Artistic Response

ARTISTIC RESPONSE

Her (Our Film)

I appreciated the feedback because it was generally very constructive and positive. First, a person said that the sound matched each mood, but the volume was too loud (which might be more of a problem in terms of starting too loud) however the shift between music could have been done better. I agree with this as we could have used music layering programs to make them more fluid, rather than simply fading in and out, to add more nuance. As a director, some people's feedback said they appreciated the nice effort into mise en scene, costume design, and progression through time. However, at times the timeline was unclear, and had some inconsistencies but was overall a good effort. Additionally, our transitions could have been smoothed out more, but the cuts were really good. Moreover, we had many good and creative shot angles, and our transitions and jump cuts were nice. The time theme and makeup in our film was great, and they appreciated our ambitious mise en scene. However, we needed stronger ties from scene to scene, and more intention in the shots.

Particularly, we had no excessive shots, and our audience found it cool how we showed the time change from scene to scene. However, the portals could have been clearer. We also used interesting framing, and a variety of shots.

Two Worlds One Hobo

This film started with very elegant introductory music. I appreciated the nice editing in the first portal, but it wasn't very integrated (in hindsight, this could also symbolize the jarring juxtaposition between the two worlds?). However, an understandable mistake, in a moment of "noob"-ness we can see the cameraman in the mirror. The sole movement of the shots seemed to be lots of pans, so maybe next time the cinematography could be more creative. I noticed the sound levels were a bit too loud in shouting scenes, but once again there was good editing, so despite the jarring portals, they were definitely very smooth (except when Jamie emerges from the shutter randomly). I understand the instinct to use slo-mo to slow down the action, however, because of the frame-rate of the school camera, the slo-mo was a bit jerky and interrupted the flow of the story. As a side-note sometimes there were little tweaks that could be improved, such as overexposure or piercing shower scene water foley. Te handheld shots were a bit jerky sometimes, but I appreciate the use of levels in the Pacific Place scene.

As a director, I really appreciated how he incorporated Twilight Zone themes, and how the protagonist's two costumes were really nicely juxtaposed; however, the difference between the people around him in the rich world and poor world could have been more pronounced. There were many nice close-ups that focus on the subjects instead of only on the action, and tight transitions that made the portals exciting.

Two Wrongs Always Make a Right

I'm not sure what there is to say about this masterpiece. There was a nice use of focus, very deep focus, that only focused on them, enhanced the fuzz romantic feel to the romantic scene. The mise en scene and time of day both fit the mood greatly, and locations were on the whole extremely appropriate. Every portal was very nice, fluid and smooth, all very smooth and made sense. Additionally, there was juxtaposed framing from before and after the portal to enhance their effect, like when the couple walks close-up past the camera, then emerges on the other side of the camera in the corner in an extra wide shot on a sloping hill. On that vein, there were nice uses of extra wide shots, coming from different places. There was also the utilization of an expensive camera device called a gimbal, that is a pivoted support that allows the rotation of an object about a single axis that allows for stabilized video, a device primarily used for extreme travel shooting or travel filmmakers or Youtubers. The skewed shot made on tilted ground and at night jet the scene and added to the mise en scene during Act 2 on of the film, there was a really nice use of music and use of non-diegetic and diegetic sound, a Birdman-esque drum soundtrack. Once again, there was a nice use of portals nice use of high and low angles and framing, for example filming the action through the mirror the panning and tilting to follow the action, or using the monitor in an elevator to depict the grainy action. The editing and visual effects meshed well with the real life action as well.

I really admire this film, as a whole product and as a culmination of every role that had gone above and beyond all expectations- and especially towards the director. On a surface level, Ryan's use of his personal expensive photography equipment increased the production value substantially, and furthermore the use of creative framing, use of locations, the elevator monitors or fish-eyed mirrors in the MTR. Additionally, every role put in mountains of effort, and the film and artistic vision were a collected effort, rather than a script that the director writes and half-hearted crew members put together. The locations, time of day, sound, editing, all came together and produced a conceptually, aesthetically and theatrically beautiful film, and I really applaud and admire their group for it.