MMEA 7-Day Film Challenge

John Hersey High School

Seven Day Challenge

Entry Description

John Hersey High School's 2016 submission for the Midwest Media Educators Association. Students had just 7-days to produce a video using a required prop in five distinct shots and one required line of dialogue. This year's challenge designated an unmarked flash drive as the prop and "look, up in the sky...what is that?" as the required line of dialogue.

Judge 1

Positives: The use of the flashback - the different color, the sound, and the transitions - worked well to sell him remembering what had happened. The ending reveal was pretty funny - actually a pretty great payoff that makes some of the earlier jokes a bit funnier even though we didn't realize it at the time.

Improvements: The two moments of tension - when they bump into each other and then when he barges in to get the flash drive back could've been a lot more tense. They felt fairly anticlimactic and you could've used music, sound effects, or just overall quicker cutting to heighten the tension in those moments. The use of the drone felt a bit unnecessary. It felt it was used more to show off the drone rather than as a useful plot point in the film. I know that you needed the required line of dialogue to be said and that the drone is a valid thing to point at in the sky, but it just felt a bit too staged.

Judge 2

Positives: Excellent use of a wide variety of locations to keep the story moving and the viewer interested. The integration of sound and music into the film is well executed and helps to delineate the different characters.

Improvements: The editing can feel too quick at times and perhaps the scenes could play out in less shots for longer amounts of time. The hook of the film comes in the very last shot of the film. Perhaps this could play out in more than one shot for a more comedic effect.

Judge 3

Positives:

Improvements:

Judge 4

Positives: This is a really creative story. I like the shot of them swapping flash drives. There are some good angles for shots used in the video.

Improvements: Why does he go and look at the file on his own, and not back to the person he was supposed to take it to? I am confused why was the first guy flying the drone over the girls, and why the one guy say "oh shoot". These are questions you want to answer for the viewer. You need to watch the sound on this, it echos a bunch and that is distracting.