ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

9 years, 3 months ago - Brenden Freedman

Hello ShootingPeople,

I just recently finished making my first short film. Shootingpeople has been a great resource for me just starting in this industry and finding work, so I would like to share with you guys. I recently decided that I want to be working in film. I work as a documentary photographer, but have no experience with film. Since January, I have been working as many freelance film jobs as I can get. I've worked as a runner, gaffer, grip, camera trainee, focus puller, clapper/loader on a number of shorts and music videos (I had past experience working as a gaffer to a commercial stills photographer.) However, I wanted to eventually be working as a DP -- with no kind of reel/resume to show I decided to just go for it and make my own short -- here's a link:

https://shootingpeople.org/filmofthemonth/film/bluebird/

This being the first time I've made a film, it is of course plagued with mistakes. Being the only set of eyes, I have equipment in shots, my reflection in a window, shaky hand-held segments and just general sloppiness. I re-shot one scene due to having equipment in it, and then the next day caught another piece of kit in frame... I was also learning how to record audio, edit, grade, etc. as we worked -- that was its own can of worms.

All in all, It was an incredible learning experience and I am very excited to move on to my next project. Although the one-man-band approach was fun and exhausting, I am looking forward to hopefully working with some kind of crew, or at least an assistant.

The only lights used were practical lamps seen in the shots and a batten-strip I made with some household bulbs and dimmers. I really wish I would have made standalone dimmers to control the lamps in the scene with the record player. I think the scene is just overall too bright/flat, and having all of those lamps on dimmers would have added some nice contrast to the background.

I am not much of a writer; there is no dialogue and the narrative is driven strictly through visuals and music (the guitar track at the end is my own). There are some moments where I think it it just too slow/quiet/uninteresting. I wanted a color scheme that stuck to bright primaries (Red/Blue/Yellow + Green,) I think that the overall production design was a strong-point of the work. Editing/grading was all done in Resolve 12, I was figuring out the tools as I went along, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible -- I still haven't done any de-noising/sharpening (not sure if that is necessary?)
Audio was a problem, not that I left it as a second-thought, just that it is fucking difficult in general. I was recording through a Tascam DR-40 plugged into the BMPCC; noise from the BMPCC was terrible and syncing the Tascam tracks has been an adventure (no clapperboard, at first I was just clapping/snapping myself, but of course forgot to do it on most takes -- my files were also horribly unorganized.)

I am mainly looking for notes on camera and lighting, however I am open and interested in hearing any honest/blunt critique on any parts of the film.
Thanks for taking the time -- it is much appreciated.

cheers,
brenden

https://shootingpeople.org/filmofthemonth/film/bluebird/