Mixed Messages - ID# 506
Lake Forest
Seven Day Challenge
Entry Description
When Bulgarian-American Highschooler Maria is spontaneously and mysteriously asked to teach her classmate Luke her native language, she doesn’t know what to think. As we follow their awkward yet hilarious study ‘dates’, the realities of their lives and the real language barrier between them becomes increasingly apparent; culminating in the perfect embarrassing story for friends and family alike.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
Judge 1
Positives: This is a truly unique story and shows that the ancient trope of characters misunderstanding each other can be told in a new way. I can tell that a lot of hard work and care went into this story and it is so incredibly well done. The narrative makes sense and does a great job of building anticipation. Your reveal is expertly timed and you don't linger after the story's climax. Your characters are natural and real and the dialogue lets the story unfold without being too expository or clunky. Well done!
Improvements: This piece was great, so my notes will be a little nitpicky. Watch your lighting in group shots. I thought the use of natural light, in the beginning, was a strong artistic choice, but you run the risk of backlighting or highlighting the wrong areas of the actor's face. When using natural lighting with shadows made by trees, try to get the light directed on the actor's eyes-- we had some lines delivered where the light was on her mouth, and her eyes were completely in the dark. Also, for any kitchen scenes, unplug the refrigerator and kill the AC so you cut down on that hum that is present throughout. You can also record the fridge sound separately and use it to cancel out the noise present in the scene. Your interior lighting is also inconsistent and could have benefited from some color grading. Overall, though, the editing was excellent. Just watch your pacing with dialogue delivery. Some scenes cut far too early off of a scene button. Sometimes, you need to let it simmer before cutting to a new scene.
Judge 2
Positives: Reallly good work!!! Man, I like this short a lot. 1) I love the way the story moves scene to scene - demonstrates really great thinking around how/when to come into and out of a scene. The moment cutting back to the friends table "yea but it get's worse" was a really nice example of this. 2)
Improvements: 1) This is a push for variety!!! Overall such a great story is being told here, so when we have our second "oops I dropped something and now we're eye to eye" moment happens - we've seen it before so it falls a little flat. 2) Too much exposition on the back end! After our character reveals they are gay, I think we spend too much time connecting the pieces together, and because of that, lose a little momentum toward the end.
Judge 3
Positives: The overall pace of the story was strong and held the viewers' attention. The writing was clever and lighthearted. I liked the added bonus at the end of the behind-the-scenes shots during the credits.
Improvements: The audio at times spiked very loud and abrupt and other times it was clear that the audio was mono and not stereo. Some of the shots were dark or had harsh shadows that could have been corrected during production or in post.
Judge 4
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Judge 5
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