Connection - ID# 159

John Hersey High School

Dramatic Narrative

Entry Description

A young man has trouble coming to terms with the world around him.

Copyright Info

Royalty Free Music - Sad Piano Instrumentalhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htrS7rCAjMc 饼饼 Studio & Dyako - Wake Up! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBpeYh18v4g

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/16 7:54 pm - I think you did an excellent job conveying your story with your cameras. Great use of close ups, wide shots, reactions. I never doubted for a second what the main character was feeling throughout the story. Great job of subtly communicating the message you set out to do without hitting me over the head with it. Your music and sound effect again were really well placed because it told me what as a viewer I should be feeling and focused on. Two suggestions I have, one is simple at the end when you are trying to establish a pattern of a new life not that he has formed a connection change your shirt so you not always wearing the Spiderman shirt because otherwise it seems like things maybe just got good for one day, instead of it being a change of how he has lived life which brings me to my next point. I wrestled a little bit with the end, you did such an excellent job showing how the technology has aliened people from each other, how do we know the same won’t happen to him, it is as if he has given in to the one thing he hates (the technology) and now I am wondering if in time he will become like everyone else. I guess I would have liked to have seen what is he going to be doing different (perhaps a scene where you see him look her in the eye after the picture was taken and powering the phone off so they make a true connection). I think you did a great job, positive story, well done, and enjoyable to watch. So I watched your story again a few days later and caught that he seemingly the only one with an old “useless” flip phone. So, all my talk about him feeling alienated because he wanted to make a real connection may have been totally off, because he was instead jealous of everyone else. So I guess I am adding this comment to say if that one detail is missed or misunderstood it can leave your audiences misinterpreting your story. Assuming that was you story you should have had a scene of him opening his phone and not being able to do all that other stuff. Make something that important and key to your story obvious to your audience
• 3/10 11:12 am - Positives: Good job visually depicting how disconnected people can feel due to the dominance of social media in people's everyday lives. Areas for improvement: The opening shot at breakfast with the empty chair alluded to a missing parent or sibling, but perhaps it's a missing connection in general. Could use a bit more shot variety. Story is a bit simplistic in how it's resolved at the end. Perhaps another scene or two where the 2 character's lives intersect before they walk off into the sunset.
• 3/9 7:38 pm - plot line was interesting; good variety of shots

Judge 1

Positives: Nice beginning with the music, introducing our characters in an all too familiar setting - high school. Very good sound engineering illustrating the sounds of school and the environments surrounding the world. I like to portrayal of the hero in a more or less isolated state... observing the world from a lonely corner in the cafeteria and the feelings of loneliness.

Improvements: This could have been expressed in terms of a stronger setting... with production design elements reinforcing the 'aloneness' through careful use of colors and textures.... The introduction of the girlfriend in a colorful sweater was a nice touch and the entire film could have been more or less approached in a similar manner. Narratively speaking, he should have been more alone in his thoughts and feelings - shown and not told. I wasn't too sure about the 'theft' of the cell phone... needed to be a little more relevant.

Judge 2

Positives: The pacing of the editing with the music helped to convey the emotions throughout the film. The shot with the sun peeking through the trees and rays shining on his notebook was a nice touch.

Improvements: The lack of natural sound made the film seem very disconnected. If this was intential because of the concept that it works well. Otherwise, it was a distraction. Also, the lack of dialogue felt odd.

Judge 3

Positives: Effective theme. The scene where everyone is on a digital device and only communicating through electronic means is great. It's also a sad truth that you illustrated very well. I'd like to see more shots with the types of dynamic angles you had at :38 and :39. Those were not shot at eye level and composed extremely well.

Improvements: Consider shooting a lot more closeups and medium shots. Most of your project uses long shots so you are keeping your audience at a distance by doing that. It will also create the opportunity for more dynamic editing. For example, at about 10 seconds you hold a single shot for almost 20 seconds. You can use parts of that shot. Consider using 4 or 5 additional shots during that same screen time. Cover all of the same actions. But get different angles and shoot some closeups of some of those actions.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: