I take it you've seen The Office a couple times? ?;)?

Well... personally I'm having a little bit of a hard time sitting through it, granted in part that's because I was travelling last night and I'm worn out so take that point with a grain of salt.

Constructive criticisms, as you so desired:

-Lead actor is actually pretty strong, but most of the other roles are lacking. I know how it works with small student crews like this (where you use just who you have ?:)?), so I don't think it's a huge deal. Getting all of the actors up to par though will go a huge way to really having an enjoyable film.

-The writing is enjoyable mostly as well... but the screams? Seemed out of place most of the time. Don't do that to your actor, I felt like he was doing a great job with his role and convincing me and then all of a sudden "RAHHARAR I HATE YOU" clips out of the speakers and honestly upsets the performance and enjoyability of the film.

-On that note... you HAVE seen the Office right? Notice where the power of the humour comes from (aside from expanded character development)? Subtleties. It's all in the subtle things. Outright yelling at the camera is just obstructive, but a well placed eyebrow raise or quick glance makes all the difference for good humour in this style. In any style really.

-Now, on the technical side, while we're still comparing this to the Office (I'll be dammed if you haven't watched it! haha), your camera work is a lot less daring than that show. There were seldom any closeups, apart from a poorly lit interview shot (yeah... white backgrounds can be brutal). Use your people's eyes man! And make sure everyone knows and does exactly the subtle actions they are required/would be expected to, otherwise it will be unsettling (I believe there was a point where the actress looked like she was trying to contain a laugh about something outside of the scene... those kind of things are a bit jarring). One more thing to think about is that in the Office, the cameraman is a character unto himself.

Alright, those are my criticisms/suggestions for the day. I loved that news desk and background, did you guys make that?

Thank you for the suggestions. Actually, I'm not a big fan of "The Office", the idea for the script came from Jeff (the lead actor) who is a big fan of "The Office". Looking back I wish I would've watched more episodes of it before we began filming so I could become more familiar with the style of humor that is used.

As for the anchor desk and background, no we didn't make that, the class that we made the film for is a TV/Video Production class that does televised morning announcements for the school, so we have a full TV studio, including the desk and background.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Anyone else? Just looking for as many opinions as possible, I might go back and re-edit a little bit of it sometime soon, so I'm trying to get a feel for what people thought was good and what was not so good.

Thanks.

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve_in_MD

Thank you for the suggestions. Actually, I'm not a big fan of "The Office", the idea for the script came from Jeff (the lead actor) who is a big fan of "The Office". Looking back I wish I would've watched more episodes of it before we began filming so I could become more familiar with the style of humor that is used.

As for the anchor desk and background, no we didn't make that, the class that we made the film for is a TV/Video Production class that does televised morning announcements for the school, so we have a full TV studio, including the desk and background.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Anyone else? Just looking for as many opinions as possible, I might go back and re-edit a little bit of it sometime soon, so I'm trying to get a feel for what people thought was good and what was not so good.

Thanks.

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Your high school has a TV studio? That's unreal. You're lucky to have those kind of resources, keep taking advantage of them. 🙂

I don't know how much you could change in a re-cut, at least in terms of my gripes... huh, interesting that you don't care that much for the Office. If you want to continue making videos in a mockumentary style it would be my suggestion to take some notes from that show though. I can't think of a better example in the style.

And hey, keep up the good attitude.

Yeah, having the studio is great, and the teacher is really good, I've learned a lot from his class over the past two years. And yes, there are some really good resources I have access to in the studio. I've been playing around with the idea of writing a script for a film that takes place entirely in the studio, using the cameras we use for the show instead of the handhelds, as they're high quality DV cameras on tripods as opposed to $250 entry-level handhelds.

It's not so much that I don't like The Office as it is that I haven't watched it enough to really be able to write a good script based off their style of humor. If our crew decides to do another mockumentary I will definitely spend many hours watching The Office during the writing/pre-production stages.