be seen in all the episodes (cribs etc [however cribs is more steadicam]).

For the first one all I can say is remember the locations. These would be good for stock footage in commercials you could do later on in life.