"An office loner seeks the fame he wants anyway he can."

This is the first proper short I have made. So don't judge it THAT much, the acting and writing is very shakey, as it was all made at my school. And I did the writing. Oh Dear.

So yer, comments on here and YouTube are greatly appreciated. It's a slow drama, as we were working with what we have. It's a kinda film noir tribute. Yer so, get past the first few scences, then its alright!

Hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwsopisOdHE

Watch in High Quality.

TK

My immediate comment is that the audio is pretty dreadful! At some points I struggled to hear the dialogue at all.

You really needed to get a mic on a boom close to the talent. That way you can use way less audio gain and the room ambience and background noise will be much reduced.

Get someone to monitor the sound on cans. It's amazing how what seems like a quiet natural space sounds very boomy and full of background noise.

I have to confess to only getting about 4 minutes in, before I gave up, but on the visuals I did notice the following..

The lighting was pretty flat and 2 dimensional, and you need to look out for busy backgrounds (all those mains sockets and wires that looked like they were sprouting from the talent's head at one point.) Shooting DV with anything other than a big pro cam will give you a large Depth of Field so you don't have the option of blurring the background.

That scene with all the guys reading the paper at their computers... Having the tripod of the A camera in the reverse shot was a bit of a gaffe wasn't it?

Get your sound right, dress your sets with a bit more care and look at more creative lighting.

Thanks all helps a lot!

Although remember we did have NO money for lighting, and the sets were just the school essentially.

But erm, where could I pick up a boom at a good price?

TK

Hi Tom,
Mark couldn't possibly remember this as you hadn't told him As for teh sets being "just the school" it doesn't matter - Mark's advice was "dress" the sets - this doesn't have to cost it just means be aware of what's in view and use imagination, sticky tape and whatever comes to cover up any distractions

Again, improvise. Tape a mic to a broom handle. Getting the mic close to the talent is what's important, not how you do it. Now get working on your next, audio-improved film

__________________
Tim

Are you sure that works because not you have to be reallllly close to the mic for it to pick you up anyway?

Because we were going to do that but like the teacher involved kept harping no about it wouldn't work, guess he was just a spesh!

TK

and LOL! I see what you mean about set dressing it really did look like Marlowe
was a cheap 50's sci-fi villain with plugs coming out of him in that one shot.