Screening to get advice

To get another perspective I screened the first 30 seconds of my rough draft that I showed in the first session of editing the blog. This rough cut had the first resemblance of animation and the organization of clips. I wanted to get critics more oriented to the cinematography, mise en scene, and the tiny section of the animation.

I showed this clip 3 times with a few extra repeats of the animations, and classmates pointed out some problems and gave solutions to things I wasn’t happy with, but I didn’t know a solution.

Overall Critics

One of the first things pointed out was that there was a black electrical hole during the wide shots, which breaks up the effect that I intended. It's a very bothersome section as it's pure black compared to the light pink of the wall. While filming I tried positioning the camera differently, but it didn’t look right so I accepted that that hole was going to be there to haunt me for the rest of my days. But a classmate gave the idea that I could try and rotoscope  it out which is something I didn’t think about. I'm still new to editing and I have never rotoscoped anything but there is always a first time for everything.

One thing I should have noticed before that one of my classmates said was that the Blue Spirit mask from Avatar the Last Airbender,2005 was so distracting. It’s too dark and it stands out compared to everything. What is worse is that it's close to the character's body which makes a competition for the attention of the viewer. The only way I could fix this without spending hours on the computer trying to figure out a way to tone it down would be to reshoot, something I don’t have the luxury of.

Another thing pointed out was that the lighting was harsh in places, which I agree with. The only way I can see fixing it without reshooting would be to color-correct more the scene. Instead of hiding it I'm going to try to make it part of the aesthetic of the film as fighting it will cause more problems.

Shot Critics

The establishing shot of the film is a wide shot that depicts the character from a side view, it's static and quite long. I wanted to make it eerie and uncomfortable for the audience. One of my classmates said that it added a cheap short film feel to the movie, the classmates said that maybe adding more movement like going down the painting would be a good way to fix this issue. I mixed on this because I can see where it's coming from a lot of times movies have that type of credit sequence but at the same time I like the long establishing shot on the other hand the long establishing shot isn’t fulfilling its purpose right now. Maybe if I add the sound design and edit better the uncomfortable feeling, I'm trying to invoke will come but what if it doesn’t? I must think more about this because I want an isolating atmosphere to work.

The other shot that was talked about was that the close-up shot of the eye is too low, and it should be higher because there is too much forehead now. This is an easy fix as I don’t have to set up anything and I can just get my actress to come in and do a quick shot.

 

Listening to other people's advice helped me figure out solutions to problems I didn’t know how to fix. This is my first time doing a lot of things in a production and learning from more experienced peers in sections I lack like editing has helped me figure out.