Garo
Boy Wonder
(Shameless self plugging for the win?)
So yeah, Exactly What It Says On The Tin. I'm an amateur filmmaker and film theorist, hopefully entering a film school at the conclusion of the 2011-2012 school year. I've been heavily involved with the film club (and by "heavily involved", I mean, "my friend and I founded it") at my school, and we consistently enter local competitions (we won in several categories last year, including Animation, Documentary, and Drama) and make short films for the fun of it. Unfortunately we don't have much exposure outside of our class, so we've been trying to spread the word and get some more constructive criticism. Hence, this thread.
48 Hour Films
The 48 Hour Film Project is an international film festival held in cities in many countries. I live in a city that hosts one such festival every year, and we have entered it two years in a row. The basic premise of the contest is that you are given a genre, a prop, a character, and a line of dialogue to include in a film. That film has to be written and produced within 48 hours, and everything contained therein has to be created within that 48 Hour period.
2010 Entry: "The B Team"
Rating: PG-13 (mild language)
Genre: Heist
Prop: Lamp
Character: Todd Daubert, Wine Connoisseur
Line: "I love a good challenge."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjICxIxbFsE
We were pretty proud of this one, given that it was our first attempt and we had to cut down 10 minutes of the film in order to fit time constraints. That said, we are completely aware of the fact that it... sucks, to put it gently. Audio problems made the plot hard to follow (missing exposition scenes don't help, either), and the Drama department's unwillingness to supply our team with quality actors left us with... uh, less than great actors. But this was a learning year, and we had fun making it.
2011 Entry: "Doors Unlocked"
Rating: PG-13 (adult situations)
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Prop: Kite
Character: Jake Clark, Student
Line: "From now on, you call the shots."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjxc2RWRHXs
This is a much better effort, we feel, with specific strengths in that we had original music (created by one of our team members), some very nice cinematography enhanced by a good location, and improved acting chops on the part of our two leads. It still suffered from crunch time editing with a few audio glitches due to our accidental erasure of an entire nine hours of shooting. But overall, we are very proud of this one.
Music Videos
We made three music videos over the course of a few years, and we feel pretty proud of these as well. They certainly turned out better than the above 48 Hour Films, mostly due to the fact that we had a lot more time.
"Life in Technicolor"
Rating: G
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CswhhpsbyAQ&
We went a bit more arthouse with this video, going for concept and style over substance. We tried to emulate life in the video - excessive repetition of situations, fast paced, and the slow build-up of stress to a very anti-climactic result. When it came to the frame story, we included the Technicolor aspect of the title and placed two spectators watching life... in technicolor. When life begins to repeat itself, one spectator loses his patience and attempts to fix it, and is met with the increased stress and speed that mark the second half of the video/song. This was actually my idea specifically, and I am really happy with how it turned out.
"Disappear"
Rating: PG (action and mild lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79U4dmhdXQY&
This is a much more traditional video. The camera work is the strong point here, as given our limited equipment, we managed to make a pretty action-filled video that well matches the pace of the song.
"Stronger"
Rating: PG-13 (brief strong lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C8LMox6loA
This took a very, very long time to pull off. The requirement of so many extras proved quite difficult to satisfy consistently, so the shoot was spread out over several months. The end result though turned out pretty well. We weren't aiming for a strictly serious video with this one, nor a parody music video either - we aimed for comedy, but we're not making fun of or satirizing anything.
We have more videos currently in production, as well as a comedy that is currently in the editing stages. I'd welcome - even ask for - constructive criticism and comments.
So yeah, Exactly What It Says On The Tin. I'm an amateur filmmaker and film theorist, hopefully entering a film school at the conclusion of the 2011-2012 school year. I've been heavily involved with the film club (and by "heavily involved", I mean, "my friend and I founded it") at my school, and we consistently enter local competitions (we won in several categories last year, including Animation, Documentary, and Drama) and make short films for the fun of it. Unfortunately we don't have much exposure outside of our class, so we've been trying to spread the word and get some more constructive criticism. Hence, this thread.
48 Hour Films
The 48 Hour Film Project is an international film festival held in cities in many countries. I live in a city that hosts one such festival every year, and we have entered it two years in a row. The basic premise of the contest is that you are given a genre, a prop, a character, and a line of dialogue to include in a film. That film has to be written and produced within 48 hours, and everything contained therein has to be created within that 48 Hour period.
2010 Entry: "The B Team"
Rating: PG-13 (mild language)
Genre: Heist
Prop: Lamp
Character: Todd Daubert, Wine Connoisseur
Line: "I love a good challenge."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjICxIxbFsE
We were pretty proud of this one, given that it was our first attempt and we had to cut down 10 minutes of the film in order to fit time constraints. That said, we are completely aware of the fact that it... sucks, to put it gently. Audio problems made the plot hard to follow (missing exposition scenes don't help, either), and the Drama department's unwillingness to supply our team with quality actors left us with... uh, less than great actors. But this was a learning year, and we had fun making it.
2011 Entry: "Doors Unlocked"
Rating: PG-13 (adult situations)
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Prop: Kite
Character: Jake Clark, Student
Line: "From now on, you call the shots."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjxc2RWRHXs
This is a much better effort, we feel, with specific strengths in that we had original music (created by one of our team members), some very nice cinematography enhanced by a good location, and improved acting chops on the part of our two leads. It still suffered from crunch time editing with a few audio glitches due to our accidental erasure of an entire nine hours of shooting. But overall, we are very proud of this one.
Music Videos
We made three music videos over the course of a few years, and we feel pretty proud of these as well. They certainly turned out better than the above 48 Hour Films, mostly due to the fact that we had a lot more time.
"Life in Technicolor"
Rating: G
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CswhhpsbyAQ&
We went a bit more arthouse with this video, going for concept and style over substance. We tried to emulate life in the video - excessive repetition of situations, fast paced, and the slow build-up of stress to a very anti-climactic result. When it came to the frame story, we included the Technicolor aspect of the title and placed two spectators watching life... in technicolor. When life begins to repeat itself, one spectator loses his patience and attempts to fix it, and is met with the increased stress and speed that mark the second half of the video/song. This was actually my idea specifically, and I am really happy with how it turned out.
"Disappear"
Rating: PG (action and mild lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79U4dmhdXQY&
This is a much more traditional video. The camera work is the strong point here, as given our limited equipment, we managed to make a pretty action-filled video that well matches the pace of the song.
"Stronger"
Rating: PG-13 (brief strong lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C8LMox6loA
This took a very, very long time to pull off. The requirement of so many extras proved quite difficult to satisfy consistently, so the shoot was spread out over several months. The end result though turned out pretty well. We weren't aiming for a strictly serious video with this one, nor a parody music video either - we aimed for comedy, but we're not making fun of or satirizing anything.
We have more videos currently in production, as well as a comedy that is currently in the editing stages. I'd welcome - even ask for - constructive criticism and comments.
