Dirt - ID# 216
Neuqua Valley
Dramatic Narrative
Entry Description
A video poem about death and legacy.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/28 6:21 pm - What works: Truly appreciate the honesty of this piece. The location sound, especially the dirt digging and rain at 1:26 strongly enhance the dimensionality of the short. Your narration is very powerful and the quality of its sound is impressive. Almost all of the footage is properly exposed and you have a good variety of types of shots. What needed work: I'm not sure if the cross-dissolve transitions help. Some of them are a bit distracting and forced. Sometimes as an editor, we just have to trust that our cuts make sense. Some of the movement really works, but some of it is distracting. Many of your shots would have been aided by a tripod. 1:31 - This shot's composition is more than half ceiling – show the subjects not the ceiling. With your great variety of shots came an inconsistence of color and style. Having something tie all of the footage together, such as a color scheme/tone/contrast/vignette/etc. would help unify everything. Final thoughts: This stands alone as a beautiful and personal work of art! It is very different than a typical "narrative short," so it is hard to judge. However, I commend your creativity and strongly encourage you to continue writing and creating art.
- 4/28 9:31 am - Works Well - A great collection of lyrical and poetic shots. Good structure and pacing. Interesting script. Needs Work - This fits more into an “experimental” category than “dramatic narrative." It works fine as a visual poem, but it has no dramatic structure. Maybe in the future this can inspire a symbolic short narrative film, but for now, this just doesn’t have that. As an alternate route, you might also consider trying this without the somewhat amateurish voice-over and let the imagery speak for itself.
- 4/27 9:06 pm - You have a great narration throughout your piece! I loved listening to it! However, it is difficult to understand what is being said. When recording audio make sure that you enunciate. Not only that but when recording a narration it is okay to pause. Pauses are normal even when we have everyday conversations! You also include some great camera shots, and overall you include some great b-roll of different things. One thing that could be improved upon is editing. There are some shots that I feel we see for too long. Sometimes shots that linger too long can mess up the overall pacing of your film. Please see my comments below: 0:53 to 1:05 - I love this shot, but it does linger too much. I would shorten it a bit! 0:57 - I’m glad that you decided to include the natural sound here when digging with the shovel! It would be very weird if we saw this shot without that sound. 1:07 to 1:15 - This shot also lingers a bit too long! 1:35 - Great framing here! Nice shot 1:58 - This is a great shot, but I would suggest using a tripod here! Placing the camera on a tripod gives you more time to think about the shots, and slows you down (in a good way). You get more time to think about the shot that you are filming and you can really think about techniques (rule of thirds, golden rule, how is the lighting affecting the frame, white balance, etc). 2:06 - The slow motion shot here is choppy. You would need to double the frames that you are filming in if you want to include a slow motion shot. To have a standard shot in slow motion, you would need to film in 60 fps (frames per second). I enjoyed the photos towards the end. It adds a personal touch!
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