"Hungry Love" Critique

Basically, this film is about a guy who is desperately in need of food and resorts to going through a series of acts to try to impress a girl and win her lunch box from her. I felt that I wasn’t having much success in my other films because the drama was too hard to imbue within those films. So when we started our Amélie Unit, I saw this as an opportunity to take myself in another direction. I based my whole concept on the premise that it had to be an awkward encounter between a man and a woman where there would be romantic tension, yet the whole thing would be very comedic. I think it does stay true to the romantic comedy genre of Amélie and that it did not turn out horrible, like my other films.
Overall:
First, I’ll begin with what I was tasked with. I was pretty much the director of the film and editor in my version. As director, I had to block my actors and pretty much detail all the facial expressions, movements, subtleties, and general actions they needed to be performing. I also had to make sure lighting was correct, sound quality was good, and the shots looked decent. As the editor, I just had to pull everything together. Because this film required a different edit to be handed in for each group member, I also had to work on the score and color correction for the shots that seemed out of place.
The main problem I had was that Devan, my guy actor, would not cooperate with some of the things I wanted to have him do. I think this took away from some of the comedic qualities of the film had I been able to get certain shots. But I gave in to his reservations and just tried to keep the whole production rolling. In editing, my only problem was really the lighting. The camera’s focus was not working properly so some shots looked too washed out and I had to color correct to smooth that out.
This time around, the whole production of the film went relatively smoothly. The only problems we had were scheduling conflicts, availability, and lighting issues. With scheduling, we would have miscommunications and as such, lost valuable shooting time. Also, many of us had very tight schedules. I had practice every day of the week and Katryna was needed for the school play. Tyler had work on one of the shooting days and the whole availability issue was one of the biggest problems we faced. But I think THE biggest problem was that the lighting was off. The first time we went to go shoot, Devan was late and we lost the period of time before the sun would be changing position quickly. So, some of our shots turned out dark. The second time we went to shoot, the light was changing even quicker and we lost an entire weekend because it had begun to rain. In the end, we managed to work out the schedule by prioritizing this project over our other commitments and the lighting could be fixed in the edit.
Critical Evaluation:
Story: The story begins by setting up Devan as a guy who is suddenly really hungry. Ten he goes through a whole bunch of ways to try to impress this girl who has food, and in the end he ends up not only with her food, but with her as well. I wasn’t really trying to highlight any issue or create a theme. I just wanted to make a funny little story about a guy who would do anything for food. I tried to portray Devan as this suave guy who knows how to impress women, and Katryna as a girl who is nice and proper, but not immune to the charm of a guy. I think I kept consistent with their characters and showed a nice evolution for Katryna as someone shut off, to someone who is totally open, but while staying true to both of their characters. I think I pulled off the climax nicely through reverse dramatic irony. Katryna sees what is on the card before we do and so we are itching to find out what it was. When we finally see it, we see that there is a cute message that wins her over because in the next shot, they are walking away hand in hand. So we know that Devan succeeds and we are left with a feeling of closure.

Casting/Acting:
I think we cast the movie really well. Devan, although you would expect him to want to eat all the time because he’s a pretty big guy, also takes you off guard when his cheesy wooing techniques work. Katryna also played her part really well. Her only criterion really was that she had to be a girl, but her acting was really good too. They were both really believable and you could easily distinguish who was who. Their personalities also provided a nice contrast and helped keep the story alive.
When it comes to their acting, as I’ve said before, terrific. You really believe that this is who they are, and we form ties with them as we would with our friends, and not simply as we would with characters. We didn’t really use any makeup or worry about their wardrobe. We only cared that it remained consistent from shooting day to day. There was also no dialogue, so the acting was better because we did not have to worry about making the dialogue believable too. Both actors do maintain a consistency in the way that they stay in character and a consistency in how they characterize their character.

Music and Effects/Lighting:
The music design in this piece was very simple. Aside from a few foley sounds to provide audio cues, there was only one score that was looped to create the romantic, French accordion café music that so effectively helped create the romantic mood in the film.
With lighting, we depended on natural light, shooting just before magic hour to get that nice rich, yellow and warm feel. Unfortunately, the changing light caused several consistency errors from shot to shot, and some shots were to dark, so we had to reshoot some of them. In the end, we still had to redo a couple shots by color correcting them. I needed to spend more time to make the color correction more precise, but I did not have enough time.



Titles and Credits/Camera Operation:
The only titles I used were in the beginning and for the credits. Both times, they were unobtrusive and only communicated information that we could not get visually. This was mainly due to the generic falling leaves of autumn, and the black background in each.
The framing in each shot is also pretty good I think. Many of the shots are static because I still have some uncertainty in my abilities to create dynamic moving shots, although I did try a few times. Whenever there is a zoom though, I felt that it appropriately fits and serves to create intimacy between us and the characters. Some shots that could be improved are the ones that have some awkward framing or that could have been tighter. With the shots, I also think that I could have used more variety in them. Possibly a few reverse shots would have been a nice stylistic characterization for my film. At the point where they are walking, I would have liked a nice aerial shot, but no one would let us use their roof.

Sound/Editing:
We did not record any on location audio because we knew that it was going to be a silent film. We did record a few foley sounds with the camera, but even then it was not on location.
When it comes to editing, I think the cuts came out relatively well and the pacing is appropriate. Each shot as the appropriate duration for a certain effect and they maintain continuity throughout the film. When changing from scene to scene, I thought about ways I could make it so that it isn’t an awkward or abrupt change. This time, I did not resort to fade to blacks or dissolves. I used the score to transition from the house, to the street, to the park, all the while maintaining the walking motion to create a link. Each shot is followed in my opinion by the appropriate reaction shot, POV shot, axis match, etc… a few areas I could have improved were the guitar opening scene. I would have preferred to use a close up of Katryna and show the guitar in the next shot that way, but due to the shot being too washed out, I opted to cut to black very quickly because I had no better method. Yet I think that each scene is appropriately trimmed and that the shot order is logical and fluent. The editing is almost transparent and except for a few moments like the guitar scene, the color correction near the end, and the ending with the heart, the editing is hardly noticeable to the commoner’s eye.



Objective evaluation
Reviewing my film, completely ignoring what went into making it, I would say that the film is pretty good. The key moments designed to make you laugh all accomplish this and the story is not lost in the shots. As a viewer though, I would have preferred that Devan be shown taking out the guitar and that the lighting/color correction be fixed at the end. I was also wondering if there should have been some cue for Devan to walk up to the window. It seemed weird for him to just get up and look outside. But overall, it works and the film itself was rather enjoyable.