Searching in the Shadows

Maine East

Seven Day Challenge

Entry Description

A man wakes up in a mysterious place and is soon on the run from a mysterious force... Audio and music courtesy of Sound Dogs and Audio Jungle.

Judge 1

Positives: Great effect when he gets hit - both the visuals and the sound sell it pretty well and help to give us the perspective of our character since we are as blind sighted by this as he is. The POV shots where we see our character's hand in frame as he explores this place and looks around a great. This is a really useful tool - especially for this story where he has no idea where he is and neither do we. It helps us to empathize with the character and understand how he's feeling.

Improvements: Be careful with your continuity. There were a few moments where your character had just slightly changed position which made the cut a bit jarring. For example, in the shot where the character is looking at his phone, he begins to bring the phone down, but the next shot starts only about a second earlier when he's still fully holding the phone up. There's another one when cutting from the wide in the pool to his close up where his body/head position is a little bit off. These are fairly subtle and are not far off from being a perfect cut on action - but fixing those will make the film feel much more polished. There is a lot that could be cut down between our character taking up and when he exits the pool area. That location doesn't serve too much of a purpose other than to confuse our character, so it could be much quicker. Basically, have him wake up, stumble around for about 30 seconds, find the flash drive and then he can leave. Yes, it builds some suspense to have him stuck in their for a while, but it moved too slowly and ended up losing tension.

Judge 2

Positives: Good use of music and sound effects to convey emotion to the viewer, especially during the chase scene. Creative and well wrapped up ending that explains both who the hooded figure was as well as the purpose of the chase

Improvements: While the use of the pool location to intensify a scene was well executed and visually interesting perhaps it could have been the final location instead of the starting one. To start in the school and end in the pool might heighten the drama. Some of the chase scenes felt long and drawn out with little increased tension or drama, perhaps more bad events could occur to the main character in opposition to him achieving his goal. " Torture your protagonist! "

Judge 3

Positives:

Improvements:

Judge 4

Positives: Good sound effects on this story. The opening sequence is pretty solid.

Improvements: The start moves too slowly, so it is hard for the viewer to get hooked into the film. You want to create a solid story for the main character so that the audience becomes invested, or cares about him. Try to give more time before he is knocked out, so that we can learn more about him. Also, watch out from lighting. In parts of the film it was very dark and it makes it hard to see emotion.