8 - ID# 121

Lake Forest

Music Video

Entry Description

8 by Billie Eilish

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/30 7:23 am - I enjoyed that this was shadowy and visually darker. I liked that you focused on the people without focusing on the people fully. There were some slightly out of focus shots at the beginning, some of them worked for what I think you were going for, but a couple of them felt a little off. I would have liked to have seen the guy lip syncing a little closer up at the table. Nicely done music video.
• 3/12 3:52 pm - "Clean close ups, wide shots, and static shots. Use of shadows were beautiful. Overlaying images after your pro passed as well as the fake bloodout had a cool effect." One shot was a little out of focus which may have been intentional, that said it was very professional and clean

Judge 1

Positives: I thought the lip sync was well done. You colors were interesting/ intriguing as well.

Improvements: The story did not fit with the music for me. Though you showed great skill with sound, camera, and lighting, I thought the murder happened abruptly.

Judge 2

Positives: One element that I think worked fairly well was your use of the color red. When we first see her eyes... her hair clips and drink... these both foreshadow something happening and the eventual red tint that occurs after she collapses validates those signs. I also enjoyed the super shallow focus of your camera and the decision to leave a lot of the frame out of focus in a handful of shots. This device can be misused so easily but it looks like you had a fairly well thought-out shot plan.

Improvements: So, the video is fairly creepy. Which is not a bad thing, necessarily! But I kept waiting for the story to have some sort of twist at the end that shows us why he decided to poison her or give us some sort of justification for what we just saw... but the video ended and I'm left thinking that I just witnessed a fairly straight forward, kinda boring, regular ol' murder. Which, again, isn't necessarily a bad thing! But... your shock factor goes down significantly without context. This video is creepy, but it could be WAAAAY CREEPIER with more of a story. Secondly, seeing you lip-sync to the song completely took me out of the head space I was in. It went from creepy to campy and I don't think it did your story any favors. and the last word you mouthed was not in sync with the audio. Seems like a minor error but minor errors tend to be the things viewers get stuck in their head. When you finish a project, I'd definitely suggest letting other people view it and give you notes before you sign off on it completely. Other people sometimes can see the most obvious things that an editor can't because they're too close to the project. There's a ton of potential here. I would suggest watching more classic horror films to learn about things like suspense and surprise. Alfred Hitchcock was a master of these things. M Night Shyamalan is a more modern version of Hitchcock. But if you really want to learn how to make effective films (any genre), watch everything Stanley Kubrick ever made. (Once you're old enough, of course!) Also, for fake blood... mix red (and a tiny bit of green!) food coloring into corn syrup with a little water to thin it to your liking. That's what the pros still use!

Judge 3

Positives: I liked the lighting choices early on, especially the use of shadows. When the lead actor started "singing" in synch, that was a nice surprise.

Improvements: I don't love the violence against women and serial killery story. Also, while there were some shots that seemed to show selective focus, there were too many that were just out of focus.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: