Paranoia - ID# 254
Oak Park River Forest
Dramatic Narrative
Entry Description
When Amanda suspect's that her ex-boyfriend is stalking her, her friends hold an intervention. They believe her paranoia is interfering with their lives. Little do they know, there may be some truth to her suspicions.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/28 9:21 am - Works Well - Good variety of shots. Good story concept with a fun twist at the end. Nice use of lighting for the mood of the end scene. Needs Work - The audio was inconsistent during the intervention scene. The ending was very sudden. We never got to understand the true fear she was feeling because we hadn’t seen her being stalked earlier in the film. What made her afraid of him? More of a build-up would have given the ending a better payoff. Even if he were to simply hang up the phone, we would get the right idea.
- 4/27 9:00 pm - What works: The acting was very good. Also, great job consistently shooting into frame and then editing it in a way where it always flows and there aren't any jump cuts or framing issues. The story is well-written, relatable, and very compelling. What needs work: The audio overall was always clear and intelligible. However, J and L cuts would greatly smooth out the transitions between the dialogue shots. If you are not familiar with editing with J and L cuts, I strongly recommend looking up how to make them. They work wonders for audio. I think you should have let the final shot at 2:53 hold for a few more seconds. Ideally, we would hear the friend ask if she was okay one more time, but at minimum, holding that image of the phone on screen longer would allow the moment to sit with the audience. Lastly, "drivers license" would have been a good choice for the driving scene. Unfortunately, copyrighted music disqualifies entries from nearly any film festival. If you ever make a short film or movie that is for more than just fun, it is very important to not include copyrighted music. Overall, great work. This was definitely one of my personal favorites.
- 4/26 11:37 am - This is an interesting story and I really enjoyed watching it! However, it does include copyright music and profanity which is in violation of the MMEA Festival Guidelines. I think audio can still be cleaned up a bit. There are times where it is audible, and times where it’s very hard to hear what is being said. You used a variety of different camera shots and angles for the characters that were in this film. One thing to keep in mind is head room. Make sure you don’t have too much space above a character’s head. I have a comment below on lighting. It’s important to pay attention to lighting and shadows in your frame. Depending on where you place your character, they will be lit differently and will have different shadows that may not accent their face in the best way. I think your edit had a great pace to it. The story flowed well! 0:03 - The mom in this shot has a lot of head room. By head room, I mean the space between a character’s head and the top of the frame. I know this was probably a tricky angle to get, but make sure that you’re paying attention to these things! 0:31 - At the very beginning, we hear the mom ask Amanda to lock up the house. But here when she leaves we don’t see her do that. So the audience can be confused at the end of the film since we never really saw her lock the door. They can think that she left it open, instead of the ex-boyfriend coming in and unlocking it. I would like to see a cutaway shot here of the character locking the door before she gets in the car. 0:37 - There is some kind of audio pop/noise here. 0:47 to 0:55 - Per MMEA Festival Guidelines, “Copyright Music can be used in the Music Video or Social Media categories provided it is a non-explicit/clean version of the song. ALL other categories require music that is copyright free. Music from a purchased AND licensed provider is accepted, as well as copyright free websites such as the Youtube Copyright Free Audio Library”. Unfortunately you use a fairly popular song in your video here. 1:20 - The audio here starts off very quiet and it’s hard to hear at 1:26. You don’t want your audio to be too loud or too quiet as this can distract your audience at times. Most editors agree that your overall audio level of your audio mix (all of your audio combined) should fall between -10db to -20db (db = decibels). 1:53 - The main character is standing under a light in this shot which washes out her face and creates shadows. You could have had her stand either behind that light or in front of it to avoid those shadows. 1:55 - Per MMEA Festival Guidelines, “Profanity is not allowed; bleeping of words is not acceptable; deleting the audio but still being able to see the mouth form the words is not acceptable”. Unfortunately, the main character uses profanity here which is in violation of MMEA Guidelines. 2:05 - I would love to see a shot of Amanda getting into the car and showing some emotion before she drives off after the intervention scene. You could use a close up shot of her in the car to show how frustrated she is, maybe have her hit the steering wheel. Then cut to the next clip of her pulling up at her house. 2:07 - Great soundtrack choice here. It sounds creepy which also implies that something bad may happen. 2:36 - It's very hard to hear what Amanda says here. I know at this moment the character is probably trying to be quiet if someone is in the house. When you are editing your film, I would suggest editing with headphones and really listening in to make sure that everything sounds clear. 2:40 - I don’t know if this shot really does anything. I would suggest moving the shot to about hips up if you wanted to keep showing the character’s body language. If you wanted to show her emotion, you could also include a close up shot here too.
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