Looking for some critical feedback

[Ian D'Amelia]

Hello all,

I am a weekend filmmaker, looking to get some insight into how to improve my craft. I recently competed in a 48 hour film project, which was shot on dragon/ zeiss ZE (along with an iscorama 54 during portions). It's obviously not of the caliber of much of the work here, and there are many areas for improvement, but I would love to hear some more experienced insights on how I might improve, and what we should be focusing on (any aspect of the film making is open to critique!)

Thank you for your time!

edit: link for mobile = http://vimeo.com/174156288

 

[Marc Wielage]

Lotta inconsistent color on the characters seated around the conference table. Stuff like this needs a lot of correction, a lot of power windows, and a lot of matching.

 

[Levi Arnold]

There's no movement here and that adds to the stiltedness of the dialouge. Not sure what options you had but I definitely would've used a tighter lens from farther away and rarely had one person in the frame at a time. Shoot at eye level unless the emotion dictates a different angle up or down. I woulda shot this around 2.8 on a 75 or more.

Control the set - make sure extra chairs and paper pads are out of the shots and maybe take out all the light bulbs except the one over the table to make it feel less like a conference room and more like a mission control room.

Color grading is nice but lose the vignette ... with this color palette it doesn't fit.

 

[Nathaniel Haban]

Production Design!

I don't necessarily think this one is on you. You're shooting in a small room, that's closed off, with plain white walls. Nothing in the background to work with compositionally, not much depth, etc. That paints you into a corner really quick, and greatly limits what you can do. That's not a condemnation of your abilities; honestly, most people would have a near-impossible time making images pop off the screen, if they're shooting a character who's up against a white wall. In the future, I think it's just choosing locations that don't limit your possibilities so much.