Dear Mr. Beethoven - ID# 144
Neuqua Valley
Division: A
Dramatic Narrative
Entry Description
A short film exploring how a young, deaf composer's struggles to keep his passion alive without hearing the piano and his music. Original composed by Naomi Keane.
Recent Teacher Comments
- 3/10 12:18 pm - SOUND. Authentic piano music was nice, and you had a clean recording of it, loved how when he was "feeling the music" the recording captured the muffled sound - nice touch. The music cut at 1:17ish seemed a little abrupt and out of place for the rest of your piece. There were moments where I felt like the sound sequences were not always matched (levels) to each other so keep an eye on that I tell my students the best way to catch that is looking at a meter, but more importantly use your ears, when you are checking your final piece take the headphones off and turn the volume down just enough so you can hear the basics, that way if something is to low, you will miss it (and know it has to be turned up) and if something pops to loud above your norm, you know to turn it down. STORY I really loved the concept of your story, but at times it was hard for me to grasp because it felt like it moved a little slow, so I found myself trying to guess or think ahead of the story and as a result maybe missing key elements. I guess what I am saying is it could have been more effective if it was a little shorter. I understand the movement to b&w and color however at times it became a little distracting as I kept jumping between perspectives (especially when combined with the title narrations). Maybe it is just me, but I found it hard to follow at times. CAMERA / VISUALS. You did a good job of taking a setting that has little movement and made your shots look diverse, but again the 5 minutes piece started stretching some of your shots that would become to familiar. Loved the shot near the end at 4:27ish but it was distracting to see his fingers didn't match up with what we were hearing. EDITING. It felt like there was a lot of stopping and starting with your video, and when you use titles like you do that will inherently happen (by the way nice font and "animation" to highlight words - nicely done). When you bridged the piano music under the titles that helped pull the pieces together, but it still seemed a little long in spots to tell the story you were telling.
- 3/9 8:20 pm - Opening is odd: the first slate seems like the title, but it’s not… The effects are predictable and cheesy- not very authentic. The B & W/color hearing/not hearing sequence is forced- it does not work organically. The titles are distracting. The text is conveying emotion, but the actor is not - no close ups or intense body language.. The score is powerful, and this is ambitious, but the narrative doesn’t work in the end.
- 3/6 5:29 pm - Audio levels on music seemed very hot initially, as did the beating heart sound effect. Be aware of your audio levels. As a rule of thumb, here’s your range: dialogue should be between -6 and -12 on the VU meter, sound effects, should be between -15 and -21, and music beds DURING dialogue should be between -18 and -24. Your use of titles instead of dialogue or voiceover was an interesting choice. The style of each title, or even the color, can be used to differentiate between different character’s voices. It seemed like you were trying to do this with the main character’s “voice” (his internal monologue titles were the ones that were shaky and electrified, I think), but the other titles should have been a different font or different color, to somehow differentiate. Your camera work, and your use of black & white and color, was very interesting. I liked how you used the color and absence of color to symbolize his mental state or his experience of music/sound versus his absence of music/sound. One tip, though: unless your actor is actually going to be playing the music, note for note and at the right tempo, you shouldn’t linger on shots of their hands playing the piano. Otherwise, people who know music (like me) will recognize that they are NOT playing the right keys at the right time. It’s like the equivalent of bad lip synching to a song. Cool story idea of a modern Beethoven experience.
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