Harold the Hostage Taker - ID# 471

New Trier

Dramatic Narrative

Entry Description

Harold, a lonely child inspired by a TV show, will take a hostage to be friends with.

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/5 7:24 pm - You made a great story, but I have to be honest I don’t walk away wowed by the camerawork, editing, or sound. Your cute kid totally stole the show. You did an excellent job coaching him, getting him to do exactly what he needed to however there were many technical aspects that got overlooked shaky camera, editing at a pace that at times was a little long, and few sound issues. I love the story, it was original and had a nice twist I didn’t see coming. You clearly made a great investment in pre production, clean up some of the production and post production oversights and it will be a masterpiece.
• 3/2 5:16 pm - First rule of filmmaking: DON’T WORK WITH KIDS OR ANIMALS. You clearly broke this rule and have some pretty good results to show for it. How the heck did to get Harold to not look in the camera? Amazing. You seriously got a great performance out of a 4(?) year old. I’m honestly impressed. Some of your filmmaking is little rough. Your lighting in particular could use some work in your interior shots. But you have some interesting compositions and some cool and fairly fluid camera movement. Your audio was similarly rustic. When the music cut out at the end of the TV show, I was thinking it might be cool to have it resume as he started getting ready to go take some hostages. Like we’re hearing the soundtrack in his head. Might work, might not. You take good advantage of the jungle gym and get a couple of inspired shots. I thought it was weird when the first girl just turned around and went the other way- doesn’t seem entirely logical. But the payoff with the dog actually works very well for me. Super cute kid, super cute dog, and this simple story wraps up nicely and feels complete.
• 2/25 11:24 am - STORY: Interesting idea with the kid and the dog. It took a long time to get to the dog at the end part, but at least you had a storyline that brought it all together with a conclusion. Maybe the first third of the story could have been faster, so you get to the outside scenes and ultimately the dog with a better pace. SOUND: Sound was good for the most part; you had the kid's dialogue, the TV show sound, the exterior ambience, and even a little music bed. Nicely mixed. CAMERA: Your shots were pretty solid; clean, good headroom, nice mix of close ups and wider shots to establish location. The shot FROM the TV show to the living room was well done. LIGHTING: First couple shots of the toys were great, but the shot of the kid is way too dark. If you're using the window as a primary light source, you still need to add some fill light in - either with a light fixture OR bounce the sunlight coming through the window onto your subject. EDITING: Overall your editing was fine - no glitches or choppy edits. The TV show thing was cool - nice effect. Not sure why you made it look SO distorted; kind of overkill. The exterior sequence with the kid trying to get people to stop was okay for pacing of the edits, but it really came together toward the end when he discovered the dog. The crosscutting between the dog and the boy sealed the deal.

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