Hi, I just happen to stumble upon this place and thought it might be a good
place to get some feedback. A friend and I just finished work on part one of
our first movie. We both did all the work on this movie. I know, I know. The
acting isn't the greatest, but we just graduated high school and neither of
us are really interested in acting. I got a Panasonic DVX-100 for graduation.
Any criticism is appreciated! Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8co1A832kHw

Hi

I'm just gonna say what I felt when I watched it, as a person you know (I'm not a pro or anything)

It had a really good atmosphere. The music was right, the lighting was great too in most of the shots, the locations matched the music perfectly, and I found most of the shots pretty cool (the tower with the clouds around it for example)

The acting wasn't so great like you said. To me, the 'whole' of the movie felt inconsistent at times. Like sometimes you see a dutch angle that felt kind of accidental. There weren't enough close shots in the dialogues for me. And then there's the part where you see these video effects, that felt kind of inconsistent too. You see it 3 or 4 times, so you get sucked out of the illusion and start thinking about the video effect. I feel it's better to introduce that style of effect-usage from the beginning on. That way you know what'll you'll be watching, and you'll get used to that reality immediatly. So you won't get pulled out of the illusion.

All in all I thought it was great for a first time effort!

Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't sure if the
switch from longer shots to rapid fire close ups with added effects would work. On some
level it does but like you said, it disrupts
the experience.

For our next film we are going to try something
more straight forward with a majority of it focusing on one person so I can actually man the
camera instead of having to also act and just
leave the camera on a tripod like we have been
doing for most of our shots.