'Redemption' - A Short Film (HV30)

[jakenbocker]

Below is my first short film, 'Redemption', shot with a Canon HV30 and edited in Premiere Pro and After Effects. I wrote, directed, filmed, and edited the film for a school project.

Let me know your thoughts on the film and its execution. I fully realize the film is far from perfect, and that is hard for me as a perfectionist. The great thing about this site is the feedback and constructive criticism, so I appreciate any and all responses that I receive.

Here is the video posted on Vimeo. Enjoy!

[mark84j]

That was unbelievable, sir.

[Fade to inferno]

wow this was your first short? very very impressive. Extremely well done, Great story, amazing cinematography. Very impressive indeed.


I really like your camerawork, you have that down to almost a mastery. The color correction is excellent too, the colors are so vivid and saturated. How did you color correct it?


You biggest flaw is obviously Sound. There are few major problems.

The voices are so blatantly ADR (sometimes it's out of sync) that can work against you cuz it's a little distracting from enjoying the short. It's hard to find a remedy for this. It may have been caused by the mic being too close to the actors during your voiceover work. I can hear the bass and pound on the mic whenever they say things with power.

The voices are really clean, that's both a good thing and a bad. I love how clear it sounds BUT its too clear. there has to be some noise through out the whole thing or we can hear when the dialogue comes in. The silence feels almost unnatural so we need some kind of ambient noise.

Speaking of ambience I notice you had ambience sound when they're arriving at the park and when he goes to make the first basket the park ambience drops out. I'm not sure if it was done on purpose, but my personal opinion is to leave the park ambience in the whole time.

I would like to hear some foley for the montage of them playing basketball. If not, then at least for when cody goest to make the first shot. The foley footsteps when his friend (the one trying to convince him not to shoot himself) approaches on wood flooring doesnt work. It sound awkward, I think you can find something better online.


Well that about does it for me. Sound is your biggest and really only flaw. Everything else is great and really impressive. Thanks for sharing

[jakenbocker]

Hey hey, mark84j and Fade to inferno, I'm very glad you both liked the film. That means a lot to me as a first time filmmaker. Yes, this is my very first film of any kind, short or feature. I've done some filming and editing for fun, but this was my very first time writing and directing. As for the cinematography, I'm glad you liked it. Although not perfect, I tried to make it as versatile as possible. I used a Hague Mini-Motion Cam stabilizer for most of the moving shots. Due to a lack of a 35mm adapter, I was also hoping to prove a point that you don't have to have a short depth of field to create a good film, although it would be a nice option! All color correction was done within Premiere Pro CS4. I used mostly the effects 'brightness and contrast' and 'fast color corrector', since I didn't have enough time to take my project into After Effects. The color of the footage was actually quite incoherent, which I tried to fix the best I could.

As a side note, all footage was shot 24pf and had to have pulldown removed, and all slow motion is 60i footage deinterlaced and converted to slow-mo. This took an extremely long time and took up a HUGE amount of space on my external hard drive because of the lossless files exported from After Effects.

I know sound has been my biggest issue on this project. Audio is not my strong point, so I decided to look around for some help on this project. A girl I know offered to do foley and sound mixing on the project because she wanted to gain more experience. Obviously, it is a very difficult task for someone just starting out. For ADR, I was hoping she was going to make it sound more natural, but she said she didn't know how to do this. Now that my 'official' deadline has passed (I turned it in for a school project), I can tweak some details of the film for a final version, and I'd like to fix as many sound problems as I can.

As for lines out of sync, I don't think any at the park can be fixed. However, if there are any particular dialogue issues in the gun sequence, could you name a few so I can fix them? I may be having trouble noticing them because I've watched them a hundred times.

Also, you said that there isn't enough ambient noise for the dialogue. Are you mainly referring to the gun sequence in the house? I actually thought that the ambient sound (a refrigerator track) was a bit loud and I was going to tone it down, as well as the dialogue itself...

I think I will definitely add the ambience of the park back during Cody's first shot. For some reason my foley artist didn't add in footsteps for Cody running, so since I was on a deadline, I just made that short segment silent with music, but I can add that in now.

Last but not least, you said that the friend walking on the wood floor sounded awkward. I know that the foley artist used the same sound repeatedly. You said I could find something better online...does that mean the sound just isn't a good fit foley-wise?

Fade to inferno, I really appreciate your compliments as well as your constructive criticism. This is exactly what any filmmaker needs to improve on his or her craft. I look forward to hearing back from you soon on these issues. Thanks again!

[Snazzy Flapper]

Okay, since everyone else seemed to blow smoke up your butt, I'll drop a honesty bomb on you. Of course, all film is subjective, so these are comments I would make about my own work. Your intent and interpretation will vary.

The black intro for 40 seconds was way too long. You could have shown us other things in his environment that build up the mystery. Holding on black felt forced and a weak choice. I was convinced this was a rendering error at first.

Why would the guy hide a gun in his jacket when he's alone in a room? Didn't make sense. Pulled me out of the story asking that question.

The older guy was the stronger actor of the two. The kid's dialog was really unnatural and forced. He needed more direction.

The lighting on the kid in a few of the shots was really hot, and he was as pale as ghost. His older brother never looked nearly as bad as the kid did.

