Bike Race Walking - ID# 154

Metea Valley

Comedic Narrative

Entry Description

Missing out on sports and dwelling on the postponement of the Summer Olympics, two friends get caught up in a little friendly competition. Music: Survive The Montage, A Night Alone, & Cocktail Hour, Courtesy of YouTube Audio Library

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/29 1:32 pm - Some great shots to begin with and nice little set-up with the competition. Nice use of editing to tell the story. Could use a little more set-up to why we have a bike race walk, though. The anchors were a lot of fun but could use some video of the anchors themselves. Nice athlete shots on the track, some good reactions and close-ups. Really steady shot at the end. I would have loved to hear some audio from the athletes on the track and even a bit of narration from them. Nice punchline at the end.
• 4/27 10:15 am - Successful - Nice cinematography and camera moves. The script and overall concept is funny. Good acting all around. Lots of comedic details. Needs Work - Clearly this is kind of an absurd story, but I wanted to know why they were walking the bikes. A single funny line of dialogue would do that and make this even tighter.
• 2/22 12:34 pm - Interesting approach and some funny concepts. Great play by play for the bike race. Good transitions and use of graphics.

Judge 1

Positives: This video genuinely made me laugh out loud! Great spoof on sports television. Hilarious dialogue from the commentators, and really good use of arcane humor. The writer(s) may want to consider copywriting as a career path. Well executed variety of shots, and solid editorial flow. Inventive prop selection and good pairing with casting. Great job!

Improvements: The practical camera shake for the dream sequence didn't help much - just a post solve would be fine. The camera work at the starting line could have been a little stronger - better framing on the bike walkers with close ups on their determined faces would have nailed the humor better. The ending could have been a little bit stronger - would have liked something to wrap it up a little more in a way that tied back to missing the Olympics due to Covid, or maybe hinted at the future of bike walk racing as a new Olympic sport...

Judge 2

Positives: This was a very visually engaging short, with a lot of great visual gags. Love those big tires. The shot of the contestants lining up in that staggered formation was excellent. The various styles and sizes of bikes definitely make things more fun as well. The announcer VO was well executed and funny. Great use of those sports graphics. The music selection was very appropriate during the race portion.

Improvements: In terms of character development, there isn't a ton of that. There's enough for a short comedy film of this nature, but it might have helped if you had set up more of a clear cut competition between Ben and Charles in the intro/Go Fish sequence. Or something else to mark a clear change in the character(s) before the end of the film. Again, I'd argue that is less important with comedy, but it will definitely engage the viewer more. This is a bit of a nitpick, but maybe you could add a slow motion gun sound effect into the start of the race and the replay, just so there's something more concrete to reference as the infraction that disqualifies Ben. Overall, very funny and looks like it was a ton of fun to make. Great work!

Judge 3

Positives: Very well produced--the actors were believable and had fun with it

Improvements: The announcers' audio was a little hot at times and the storyline was thin at times, but overall it was very well done and humorous

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: