Last Call - ID# 79

Highland Park

Dramatic Narrative

Entry Description

A friendship breaks up over the phone.

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/29 5:14 pm - I really appreciate that the story was dialogue driven. This is rarely executed well in a high school short. I was engaged the entire time. Some of the movements and shots were impressive. However, the going in and out of focus did not work. With performances, it is always tricky, but some blocking ahead of time could have gone a long way. I'm not sure what type of camera you were working on, but manual focus would have worked much better for the pacing phone call. Even when manual goes out of focus, it looks better than the robotic rack focus. The performances were very strong. Again, I admire that you went the performance route. You also had your fair share of stylistic shots characteristic of a short. Very impressive direction in terms of performance. The pacing of the dialogue was almost spot on. That editing was impressive. However, there was some unnecessary variety in the shots of the character that was angry. This took away from, not added to, the dialogue driven short. The color and tone in the two different locations felt unintentionally different. The phone call's believability made up for this. I'm not sure if it is the case, but it felt like the two scenes were shot on totally different cameras. Excellent dialogue. It is significantly better than what is typical of a high school short. Lean into this writing skill and develop your stories further.
• 3/10 8:25 am - I think this was a creatively written story, because it really seemed like there were two conversations going on at a time, and I thought that aspect was well done. But audiences want to know who to root for, and I never felt that resolve even after the video. Not that I have to know the details of what they were fighting about or who was wrong, but after a while I didn’t care because the story never moved forward. Max to me came off a little like a jerk, because he was so bossy and demanding. He wanted something from Colin, but was not at all willing to give the simple thing that Colin was asking for, which was to be heard. So I felt sorry for Colin, but then I began to wonder what horrible thing did he do that made Max so mad. I got pieces of it, but Max shut him down everytime, maybe it was something that made him equally jerky. I felt like your characters represented what you wanted well - Max was fed up, Colin was really sorry. However, after a while of these two going back and forth, and not being sure of who was really in the wrong, I just stopped caring. If you want your audiences to care about your story, they have to care about the characters and I felt like not enough was revealed so I could pick a side. In terms of your video skills, I think you did a great job visually framing your shots, but I would have liked some cutaways and such to break up the pattern of the back and forth of the phone conversation. In terms of sound, I would have loved some music that would have helped set the mood of each of them (just lightly in the background) and I know the phones were probably were just on silent, but I would have loved the sound effect of the phone ringing before it was answered. I think once you get a more solid story you will really be able to let all these pieces come together and your work will shine.

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