MMEA Comedy Short 2022 - ID# 355
Metea Valley
Comedic Narrative
Entry Description
Copyright free music and sound effects provided by SoundStripe subscription.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 3/5 10:53 am - You have the start of a funny premise here and some great sight gags when the kid disappeared but it's missing a pace and tone that really hits on the comedic narrative elements; namely close-up reactions, editing choices that really maximize the tension and absurdity of the situation, and an end that rounds out the narrative a bit more (the end felt dragged out). Regarding the story, think about every beat adding to the other.You attempted this with the signs, but they were near impossible to read and the kid in the car probably wouldn't have stayed at that corner that long, making the premise hard to empathize with. Your camera work could be a bit more ambitious, as shooting outside against the highly over-exposed snowscape is tough and requires attention to details in both outside environment as well as camera settings to really highlight the signs and the actors. Your sound design was cool, though you were often a fraction late or early with cutting the sound when in the car; blow up your timeline to really edit with specificity. Finally, the kid in the car didn't have his seatbelt on. This could have been an overlooked mistake, but it felt like he was on set and not really prepared to drive away. Keeping the car in drive, trying to drive away, being stopped, and moving locations would have helped raise the tension and the subsequent comedy. Keep up the good work. Keep trying new approaches, and I promise each decision and project will make you that much better of a filmmaker.
- 2/24 1:52 pm - STORY: The comedy of your storyline relies heavily on the signs, which in many cases were illegible. See feedback under the camera category. CAMERA: The sign that the guy is holding is basically unreadable in the first couple of shots. I’m not sure if your lens was dirty or you just weren’t in focus. I watched this in 1080, and even in full screen the images were soft. The sign drop at :47 was also unreadable. The closer shot at :50 was a little more legible. Why so much attention to your signs? Because basically your whole comedy bit is based on the signs…which is called a sight gag. If you can’t read the signs, the comedy fails. You could also have used thicker marker to make the lettering on the signs more readable. You could also have closed down your aperture to make your image less overexposed, which would also help the dark marker lines on the signs to be more readable. EDITING: Your editing pace was fine. Some of the choices seemed like you were covering up for not having enough shot variety. LIGHTING: I didn’t see any evidence of using any additional lighting, which makes sense because you were outside on a sunny day with snow reflecting light. But you honestly could have used some daylight to fill in the shadows on the driver inside the car. AUDIO: The music bed was fine for this video, but it was obvious that you had hard cuts with the dialogue, meaning there was no ambient noise layered between your occasional dialogue spots and the music bed. That ambient sound would have blended your sound better.
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