Art of Thievery

Highland Park

Seven Day Challenge

Entry Description

One student is willing to go to far extremes in order to turn in his project on time. Will he succeed?

Judge 1

Positives: The quick cuts of the student trying to export his project - grabbing the flash drive, plugging it in, and then all of the CU's on the computer screen - worked well to quickly and efficiently tell us what was happening while still allowing us to follow along with what the student was trying to do. Cutting from the computer screen showing the video and timeline within FCP 7 to the actual footage from the video was a nice way to put us in the seat of our character and really letting us see what he is seeing. This, along with the inserts of the computer screen that come later give us a good sense of the character's POV.

Improvements: Some of the dialogue felt a bit over modulated. Since there were so few lines in the piece, it would have been great to have the recordings be clean and clear, but the sound quality didn't feel as strong as it could have been. I like how short and sweet this piece was, but there could have been more of a build up that led the character to knocking out his classmate. Yes, we see him try and fail at exporting twice, but there could have been a series of quick cuts between the student, the teacher looking at him, and the clock ticking to build tension that would lead him to such drastic measures. I agree that it makes the piece comedic, but it goes zero to one hundred in too short of a time span. There could have been a bit more time establishing this strict time limit and the consequences that would've resulted if he didn't finish the project in time.

Judge 2

Positives: The goal of the main character was very well articulated in a concise fashion and the sound design was cohesive throughout the film. The repetitive 'elevator like' music added tension. The time limit on the goal of the lead character also raised the stakes of the narrative creating more drama. The Camera work was well thought out in terms of concise and meaningful shot selection.

Improvements: The sound design could be improved by adding a ding, like the one heard at the beginning of the film when the "disk was not ejected" sign comes up on the computer to the end, indicating to the viewer, without needing to show that the flash drive, while new, still won't work. The 180 degree line is crossed several times in the film, making the layout of the room and the events that play out unclear in their spatial relations to one another.

Judge 3

Positives:

Improvements:

Judge 4

Positives: Good. Freaking. Editing. That's a really good skill Falberg, hone that thing to a razor point. Really well acted too. It was fun.

Improvements: Tweak that sound. Your sound effects could be better, and those audio clips on Mr. Teacher were not kosher. The computer being off felt very out of nowhere, didn't make sense in the story, and it lacked the humor of the rest of the film.