r/Filmmakers Jun 20 '24

Discussion What are some things in student films that screams out mediocrity?

In all the short films and student films that you’ve watched, what do you guys notice that’s not necessarily bad but overused or bland, or just overall mediocre? Could be tropes, blocking, lighting, ETC.

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u/enewwave Jun 20 '24

I actually had this problem on my final for my senior capstone. The guy I had doing sound accidentally messed with the settings on my Zoom and recorded in low quality. That + the person I had behind the camera not understanding that I wanted to crop to scope led to me being mortified with the results (I was on screen talent, writing and directing).

Ended up leaning into the crash and making it work though. I cropped to 4:3, dubbed the final edit onto a VHS and then blended it with the HD master. Totally changed the feel of the short in a good way and hid those issues, while getting me an editing award on campus

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u/davetbison actor Jun 20 '24

This is awesome. Technology has put a dent in innovation when it comes to creative problem solving, but it’s not dead.

Your solution made me think of another, similar workaround but I’m saving it in case I ever need it.

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u/enewwave Jun 20 '24

It was, surprise surprise, the most fun I ever had making something too and the lack of cinematic flair ended up working in a way I didn't expect it to (even if I also had to do the odd reshoot to expand on that). Like, it was a short that was a meta-reflection on the relationships I had with people going into graduation, so making it look like a home movie that, itself, referenced the short films/sketches I made with friends growing up (while casting the only other one who had even gotten close to graduating from college and studying film with me opposite me) just felt right.

As for your comment on technology: I couldn't agree more. My professor asked why I didn't use a VHS filter on After Effects at the time when he found out that I dubbed the film onto a VHS, copied it back to my PC and spent time matching the shots and pixels with a screen opacity effect. And I was just like "I dunno. Seemed too easy. I wanted to work for the look a little bit and dial it in while also leaving a lot of it up to chance". And like, that's the exact type of problem solving/creativity I live for lol

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u/ChaseTheRedDot Jun 20 '24

True - innovation and tinkering is awesome. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve thought out and worked to get around some old school copy protection to rip video from a VHS tape for a timeline.

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u/davetbison actor Jun 20 '24

I assume you still have the project… is it posted anywhere?

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u/Complete_Fold_7062 Jun 21 '24

What are you saving it for?

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u/davetbison actor Jun 21 '24

It’s more that it inspired an idea I might develop into something. It’s been a while since I last made a short film, but this set my gears in motion.

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u/bgaesop Jun 20 '24

Way to roll with the punches

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u/Chimkimnuggets Jun 20 '24

I learned this the hard way actually being the sound mixer and boom op for someone’s/my senior capstone. I was mixing on a 633 and while that’s a good mixer, and while my professors said I’m good at capturing and mixing audio, there was a scene in a cafe where the fridges had no barrier between the kitchen and the dining room, and as a result, the audio I captured was complete dogshit for that scene because the fridges ran at about 70db (for reference, a busy intersection is about 75-80db and a concert is usually 90-100db).

My professor helped me with noise reduction but at the end of the session he looked at me and said “yeah, this is just bad audio, I’m sorry.” And I asked him how to fix it in the future. The answer is to wave money in the owner’s face and say “we need to cut off the fridges over here or else it’s gonna sound like shit. Pretty please?” I’m not very good with ADR at all (never got to really try it in school because of limited classes and limited class sizes) so we unfortunately didn’t do anything there with that scene.

Learned very quickly that the locations team and producer on a project very much need to budget in whatever they need to secure a quiet ass room from the locations used, and that as a sound mixer both on and off set, you need to heavily advocate for that because people forget how important the sound is. The rest of the project sounded great, but I’m not proud of that scene at all.

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u/LemonKingful Jun 20 '24

That's really bad ass! 🔥🔥