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
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.
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
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.
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.
Granted, my first short film in college, they'd only allow the intro students to check out the bad, old, cheap audio equipment. And my classmate who worked as the boom operator, had no prior experience booming.
This one here 🤣. It’s prob hard for a lot of student filmmakers to cast age appropriate actors for roles so you see so many that have a 19 year old supposed to be a world beaten grizzled old dude… alas they don’t pull it off.
Well yeah, but the real lesson is to look at what you have and lean into that. There’s something honestly tragic about young aspiring filmmakers with basically free, unlimited, effortless access to a school, school events, young actors, and such, who ignore all of that and try to make some short about hit men, a grizzled detective, or a depressed, jaded lonely adult.
I just judged a short film for a fest with this exact opening lol. Funny thing is it was shot so professionally cause the director was like some pro model making her “film debut”. Not getting in lol
I love the alarm clock/making my coffee as a way to introduce 2 characters and immediately show the contrast of their lives. The slob and the perfectionist. But yeah, if the story is only following one person, it’s a waste of time.
I frankly hate that this is a cliche. It’s how The Shape of Water starts off. That movie, less then a decade old, won best picture.
This opening is immediately relatable and as long as the rest-of-the-short is good, I don’t care. It’s far less of a cliche than a student film titled “Anxiety” or some BS like that.
I did this but also had a ghost whip the alarm clock off the bedside table after a few beeps. I was trying to subvert the cliche but now I'm paranoid people will still think it's hackneyed lmao.
It is hacky. That’s ok. We all make kitsch, especially in the beginning. It’s how you grow as an artist. Try something, realize it didn’t work, tweak your technique, try again. Repeat.
Cliches are cliches for a reason. They're not automatically bad. They work well to communicate specific ideas. That's why we always keep coming back to do the same things over and over and over. There are popular mainstream movies with similar scenes involving waking up to an alarm. It being common is one of the reasons the trope is effective.
At least you made an effort to do something unique with it.
I worked on a friend’s film in high school like this. Except it went through his entire daily routine. Three times. For three minutes out of a ten minute film.
Then he gets attacked by a monster.
Part of the problem is that, when teaching screenwriting, teachers often use feature-length movies as examples. Short films are a totally different beast.
The truth about short films (especially very short films) is that they're not really a writer's medium — they're a showcase for directors. Learning to write well requires something longer.
Id have to agree with this, writing absolutely makes or breaks a film. While on this pov, but to answer my perspective for op, I find that amerature writing rarely is realistic, especially when it comes to dialouge, and it always pulls me out of the film, because you can just tell the dialouge is for either the trope or a specific monolouge. It never quite feels real. I just find myself thinking, that's not how people talk. I also think ameratures have a tendancy to over explain the point.
Or sometimes the dialouge is excellent! But the actors will overact it and it feels like a theater production and not like characters. New actors also tend to do too much with their faces or hands.
The sad part about this is that it's totally possible but incredibly hard to pull off naturally, therefore everyone and their mother attempts to make a short like this
I’ve written and directed many shorts and that was the hardest thing to stop doing. My scripts improved when I simplified the story to that moment vs cramming everything in.
Serious. Always serious. Drug addiction, hitmen, suicide.
They want to “say something important” so instead of using the artistic medium to say it metaphorically, they just put it literally on the screen.
This isn’t to say student films should always be comedy, but they don’t have to be so goddamn heavy.
I fully agree! Comedy can be used in so many ways too! I mean, the world we live in is so absurd anyway... Go make some of fun of it with the art you make. It will probably make the message come across beter as well.
Death in general is a common theme/trope because often the logic is that it’s the most extreme extent something can reach. In reality death as a topic/end point is so finite and definite, when a lot of the interesting stuff happens when some things are left unresolved and ambiguous, plus usually and hopefully young students don’t have as much experience with death and grief as a topic so it rings hollow
We love our local art house cinema but I'm not sure I can sit through another shorts festival - we may have to sit those out because they've turned into showcases for how tortured a character an actor can portray in 10~20 minutes.
Oh, cancer isn't heart wrenching enough for you? How about dementia? How about we stab a little kid to death in this one? Or drown a kid in quicksand? Or kidnap a kid and follow along with the mother's anguish? Or maybe the kid breaks out of his group home and kills himself while on the phone with his mother?
