"Train Wreck" - Music Video - Patricia Walczuk - 2018 - ID# 299

South Elgin

Division: AA

Music Video

Entry Description

A girl struggles dealing with the loss of someone close to her without knowing he's always with her in spirit.

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/13 11:44 am - Great opening image! While I liked it, I think some may find it distracting. Maybe try to build to this image rather than drop it on the viewer right away. Nice ghosting effects throughout. Very expressive. You definitely created a mood and you told a story with some subtlety. This is a difficult task in a music video. If you would had added in a few more steps to your grieving process beyond the writing, I think that could have improved your video.
• 3/7 2:41 pm - A compelling story with some good imagery. Really liked the bathtub scenes- gave a very errie sense to what was going on. The "ghost" scenes were creative- be careful with those, and consider using a mask on them as well at the opacity. Many of your scenes where you placed a ghost made the girl or the original foreground become blurry because you were adding another layer to the top of it. By using a mask, you can "mask off" the part you want to be ghosty so it doesn't effect the other parts of the shot. Had some really nice composition on some of the shots- good framing and though put into the shots. I think had the boy who was the ghost been singing the song it would have made it a lot more powerful, especially a guy who would have really gotten into the song with emotion. Brighten up the "light" to make it obvious she is seeing the light- but great idea. Overall, a solid video that could only be made stronger with a singer.

Judge 1

Positives: 1. You did a good job visually conveying that the young man had passed away and that his spirit is still near her. You took risks with abstract imagery to visually convey emotions and ideas of loss and sadness. 2. The pacing of the edit was nice. There weren't any edits that jumped out and took me out of the piece.

Improvements: 1. I think you could have added more variety to the story line. You could have shown more ways that his death leaves a void in her life. A majority of the piece was her writing in a notebook which visually does not say much. You could have shown her in her daily life in situations where she used to enjoy his presence/company. This would have also built a stronger emotional connection between both characters. This is just one suggestion to be used as an example of how you could expand the story line to keep the audience further engaged. 2. There were a couple shots where the VFX shot of the ghost could have been executed more cleanly. Specifically around 1:58 the effect is noticeable which can take the viewer out of the piece. One way to achieve these types of shots is through a split screen. In your execution of the effect, you can see a moving double image of the girl who is trying to remain still in both shots. Just keep the camera locked in one position, and get separate shots of each of them. Then split screen with a crop. However with a spilt screen, you can't have the two people overlap. If you want to have them overlap, then you start getting into rotoscoping which is more time and skill intensive.

Judge 2

Positives: A simple story effectively told. Within the first fifteen seconds I knew what was going on and it was easy to track from there. It's often hard to tell a simple story. Well done. Good use of different focal lengths, shallow depth of field, various locations. Interesting idea using the 50% opaque overlay technique.

Improvements: When more advanced equipment is not available to pull off double exposure techniques, you have to be VERY careful that your frames match up and the camera remains perfectly still and in exactly the same place otherwise you get the ghosting/doubling. Unless that was intended, it was distracting. It pulled me out of the narrative. It might be better to do split frames instead of overlay next time. It would've been nice to see the couple alive together and experience what she was missing instead of just seeing her loved one's ghost. Additionally, the writing a letter/poem narrative device was overused. It is a nice touch for a few shots, but ultimately it became repetitive and redundant to watch.

Judge 3

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Judge 4

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