Love Knows No Language - ID# 124

Crown Point

Division: A

Documentary

Entry Description

A group of strangers come together to travel to and orphanage in Guatemala called NPH. With their unfamiliarity, the group grows closer as they create relationships

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/24 8:54 pm - Is this story about the natives or the visiting high schoolers? How about profiling natives with some interviews? There should be an interpreter there. We need to hear the native kids & parents speak – if the story is really about them.
• 3/8 4:28 pm - Opening starts strong, but feels a little long for this duration. Beautiful shooting, but disappointing to have first dialogue/context start at 1:21. The people do not participate or have a voice - only the Americans? Why don’t the local people get to speak for themselves? Fade to black transition is awkward. Some choppy audio cuts. What do the Americans do? What services are provided? Very little exposition about what the program offers the orphans and what the services are valuable. I hesitate to say, but I feel the orphans are simply being aestheticized.
• 3/5 3:53 pm - I love your footage. Fantastic broll. I really admire your sense of composition and sense of framing. Your interviews are beautiful. I am blown away by what I saw! What's missing is story: I wish I got to know a little more the people you talked to. Who are they? What are they doing there (as in: why did they choose to help), especially because you have not spoken to a single kid and I wish you did. So the end falls apart because you the filmmaker, don't really know what you are telling us the story about! - the last sentence of your description- that's a solid idea for a doc. The language barrier - we should have seen it and see how the two groups overcome it to build relationships. You are talented! Keep on making films!

Judge 1

Positives: Beautiful Open well shot and paced. Great use of broll to cover and the music worked well.

Improvements: Consider taking a little more time on the detail of audio levels and audio edits. Although the open was beautiful, I would have considered making it shorter - I feel like there was so much more story to be told. I assume this was a short version of a longer doc. In the future, please consider using natural sound on all broll - it adds to the emotion and feeling - it really helps transport the viewer. The lighting on the interview was clearly natural light, consider using a reflective surface or white card to bounce light onto the face of the interview subject.

Judge 2

Positives: Excellent cinematography/camera movement. Great use of music.

Improvements: Sound needed better mixing of levels.

Judge 3

Positives: The interviews are well directed with thoughtful questions posed. Outstanding camera work in terms of movement and flow with excellent shots chosen to illustrate what the speakers are saying. The ending shot of the child putting a hand over the camera is lovely.

Improvements: Sometimes the time lapse is unnecessary, such as the shot where only the electrical wires show the time lapse. The fade out/fade in in the middle of the film detracts from the flow. Especially in such a short film a straight cut would be a stronger choice.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: