Assignment 1: Self Critique

Hmmmm....
How to critique myself? My darkside says to hail praise to my own genius and let the technicalities fly, while my lightside says that it was ok at best. I think I'll go with the lightside. I could sit here and bitch and moan about the limited capability of the flip cam but then a poor craftsman blames his tools. So instead, I blame the craftsman. My biggest hurdle was dealing with the light and thus the accompanying noise that came with it. While I was able to adjust this by making my clear shots noisier I would have liked to have had all clear shots! The next biggest issue for me was the noise. But what can you do, like I said, blame the craftsman.

As far as a formal critique goes i will say that all of my shots were alittle too long. Either I was not speaking quickly enough or I just had too much to say within the limits of the shot. i think that adding a few more shots, like three or four would have helped to quicken the pace of the action while simultaneously allowing for more room to push the absurdity of the situation. My original intention was to use humor to convey a more serious message.

Most people can relate better with humor than with some serious douchebag telling them what to do. So instead I made fun of the pompous douchebag. Simultaneously allowing my audience to laugh while at the same time listening to what i had to say. Was I successful? Kind of. The humor aspect worked. The audience taking my message serious? Not so much. While the skit did end on a more sincere note there was not enough sarcasm (or sincerity) to make either one matter much. The whole thing turned into a spoof. If anything the humor probably distracted from the serious nature of the content.

So to fix this problem? I think shortening the shots will make it easier to digest the information, but also building up the action would help. By gradually building up the absurdity I think it would allow the audience to see that humor to a point is good, then it just becomes absurd and blocks the originally intention. Humor is a means, not an end in itself. Laughter allows for people to have a release, to enjoy what they are doing, people should enjoy film. People should also get something out of it. If the humor starts to detract you need to subtract.

All in all I was happy with the quality of the shots themselves. I think I did a good job of developing space while at the same time allowing for cohesion. I do, however, think that my dialogue could have been tightened up. Perhaps I could have allowed for a moment to pause the film and have the audience discuss a proposed question. That could have worked to literally promote dialogue between the film and the audience, a major point in my manifesto.