• Joined: April 10, 2013

Topic: Il Colloquio (The Conversation) Live-action short

Il Colloquio

(HD 1080p/720p is the best)
(subtitles are available for bits in Italian or Hungarian)

"Il Colloquio" can be roughly translated from Italian to "The Conversation".

The story follows two parallel stories, set in two very different yet similar settings. The first story is about an Italian immigrant living during prohibition-era in the States, the other revolves around a Sirian immigrant who tries to enter Europe through the hungarian-serbian border, and more precisely on his conversation/interrogation with a hungarian policeman.

This short is the reason I didn't have much time in shooting brickfilms these past months. "Il Colloquio" won a local, regional contest (in Italy a region equals almost to an american County) and subsequent,y screened to an audience of middle-high school students from across the region on Dec the 20th 2016 for the first time, and on Thursday the 22nd it was screened to all high-school students during the Students Assembly, with most,y positive reactions.

I'd like to see what do you people think of this. It's my first ever live-action film that I've directed and filmed (and in which I starred). mini/wink

http://i.imgur.com/QxJYu2W.jpg
The Nine Billion Names of God
Kosmos Productions Channel
  • Location: Italy
  • Joined: February 23, 2009

Re: Il Colloquio (The Conversation) Live-action short

Seen it.
I can see you worked very hard, and it's nice that you tried to connect immigration at different times in history.
Though, the short is far from perfect, and here are a few things you might want to work on and be more careful in future projects.

The acting isn't very strong, but that's understandable, I guess it was you and you're friends without much experience in acting, which is fine for your first project (except: "sono venuto con la nave di Trieste", it had a nice accent (anche se, detto tra noi, Trieste non penso sia il posto più comodo da cui partire per andare in America, ma non ho fatto ricerche sull'argomento quindi va bene così mini/wink )).

The photography in many shots it's either too dark or too flat, which doesn't really keep the viewer engaged. Your camera settings, I guess, was on automatic most of the time, which is something you don't want because in extreme light conditions it flickers and ruins the atmosphere. Here's an advice: even if your shots are supposed to be dark, try to lit them anyway, because where there is no light there is no information for the camera, which makes the shot look bad and low quality, while you should work on it with camera settings and the right angle.
There are however some nice camera movements. Also, in scenes that are supposed to be taking place in the past, try to pay more attention to details in the sets: it often took me out of the narration because of elements that were not of that time period.

The flashes also didn't blend very well in the finished product, because they looked too much like the rest of the short and because they feel rushed, not thought out, and sometimes not motivated.

Sound is a tricky aspect of moviemaking. It's hard to do well, to clean up and to edit and mix accordingly, so obviously there are many problems with it here: low volumes for dialogues, high volumes for objects. Music also was low.

So, keep working on it and be more careful with your next project, the more films you make the better you become. I hope you find these critiques helpful.

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Trailer of my upcoming live action movie

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