The zoom shot into the back of the kid while running didn't work for me. It felt gimmicky.

The tight show on the kid turning around to see if his brother caught up looked really out of place and inconsistent with the edit.

The outdoor piano music sounded like an insurance commercial. Sappy and inappropriate.

The moving shot around the back of the young kid (3:30) is pointless. We see nothing and it doesn't serve the story. Just kills time.

Cody was a dolt to not see a massive bus approaching him on a street with almost no obstructions. Given the environment and that didn't make sense. Maybe he could have looked back or something, or been distracted? I would have shot that tighter and maybe with a visible tree that would indicate he couldn't see the bus. Then the cut to him in the street its obvious the kid would have seen the bus, which was 90 to his side and making a lot of noise. This felt like a cheesy setup.

The audio from the guy outside of the door needs equalized to sound like it was on the other side of the door. It sounds like he's in the same room. And the high angle shot on him cut oddly with the straight on shot of Matt.

The door busting open was sissy. He didn't kick it in. Did he tap it? What did you mean to imply here? Why didn't he just turn the handle and open it? Oh, actually you can see it wasn't even closed in the cut. I didn't understand your intention here.

How did the guy know Matt was sitting on the floor in the kitchen? He bee-lined right to him, as if he knew he was there for some reason. There was no audio queue like whimpering from the kitchen that would have clarified this.

I found his friends dialog pretty pretty forced sounding. All of the dialog between the two was spot-on-the-nose. And his pacing was really slow. No sense of urgency to anything he said.

Really? Who would ask who threw the ball? People call me an lalalalalalala and I'd never THINK of asking anything that revealing to someone who's suffered a loss. That felt really implausible.

You bumped the camera at 8:30.

The set decoration on the wall at 8:55 really distracts from the guy. I would have pulled those items off the wall. It competes with the actor for my attention.

And yeah, your audio needs massive work. There's almost never ambient sound, which sounds really wrong and makes your story more of a surreal fantasy.

Hope this helps.

[mark84j]

Snazzy Flapper - a name synonymous with wisdom.

[liverpool 1]

Flippin hell Snazzy dont be to hard apart from the blck screen start it was excellent...

[Snazzy Flapper]

Never claimed to be wise, "mark84j". Just sharing my opinion. The OP said he's a perfectionist. Telling him the movie is "awesome" is dishonest and not helpful.

The poster can take the suggestions or leave them, but in my opinion they all represent items that could be better polished/addressed in the film. They're things I would personally address if my name were on the project.

[jakenbocker]

@Snazzy Flapper,

Thank you for your blunt honesty. Knowing these things is definitely going to help me grow as an artist, although they can be a little 'embarrassing' to hear sometimes, but that's part of the process. I actually noticed a lot of these things when shooting and editing the film. The point is, some of these things can be fixed for a final version, and some of them can't. Many of the 'awkward edits' came from inexperience with flow of a scene, not having enough footage in editing, and not having enough time for foley/music. Now that I have a list of some things to go on, I will be better suited for a new render and also for things to be aware of and do better about next time. I do appreciate your input, and I don't feel that any of them were pointless whatsoever. They all have truth to them, and sometimes it takes someone else's eyes to see something the artist can't.

[dc7ks]

I personally thought snazzy falpper's comments were good especially since he gave like real input instead of just...this film sux...

I thought it was pretty good. Some of the shots and sequences like the basketball montage went on too long. It was also seemed like you reused the clips multiple times in the scenes with the where the kid is about to get hit by the car. It thought the kid was the best actor in the whole thing btw. But overall, you managed to hold interest and tell a story. Great job!

[Snazzy Flapper]

Jakenbocker,

I'm glad to hear your receptive to all types of feedback. There are more filmmakers out there than there should be who get offended if they hear anything other than praises and kudos. You're off to a great start and indeed well on your way. Looking forward to seeing more from you.

[jakenbocker]

Thank you Snazzy Flapper. Here's how I think of it: any audience of a film is going to feel no sympathy for the filmmaker for his shortcomings. They are going to walk away from that film with a certain impression in their minds, and they're not going to care what effort went into the film if it had too many flaws. Even the smallest little inconsistency or imperfection is going to stand out like a sore thumb, and as many of those need to be eliminated as possible. Those are the things that people like you point out. And being that I AM a perfectionist, that makes me want to do it that much better next time, and improve on it, rather than make the same old crap because I can't take criticism.

What you've said has made me more motivated. Even though all filmmakers wish their films could be flawless, I think the ideal situation just starting out is to have somebody say, 'Here are your shortcomings, but despite these shortcomings, you have a great start.' Those right there are the golden words, and I am very thankful for that.

[Fade to inferno]

Lots of good points snazzy flapper.

a couple of them I feel would be answered by "its just a movie..." tho. You remind me of a friend of mine who hates the movie iron man because he knows the physics behind flight and jets, and gets turned off because iron man obviously flies and he says the method in which he does it in is IMPOSSIBLE. of course everytime i bring it up i say "dude, its just a movie"

[Fade to inferno]

bring it up i say "dude, its just a movie"

woops meant everytime he brings it up.