Thread: Tim's World - A Comedy Short Film

Not bad, some really cool stuff in there.
The fantasy sequences were excellent (although your star was a bit too "Jim Carey" at times.)
A lot which needs sorting though.

The camera operator needs to watch the horizons, the camera was a tad off level quite a lot.
The sound was all over the shop.
Some of the cuts were not quite "wrong" enough to be quirky but wrong enough not to be right.
The "Granny" didn't look at all like a granny.
He bought a tin of baked beans in a Newsagents? It may be a small general store but we didn't see it.

All in all some parts were very good, other parts need a lot of tightening up.

Thanks Rembrandt Rob.

This was a student project so most of which you speak about were sadly out of my control.

Thanks for the feedback.

Some great stuff there, I like the Simon Pegg style editing you had going on there with the jump cuts and sound effects. Effects were well done too but some of the cuts could have been tighter. I understand how difficult it is as a student when you have to depend on other people who may not be as bothered, but you could have made the sound mix a but smoother in post (unless that was done separately). Generally the sound weren't too hot but the editing was definitely the best part for me.

Thanks martchap

'Spaced' was certainly a direct reference for this short.

Yourself and Rembrandt Rob both mentioned sound. Are you talking about the actual dialogue or the sound effects/score?

I handled all of the effects and score myself and had to deal with the variations in dialogue audio (recorded by another student) level to the best of my abilities.

You also both mention the cuts/edits that could be tighter. Could you expand a bit on this please?


Thanks for your feedback martchap

A lot of the edits don't "flow".

This can be for a number of reasons. On some occasions the shots are too similar. It can be done but needs working out during the shooting. You can't just shoot the scene three times and hope that they'll intercut. On some edits there is a pause on the cut. so you get speech-pause-cut-pause-reply. Or variations thereof. On other edits there needs to be a beat of a pause before the other party replies.

Remember the golden rule of editing "If it feels right, it is right. If it feels wrong, it is wrong."

The sound doesn't have a perspective. In a lot of sequences the microphone is too far away. It's not just about levels (which should have been corrected in the edit but weren't done well) it's also about clarity and tone.

I'll echo Rob's thoughts - some good ideas, not always well executed. I did think the comedy was a (fairly small) cut above what we often get for student comedy, so well done for that.
To be honest, if I hadn't seen Rob's reference to "cool stuff" being in there, I might not have made it beyond the first few seconds. The names mean nothing to us and therefore the scene setting dragged a bit. The opening shot was great: but I'd have cut at 15 secs to the "I have got a girlfriend" line, the first 15 secs is all that is needed to establish the nerdy, game playing type.
The shots of Tim in his chair, against a very black background looked great.

I found it rather strange that Lisa stopped to put on her hat before chasing the robber. If that was deliberate, it would have been funnier (in my book) if we'd actually had the shot of the robber snatching whatever and running out of the shop, followed by Lisa about to give chase, then pausing to go back and grab her hat (and possibly putting on make-up) befoe cutting to the scene of her chasing.

My favourite bit was the changing gear on the bike together with accompanying foley & music.

A good effort and quite entertaining.

Like the others I thought it was full of good ideas. If you continue making films I'm sure you will gain the experience to pull off these ideas. I also liked the gag about changing gears. I also thought some of the transitions where well thought out for example 1:45 and others. I think it's a little bit better than has been suggested but the errors are there and pointing them out will help to improve your next project.

Well done.

I enjoyed it.

Her saying No is not seen to often in thoes kinds of situations. Clearly the bike changed in the movie also it was winter then it was perfectly nice outside in the chase. But again im sure you already know that and its only small things.

Good work though I enjoyed it.

Also what did you shoot this video with?

Thanks for the replies. Ive been away for a couple of days.

It was shot on the Sony Z5.
It was shot in November during heavy snow so we were told to stop filming and pick it up again over the next couple of weeks. That was the most frustrating part of filming.

The change in bike is because why would Tim have a kids pink bike in his imagination?! - But it definitely could have been implemented better.