I DP'd a 48hr short film recently, and I'd love some critique of my photography (backstory in comments)
Posted Sep 12, 2016, 2:57 PM UTC
24
So, one of the members of the band in our short is a business professor at my university. He reached out to me a few days before the competition asking if I wanted to be involved or maybe just watch the production happen, and I said sure! I brought along some of my own gear but I didn't really expect to be doing much. I showed up on set about an hour into filming the morning after they had done all the pre-pro. After observing for a bit and contributing some ideas, the director said "You seem to know your stuff, do you want to shoot this?" to which I replied, well, I'll give it a shot!
So this is my first experience shooting a narrative piece. I've done some commercial stuff in the past but this was my first "on-set" experience. We were shooting on a GH4 with some Panasonic lenses and the most basic of support equipment. I had one light with me that we used for some fill on some shots, and sound was done with the built-in mics on a Zoom H4n. There are some things I would have done differently with the gear loadout and possibly some different direction tweaks but I was working off what I was given.
The editing was done by the director without any input from me, and I tried to work off the shot list they gave me while also executing some of my vision for how scenes should look.
Any critique or advice is greatly appreciated! I know it's not very good, but I'm not exactly sure what precisely I can do better.
1
Sorry in advance if I'm too harsh; I'm not very good at feedback! First thing, consider all your shots. Are they interesting? Do I need them? For example the opening shots of the woman at the desk are uninteresting and then you feel obliged to go in for a close up of the phone. Most of those shots is a boring wall that is too bright. If I shot that I would have done it with a much longer lens. I would have also darkened the room and used the Diegetic light from the monitor. I would have then supplemented that light with something like a keno or an led. Have the light rimming her slightly to separate her from the background. This shot would still be considerably brighter than the shadowed phonecall shot that you're cutting to.
Other than that, it just comes down to practice. Everyone likes different things, but I like to use a little shots as possible and only move into detail close ups if they're essential.
Thank you. The whole first sequence felt... off to me, but I couldn't describe why. I think the reason is as you stated, most of the shot is the wall! I'm working harder on trying to understand specifically why my shots suck, so thank you for pointing that out.
Watch more films and shoot more as well and then it will come. Also, as cliched as it sounds, you will never stop improving.