40 Days - ID# 72
Marist
Dramatic Narrative
Entry Description
A teenage girl struggles on the road of recovery from self harm. Fractal of Light - Chris Haugen from sudio.youtube.com
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/28 9:20 am - Works Well - Nice job telling the story visually. Lots of good details and moments captured through a variety of shots. Interesting editing choices. Needs Work - The lack of audio in the beginning was distracting at first. Some minimal music or ambience might have helped out. The camera was a bit shaky at times. The specifics of the story were not clear, but the mood came through just fine.
- 4/27 2:33 pm - It is a challenge to show 40 days in less than 3 minutes, and yet, the way the story moves does just that! The big things to work on are audio, shakiness, and focus. What needs work: There was a loud hissing/hum throughout the entirety of the video that greatly distracted from the visuals. Sound is much less forgiving than visuals, and this sound hissing grabbed all of my attention to the point that I muted my computer so I could focus on the story and visuals. The good news is that there is an easy fix for this. Completely cut out your sound except for the music. While I normally encourage students to use sound from their recordings, this cut would immediately make your video significantly, significantly better. The camera was often out of focus. While it is more work, using manual focus would not only give you more control of the focus, it also looks better when it is out of focus. On one hand, I liked your movement, but on the other, your footage was way too shaky. If you are going to go the handheld route, instead of using a tripod, it is important that the camera operator try their absolute best to stabilize their shots and reduce shakiness. What works: I really like the story and how it is told. The montages are compelling, and the way you use the phone to help tell the narrative is clever and effective. The dynamic acting and movement helps move the tale along and also communicated a lot of information.
- 4/14 8:10 am - You have a really great concept here! However, the story was quite confusing at first. I wasn’t sure what was going on till about 30 seconds into the film when we see the shot of the phone with the days. I think having some kind of audio would help the audience realize what the story is about early on. Not only that, but having some kind of clue as to what the video is really about before that shot at 30 seconds. A lot of your camera shots go in and out of focus. Keep an eye out for that, especially if your camera is set to auto focus. I would like to see more closeup shots of the main character. Close up shots are a great way for the audience to connect with the character. We see more of their facial expressions and emotions in a close up rather than in a medium to wide shot. I really liked the last edit at the very end, when we finally see all the characters speak to each other. Some of the editing could be cleaned up to get to the point of the story. There are a fews scenes (like at 0:19) that could be shortened as they linger for a little bit. A lot of your shots were moving shots. But it is important to remember to use a tripod. 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). Please see my comments below: 0:33 - Without reading the video description, I did not understand what the video was about until we saw this shot of the phone tracking the days. 0:00 to 1:07 - I really wish there was some kind of sound in the first minute of this video. It does not have to be a music track, it could be natural sounds. You could have included footsteps, door opening and closing, friends talking, etc. Even if the sound you had recorded was not great, it would be better to include that than to just hear nothing and it could really help tell your story better. Audio is a powerful tool that shouldn’t be forgotten! 0:53 to 0:54 - I am confused as to how to get from the bathroom to the next cut. The character is wearing different clothes, so were you trying to imply that this is a new day? If you were aiming for that, a cross dissolve could help here between the two clips. Cross dissolves are usually used to show the passage of time between different clips. 1:09 - Here is when the music comes in. It is very quiet. I’m not sure if it is just a quiet track in general but make sure that when editing you pay attention to your audio levels. You don’t want your audio to be too loud or too quiet. Most editors agree your overall audio level of your audio mix (all of your audio combined) should fall between -10db to -20db (db = decibels). 1:36 - The audio significantly gets louder here. When editing audio, I would suggest using headphones to listen back to your mix! 2:06 - This camera shot could really be placed on a tripod to avoid the “shakiness”.
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