Before the Silence - ID# 397
Maine South
Dramatic Narrative
Entry Description
This dramatic narrative follows Vivian through a P-O-V montage depicting her life's joys and traumas following a desperate suicide attempt. As the story unfolds, Vivian starts to second guess her decision.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/30 7:42 pm - Nice job all around. I like the POV choice. It creates an immersive experience. I did have some trouble hearing some of your audio, but your visuals were so strong that I didn’t feel like I missed anything. The montage approach works nicely for this story and the music works great. Excellent work. Keep going!
- 4/30 1:34 pm - This home footage like film is super nostalgic and tender. The POV shots are super effective in the way I think about a person filming family members or friends on a camcorder. It's organically shaky and handheld. I'm not sure if I gravitated to the dialogue as much as I did to the passive footage of people coming in and out of this persons life. This song choice is a great fit for the content of this film. Great job!
- 4/29 11:31 am - Strengths: Nice framing and use of voiceover at the beginning; quickly brought us into the world of the character and helped to establish the tone. Bonus points for Lorde! Great overlay of the flashbacks- worked well. Improvements: The zooming around 0:20 was a bit clunky; work on making those moves smoother. Be mindful of shaky camera movements (2:55/on) - took away from the focus of those moemnts.
Judge 1
Positives: I thought the overlay of the clips with the letter were unique when used correctly with the story. The POV shots were also interesting as well as the beginning VO.
Improvements: The sounds and music throughout were distracting - the loud beeps at the end were not needed. Some of the more montage type of shots throughout didn't need to be overlayed with other shots, they can just be quicker cuts.
Judge 2
Positives: Loved the POV aspect! Great way of showing the last moments of life. Also you had some really good shots in here, loved the CU of the main actors face.
Improvements: The biggest thing that shocked me was the end-- make sure to triple check your edits, including your credits! Coming from such a serious short and topic, having text that bounces around at the end totally takes me out of it. The other critique is sound. Make sure to be checking your levels to make sure the sound is level-- try to keep it at -6db. I had to turn up my volume all the way up on my computer just to hear.
Judge 3
Positives: Very creative I love the first person perspective and I'm not sure if you use Meta glasses or you put your phone in your mouth or something to get both hands in the shot but I think it's sold very very well. Also love the story of family and friends and how you can feel alone even when you're with people. So very well done getting that theme across.
Improvements: Right away, the sound is way too low. Imagine you're in a film festival and it's five or six short films lined up. It's gonna be one film that another film then as soon as it cut your film, it's gonna be super quiet and then the audience is gonna miss key details and things that you want them to hear because it provides more context to the story. Also, a lot of the overlays were a bit distracting, I think, especially to the tail end of the short when we're kind of reopening ourselves to intimacy having the journal over the father figure in the friends is distracting when I feel like we want to be in these moments with these people. I'd explore a new song choice too or at least consider using a different song of the beginning so it doesn't feel so upbeat the whole time.
Judge 4
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Judge 5
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