My Short Film: Follow the Rain

[Perry_]

Hey guys, just recently today I released the short film I've been working on over the past 6 or so months.

This is a short film that follows the life of a girl named Natalie who is outcast from society because of her homosexuality, following her struggle of trying to live a normal life. Asking the question of why she and other homosexuals are shoved aside.

This short film is not out there to greatly contract religion or attack it, it is questioning how we treat these people.

I would love to hear your feedback both on these forums and on Youtube Please comment and rate.

And TY to Cyber Rat for directing me here.

[1LT Worm]

I'm really confused. Is this supposed to be classified as a documentary or a (fictional) drama?

I'm going to be honest in my comments. But as the artist, I implore you to take them with a grain of salt. If you want feedback, hopefully my words can help. If you just want to showcase your work, just a simple "fuck you" will suffice, and I'll understand and drop the entire matter.

Constructive criticism (if it's a documentary):

Well, it certainly replays the story pretty well. You manage to capture the passage of time; I knew the girl had moved from school to her house as a teenager to her independence as a young woman. The music is also pretty nice, although it does suffer a bit from the curse of loops that is commonly found in this type of music. I can't fault you for that; it's good for the budget.

If it's a fiction:

I know you're trying to convey a message here, but you're not getting an emotional response out of me. I do not feel for Natalie. You have a caption about "82% of homosexuals...," but I don't see much physical or verbal "abuse." I hear a teacher and a father getting mad, and this strange abduction thing. It doesn't really capture the abuse aspect. And the symbolism of the rain? Very, very cliché and canned.

But the biggest problem I have with the narrative is with the cult. If this is a fiction, the idea of the extremist cult in this frame of reality does not work at all (probably because this has hints of the documentary). Does England allow cults like that to operate with impunity? And they probably wouldn't kill her if they went to the trouble of capturing her. They probably attempted to "reprogram" her, and that would give police a chance to locate her.

Now, the bottom line:

All-in-all, for a student project, it's not bad. The video editing is done quite nicely and the lighting is superb. You maximize the resources you have to master the video and sound to near professional levels.

However, I feel that this needs to be reworked a little bit. Primarily: RE-RECORD THE NARRATION. That girl sounds like an emotionally-detached automaton. It sounds like she's reading from a script. Well, she is, but all actors, even the ones off-camera, must learn to be the character they are portraying.

But, the script needs a little reworking. There is no tension AT ALL.

If the girl's "rain"-filled life is the primary focus, concentrate more on her internal feelings. Is she almost ready to break? What demons are fighting in her: self-doubt, personal identity?

If the cult is a big thing (or, the religion and physical abuse, whatever), make them more menacing. I know it's only a six minute film, but come on. They have no motivation to kidnap these girls as far as I can see except for being unshaven and wearing a black hoodie.

[tentril]

This is more or less the story of the lesbian from V for Vendetta. Was that your intention or was that an accident?

[Slingerland]

All-in-all, for a student project, it's not bad.

There should never be a qualifier. To me, a movie's a movie.

Perry, there are many things to improve upon, so here are the successes first:

Several story devices work to create empathy. Losing the first girlfriend and getting thrown out puts the audience on the girl's side. The staring into the camera isolates the character and visually establishes the loneliness the character feels. There are also varying degrees of energy (indifferent, positive, negative, negative, positive, negative, indifferent).

Technical/acting notes:

• Your voice-over audio is panned entirely to the right. It should be an even pan.
  
• I'll re-iterate Worm: your voice-over actor is horrible. This movie is non-sync. You don't have to use the actor on camera's voice. Get a better actor.
  
• Watch reflections. I saw the camera in mirrors, glass picture frames, and windows.
  
• Editing your dolly shots: You ran out of dolly track at 1:28 and the camera went thud. Cut before you run out (you lingered on the shot long enough anyway).
  
• At 3:00, you are panning to the left while they sit on the couch. What are you panning to? Nothing. Why are you letting them get cut out on the right side when you're not going to anything? They're the focus of the scene.
  
• At 4:10, when Karen gets kidnapped, she's walking extremely slow, waiting for that extremist dude to take her away. Rehearse it next time and get good timing.
  
• Your actors cannot cry to save their lives. What's with all the shoulder shrugging? Also, with their faces covered, I cannot get into the scene. I want to see the emotion exuding from her.
  
• At 4:33, that's a really cool shot. A shame that it's crooked.
  
• Your overall shot list lacks variance. 95% of your shots are medium close-ups. Again, with emotion, I need to see it. Use close-ups and extreme close-ups. "Medium shots make medium movies." This adage wouldn't apply entirely if you had good production design, but you don't. You just have your locations as you found them.
  
• Most of your shots have too much head room. Re-frame and tighten up.
  
• The "Wes Anderson" shots of her mugging the camera are intended to be evocative, right? They need to be tighter and your actor needs to actually looked distraught, rather than blank. It's a great shot choice that's not executed as well as it could have been.

Story notes:

• Worm, this movie is obviously a fictional narrative and not a documentary. The way the camera moves, the angles, and how it portrays the subject communicates to the viewer that this movie is a narrative.
  
• Ultimately, this movie goes nowhere. Your character is in the same emotional state at the end as she was at the beginning (indifferent, positive, negative, negative, positive, negative, indifferent). Things need to go from bad to worse. We need to see how much worse off her life is now. The love of her life got taken from her.
  
• The overall message here is that "I'm a lesbian who accepts that life kinda sucks." If you want to promote change, the main character needs to believe in it.

[*]Lots of people tell the story of a discriminated against minority. What makes Natalie different? There are lots of gays with tough lives, so why is this particular one the one worth telling? What does Natalie achieve or do that really sets her apart? Ask yourself those questions.

On the road to success, there lies many failures. Learn from it all and come back stronger.

[Perry_]

I came here both for showcasing and criticism. Not all forums this is posted in offer criticism but I'm really happy with the amount of detail both Worm and Slingerland have given me, it's really helpful. If I remember correctly Slingerland, you do a lot of technical work behind the scenes, so its great to have someone experienced have a good look at this.

Clearing up a few things

* Slingerland is right, this is a fictional narrative that mainly falls under drama however it has some aspects of documentary. And a side note, this was done in Australia, not England Worm.

* The narration suffered a lot when my other narrator had to pull out, I had to grab my friend Sarah at the last minute to be my narrator. Because there wasn't a lot of time a lot of the narration sounds scripted and there was the technical issue of the sound being panned entirely to one side, though I thought it was the left not right. More or less this is mostly a problem with poor time management.

* I originally planned to have two different actors for the on-screen and narrator roles. My on-screen actor didn't really have the voice I was after and when the other pulled out, I had to settle with someone else with far less experience.

* In the scene where Karen is kidnapped, I entirely agree, she really needed to struggle more and look distraught. However I was low on time once again and the daylight was fading. Another issue with time management.

* Thank you Slingerland for the shot notes, I'll look into them

Time management is probably one of the most important things I need to look at and try and fix before my next attempt. I'm not using it as an excuse for why some things aren't up to par in my film, I'm simply pointing out my own mistake and doing so should be able to help me in the future.

[1LT Worm]

And a side note, this was done in Australia, not England Worm.

My bad. I thought I saw a left-side driver's seat. I always thought Australians drove on the right side of the road.

[Perry_]

My bad. I thought I saw a left-side driver's seat. I always thought Australians drove on the right side of the road.

That was a left side driver's seat, we drive on the left side as well.

[1LT Worm]

That was a left side driver's seat, we drive on the left side.

Yeah, that's why I thought it was English.

I always thought Australians drove on the right side of the road.