These are my student works..

Hello,

These are my student works. Nothing impressive, showing my editing, Aftereffect, music, color correction and narrative skills.

[www.threeeye.net]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Best regards,

PS: I am looking for a job!

overall there is some nice composition there. and some artistic after effects work.

but i have to tell ya' i think youre trying too hard to be "avant-garde" and the bulk of the pieces come off as very self-conscious. not enough scene setting, too many closeups and too many abrupt cuts to thematically unconnected elements. i think some long dissolves might help tell the story in a couple of the pieces.

i think youre following the same path that many "independent filmmakers" (and especially YOUNG ones) do. in that youre trying so hard to convey strong emotion that the narrative gets swallowed up by imagery.

but, these are all typical of younger work and overall it shows good promise. keep it up : )

The server change in LAFCPUG prevented me from posting earlier.

These are quite good. You have a good sense of camera angles and mood. Great choices in music. What I'd like to suggest are:

1. I'd love to see these pieces without those descriptions below the image. They do help contextualize the pieces, but I'd be more interested in finding out what my response would be to these pieces without being told how to look at them. I'm sure most of the pieces would still convey what they aim to without that being explained.

2. Have you considered using more sync sound? Image is great, but at a certain point, there's a dimension of expression missing. Especially in Young Indiana Jones.

3. The narrative aspects are what's missing right now. I don't get too much story from these; I get strong mood and some context that I guess at, but no running narrative. To me these are good mood pieces that get across an emotional experience (a good feat in itself), but I'm not drawn into a narrative flow which takes me on a journey. And there's no character which sticks out; the people aren't very specific or memorable. I think most of these clips are like the silent slaughter sequence in Kurosawa's Ran, or the massacre of the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith. The music-only approach gives us a strong gut feeling, but not much in terms of narrative development. And mind you, I think mastering this approach is good, but I think in terms of storytelling, you could expand your vocabulary and portfolio by trying your hand at an actual scene/story.

In my own experience, narrative editing is the basis for all other styles of editing. Almost all the good narrative editors I've met can adapt to graphics, silent film, montages, documentary, commercials, PSAs, talent reels, weddings etc., while a lot of "style-only" editors I've crossed paths with find themselves at a loss when confronted with a simple two-person dialogue scene, because the visual toys have been taken away from them. They end up spending hours (and days of the schedule) tweaking lights and flying images in AfterEffects when the story hasn't even been put together yet. Or their eye candy obfuscates the story and the performers. And the FX they produce get scrapped because there isn't enough basis for them. A good number of editors can master both, but narrative is the springboard, I believe.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks for reply!!!

I do need to expand my vocabulary.

Also, I do need to work on the narrative.

I should avoid symbolism. That's what my professor and colleages told me.

I love to write anything. I always carry journal with me.
I write anything when there's ideas in my head.
I usually gets ideas from certain moment or seeing something.

For example, I see something (anything: paper, people, room, mirror etc) on the street, I start to develop story from there.

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Now, I am wokring on my thesis project for M.A.

I worked on several interns. My last places was documentary production company.

I had to sit down and log/digitize old classic movies during the evening hours. It helped me develop narrative.

Oh, I am reading books. My goal is reading 2 or 3 books on each month.
I was watching Casino Royale and I loved it very much. Somehow I felt that I should start reading books.

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Thanks for good comments

Best regards,

PS: I did many narrative editings but I lost them except only one. Ah, it's embarrass to even show.

> I should avoid symbolism. That's what my professor and colleages told me.

I wouldn't go that far. Visual symbolism in film can be a good thing. Just make sure abstract symbolism isn't the only thing in your narrative film, all the time.

There's text, and then there's subtext. A film that's all subtext has no central message. Take the piece about the girl. One person could say she killed somebody and hid the corpse; another could argue she's looking at a piece of clothing that was dirtied because she'd just had her first period. Reader-response theory is great, but when the piece doesn't have a dominant theme, then its text is weak; it's like the creator isn't sure about what the piece is supposed to mean, or isn't expressive about it.

You have a strong sense of mood. String those different moods together coherently into the life of one or more characters, with logical progression, and you have a story.

One more suggestion: Don't let music dictate your editing all the time. Let the rhythm of the shots determine how long you stay on it. I see instances where a shot has more life to it, but you cut away too soon because the music has a certain rhythm.

Cut the shots without the music, tell the visual story and follow the rhythm of the story. Then lay the music on top. You'll be surprised how often music just finds its own sync points. One of my favourite recent examples of this is the graphics intro to the show House, M.D.. It is rhythmically unpredictable, and therefore highly effective because it makes the viewer stay with the visuals, rather than get zombified by the beat of the music. The opening shot is brief but ingenious; some title cards enter earlier than others; Robert Sean Leonard's card has a great "lead-in" which is specific to the music; Jennifer Morrison's card not appears only ahead of the beat, but is a natural photography shot rather than a graphic like the rest. Most producers would have looked at this and said that it wasn't consistent and they'd have to change her card to match the others. I think it's just freakin' brilliant, and says something about her character.


www.derekmok.com