Brushstrokes - ID# 157

Highland Park
Dramatic Narrative
Entry Description

A whimsical tale about a young boy who is coming of age in the most colorful of circumstances. As he joins his Father for the first time at work, they journey from a futuristic, steampunk city to a stark, colorless forest. Armed with a bucket brimming with glowing paint and a brush that holds the power to awaken the world's colors, the boy faces a pivotal decision. Should he follow in his Father's footsteps, or carve his path amidst the backdrop of contrasting opinions and longstanding traditions?

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

  • 4/23 11:23 am - The story is abstract, poetic, and fantastical in all the best ways! On one hand, I love the creativity of the ADR and making this universally intelligible regardless of native language. The sound design in this is intentional and impressive from start to finish. However, the limits of unintelligible dialogue becomes a bit apparent when a casual viewer attempts to understand some of the key plot points – in particular, the son finding his own way to paint the world. Something that could have communicated this without changing the creative "dialogue," would be to communicate more clearly through close ups. The wide shots make the world feel expansive and grand, but close ups, especially during the splashing in the ocean scene, could have gone a long way in communicating the emotional arc of the characters. Aside from what I would identify as a lack of facial close ups, the camerawork was impressive and well executed. As for the color, quite outstanding! There are moments where it seems you pushed the color grading to the max limits of the original footage – such as with the shadows in the ending shot. But still, outstanding work. The lighting overall is consistent, and wherever there may have been struggles, you clearly put the effort in post to fix. As for the editing – sfx were incredible, and overall, the edit was well paced for the genre and intentional. Fantastic work!
  • 3/19 9:58 am - Pros: Amazing story told in such a creative way! Great editing and making sure the actions on screen matched precisely in each frame, well done with this. Bringing in the aspect of animation is very challenging and you did this very well, nicely done. Your sound was great and your sound effects were executed well. You varied your sounds nicely to match the actions in the film, and that kept me engaged the entire time. A story without dialogue is always a challenge to tell a story, but you did an incredible job here. Cons: I feel the grunts were a little much in certain situations of the film and took me out of the story, maybe having these lowered or less could eliminate that for the viewers.
  • 2/21 1:21 pm - I love the fact that the entire film is almost one long shot. It is a very bold choice and very, very landscape-y, which makes your film come together. I love that you chose to tell a story that can be told in 5 minutes. There is no "next day" kind of storytelling. The visual effects are spectacular as is the camerawork and composition. I'll be honest - not sure how I feel about the grunts... I find them a little distracting.
Judge 1

Positives: The core element (bringing color back to the world) was very well done and grew to different areas throughout the story. The choice of music and sound to help focus on the joy and adventure of the characters was also excellent.

Improvements: While it was clear the characters were adding color to the world in different places, it was harder to distinguish the filmmakers message. Color can represent so many things, I would have liked to see a nod towards what that meant to the filmmaker themselves. In large outdoor spaces, lighting can be controlled by selectively choosing a specific time of day to enunciate a specific feeling. I'd like to see a focus on how to leverage natural light to the filmmakers advantage in what they want the audience to feel.

Judge 2

Positives: I think there was a lot of potential with this story. I think the framing in most of the shots was very well done and thought out. The movements with some of the pans were also very smooth.

Improvements: I understand the story you were going for, but I think the saturation was a little too excessive all around. Also, I think it works with no dialogue, but some of the sounds the characters were making did not match their expressions. Also be careful with match cuts while editing.

Judge 3

Positives: The vocal work is incredible. So good. Perfectly captures the emotions of the characters and doesn’t take me out too much (maybe like one grunt too many though). The music fits the tone nicely. It highlights moments at appropriate times and really immerses you into a whimsical, childish world. There are a lot of amazing shots in this short film. Really great understanding of framing and leading lines and the locked-down feel not only helps with the vfx, but it adds to the old-world feeling of classical films. In addition, the blocking was really great- knowing where to put the camera and framing it all in a way that adds to the tones and themes of the piece. The VFX is really nice and feels characteristic to the film. Really cool how you explained exactly how this world worked without dialogue and in the first few shots just as they’re casually strolling toward their destination.

Improvements: Story Builds: More struggles/learning to make story themes more impactful: The paintbrush should be established from the start as the only device that can paint the world. As he’s walking through the forest earlier, he’s already using his hand, and in sight of the father. It makes for a better emotional payoff if using the hand instead of the paintbrush is a reveal that solves the problem of the broken paintbrush, since the paintbrush so far was the only thing that could add color to the landscapes. The two characters could be more antagonistic, the older man stricter on the young boy, so that when the younger boy comes up with the new method of doing the work, it’s more impactful. The kid would then have to overcome something, rather than achieving success without struggle.

Judge 4

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Judge 5

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