Help Yourself - ID# 176

Wheaton-Warrenville South High School
Dramatic Narrative
Entry Description

A solitary psychologist, Amos Brennan, grapples with the manifestations of his grief by way of five clients—Aubrey, Jasper, Claire, Marina, and Lily—in order to confront his own trauma.

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

  • 4/29 1:01 pm - What Works Well: Excellent creative concept here. I like the idea of the lights revealing character and different emotions. I like the shot size and angle variety. What to work on: The different color lights are great, but I might consider lowering your levels and placing them on more of an angle in relation to your subjects. This will give your image more depth. You can also improve depth in the image by moving your actors away from the wall and using a backlight. If you can, think about getting your mic closer to your actors, this will help with your audio levels. This can be difficult in wide shots if you don’t have lapels. Really great work, overall! Keep making movies!
  • 4/29 10:08 am - I enjoyed the last interaction the most. Though, the scenes where the protagonist is alone are the most compelling. Their reactions and emotional range are enough to pick up on the dramatic elements of the narrative. There are times where we are spending an extended amount of time on a character and I’m wondering what the protagonist is thinking or feeling in those scenes. This makes me wonder if there is a version of this story where we only see this one character, and through their reactions this sense of grief begins to reveal itself throughout the film. I enjoyed the risk taken in the experimental cinematography. The colored LED shots seem to represent the different emotions of each patient. I would’ve loved to see this stylistic choice take up more space in the film. Right now, it seems like we jump into it fully and then get pushed out of it without any context as to why. This lack of consistency throughout the film can leave the audience a bit confused.
  • 4/28 10:37 am - Strengths: Clever integration of title. Powerful use of color and lighting during the different sessions. Grounded performances; felt realistic without being over the top. Montage of client sessions allowed us to feel the impact of the patients' stories but also their growing impact on the main character. Choices of camera angles felt motivated by emotion and action. Addressed concept of grief in a clear yet not-contrived way. Improvements: Staging to start - may have considered less distance between the two characters or having the co-worker stand to speak (lost her in the over the shoulder shot at 0:26 but also didn't have clear focus on the main character then- missed opportunity). Some inconsistencies in framing the clients - loved the different camera angles but some shots had too much dead space (around 1:19).
Judge 1

Positives: The pacing of the story overall worked well, Amos being busy with his own clients then having to deal with his own trauma. The shots with movement were decent and were steady.

Improvements: Using some kind of microphone instead of just the camera audio would have made this significantly better. The camera framing I can tell was trying to be different but it was kind of distracting as it would cut to different cuts where the person was not framed up correctly. The shot of the phone screen could have been turned so we can see the screen properly.

Judge 2

Positives: Each time I watched this I liked it more; good job creating a narrative surrounding faith without holding the audience's hand through it. I really liked the intentional shift when "god" or "angel" walked in. I also laughed quite a bit; I'm not sure if certain parts were supposed to be funny, but "I have many feelings!" took me out!! I think you could push the humor even further at times.

Improvements: The biggest issue for me was your sound. Pay attention to your levels, you should be at around -6b, and because sometimes you had a mic and sometimes you didn't, I had to bounce the volume up and down sometimes. Also, I generally liked your editing, but consider what's needed to serve your story, and what's not. For example, we didn't need to see him pull out his phone, go to his voice messages, look at it, then raise it up. If the point was to see the background, just show him pulling out the phone, and then cut to him raising it to his ear. Keep an eye out for little things like that and it'll go a long way!

Judge 3

Positives: I think you did a very good job getting experimental with the lighting and showing these different characters and their emotions. I also think you directed all of your actors and actresses very well. There are some very strong performances in here that if you continue to direct you should keep working with these people and building that relationship.

Improvements: The story is a bit confusing, and it took a few times watching to understand what exactly you were trying to say. But after understanding it, it's a really creative way to go about discussing theology. I do, however, have an issue with the flow of your story. I think the intro could introduce your character a bit more clearly and by the ends I'm left with a feeling of confusion because, at least at first watch, I wasn't sure what I should be taking away from your story.

Judge 4

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Judge 5

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