1017 (short film)

Here’s a short film I made last semester.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tPVmL0cfU

Criticism would be appreciated.

This movie is very good. I am impressed with how you time the drama to the various music selections you have made, and I am very impressed with the performances.

The only recommendations I have are purely cosmetic and you can pretty much disregard them if you disagree. I thought the few insert shots the film had were a little too close-up, that you could have framed them a bit wider. For instance, from about 10:25 to 10:35 you have that focus pull between the two characters and the photographer character is foreframe, but his face is cut in half and the frame is mostly dominated by the model character, which means even when the focus pulls to the photographer, the eye is still drawn to the model, not back and forth like intended. Since you are shooting in video it seems all the close-ups are struggling against video’s extremely shallow depth of field but luckily the the drunkenness of the characters helps it work. Its just that the close-ups stand in contrast to the static and fully-in-focus wides.

But again, that’s just cosmetic. Everything you are doing works, at least in my opinion. Good job!

—PolarisDiB

I also kind of liked it. Your style is pretty effective, much of the story plays under the surface and you somehow capture those emotions easily.

I think it would not have done much damage if you chose some less melancholic songs as a kind of contra-part to your established mood, because the way your film works now is like one neverchanging, melancholic feeling. This is-like I said- not bad, but I think you could add something to the viewing experience by just establishing some surprising tones. Acting-direction was superb. Just in the end, when the boy leaves, I would have wished to read something more in his eyes than desire. No complaints about the main character.

I like the fact that the film gives the feeling that the filmmaker cares a lot about the topic, it’s personal touch if you want so. That helped to get drawn into it allthough I can not relate to the characters myself. And I also respect a lot that you did not care too much about plot development because your story plays between the lines.