Is there anything I can learn from these movies

Hello!

Is there anything we can learn from these movies that would make the movies that we do better?
[www.filmchallenge.org]

Thanks!

I just watched Super Atomic Commies and the editing's actually veeery choppy. Almost certainly not a professional job. That photo montage at the end especially reeks of bad home movies.

However, that is a technical thing, and one thing this film does do well, in my view, is that it takes its time getting to know the characters. It's not like the acting's out-of-this-world great, but just by pacing the story out patiently in the beginning, we are more engaged by the characters and get a better sense of who they are, and we're more likely to root for them. They also did make a good choice by going black and white. While they didn't achieve the softer look of those old-time political thrillers, it's still a tastier look than just plain ol' digital.

One thing I noticed: This movie had very, very few moving-camera shots. Given the constraints of these film contests, that may have been a smart choice, since moving camera usually result in lots of botched takes. When static-camera "coverage" shooting is well considered, you can usually milk more takes and get more done. And while I don't like the editing, the angles were well chosen and would have cut well in professional hands, and the mostly static camera actually fits the style of more "classical" cinema, as well as evoking the steady cameras of '70s "paranoid" thrillers (eg. Three Days of the Condor, All the President's Men). Finally, a static camera helps hide the fact that most of these submissions are shot in that frenetic, jittery handheld style, so a "classical" approach stands out.


www.derekmok.com

Keyed

The dressing scene is way too choppy. if you are gonna show the process of him getting dressed it should have been from at least 2 angles.

The Momento like clues are not well used, and its not feasible as to how they got there.

The second scene of dressing is good, But there is no way he would not have noticed that the seat of his pants are missing.

I see a lot of shorts and the one thing that 70% of them miss is the plausibility of the situation. Even if its far out there it still has to be somewhat believable.


Super Atomic Fallout

The girl who played Susan had decent acting skills. The Commie doc NOWAY. He kinda hurt the movie. Other wise pretty good. A lot better than Keyed.



IIMHO, If you want to see a full length movie with odd ( maybe not up to par) acting and very well connected plausibility try George Washington Directed by David Gordon Green excellent narration and imagery.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"