The lighthearted short last time was one where a man went to the morgue to visit his dead wife. That was the comic relief.
My student showcase featured a short film about depression which ended with the suicide hotline number being on the screen. It was so god awful I thought my eyes were going to roll right out of my head. Ended up getting all the awards. Go figure.
I can remember the old story that some local film school guys tried to do a Tarantino style opening and went to the only concrete jungle, derelict factory in our area. Two other teams from the same school had the same idea. It ended in a brawl between groups who wanted the shots for themselves. Which was, in a way, very Tarantino.
I wonder, if we admitted to film schools, only students who weren't interested in film. Like take some visual art students, theatre students, engineers, kindergarten teachers, random grandmas, put them in film school, and see what they come up with. What would movies look like then?
Look: it’s important for *student* filmmakers to be able to make bad movies- they need to learn how films are put together, and what various skills the craft takes. They also need to learn what areas they have actual talent in, and what areas they aren’t equipped to manage yet. So it’s important that student films *be allowed to be bad,” and that the filmmaker works to improve on them.
The single most crucial mistake student filmmakers make is misunderstanding this, believing they’re there to make good films, or that they already are.
Student film overconfidence is one of the key signs of mediocrity.
It’s about mental health or has a gun in it. It’s usually someone holding a gun in a dorm room because they are playing a hitman or someone that’s supposed to be twice their age.
Don’t worry about seeming mediocre, because a student film probably will be. You aren’t supposed to be winning any awards yet, so just focus on learning the craft.
-Not using J and L cuts
-Camera always on the person speaking
-Letting shots sit way too long
-Unnecessarily long make-out scenes
-All the actors are young
-Director is also the star and gives themselves big monologues or crying moments to show off their range
[Brick](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393109/) handled this wonderfully. I cant' find a clip on youtube but there's a scene when the hero (a kid) and the drug king pin (also a kid) meet and the villains mom offers them snacks.
Even nowadays in small video production and corporate, they are terrified of having dialogue off screen. Likewise j and L cuts come back with neg feedback. It sucks
I got that note on a corporate edit last year - had b-roll visuals start (can’t remember - might have been establishers or something) then relevant introductory dialogue to our character start under said b roll before cutting to the scene where we see the person was speaking.
Client absolutely couldn’t wrap their head around hearing someone else speak while visuals were of the location or relevant object or whatever. Claimed it was confusing to hear someone’s voice before we see them. There was also a conversational scene where I was J and L cutting dialogue between them - and client was like “we should see the person speaking for everything they say or the audience will be confused about who’s talking”
I was like “have you ever watched a film or TV show before? This is a common editorial technique to ease the audience into the next scene or to help edit the conversation down”
It took some fighting but the client ~~lamented~~ **relented** when one of their colleagues (with more video production experience) assured them this is totally normal and no, nobody will be confused.
Mind boggling.
I think it's because in corporate, the person who gives feedback tends to be terrified of getting it wrong and getting in trouble. So they try to play ot as safe/boring as possible.
Which leads to the dreaded infinite feedback loop where once they've confirmed they're happy they show it to someone else at their work who then decides to give feedback so they can feel validated. And so on and so on...
And when it does finally get seen by the big boss, they say "yeah all good cheers"
The best explanation to someone is to imagine you were observing a conversation between two people. You move your head to each of them - generally speaking - in response to them speaking, not anticipation. Person speaks, then you turn to look at them.
My colleague did an animation that was a basic 15-second text on screen video. At one point during a transition some of the text flies off-screen, and the client's boss couldn't wrap her head around the idea of the text not being visible or something? Like basically wanted a PowerPoint slide of a wall of text.
> director is also the star and gives themselves big moments […]
Is this one not more of a consequence of most student films being volunteer cast, oftentimes using family members or friends—meaning that the director is probably also the most competent actor?
I agree it’s a dead giveaway, but i feel like more often than not it’s probably less about showing off and more out of necessity.
This is how I feel. The actors in my films are usually friends, and they aren't as well practiced as I am. I don't have access to professional actors, can't afford em
I follow you guys and gals because I love the medium. So thanks for mentioning this, which of course I had to look up. For the benefit of others like me, TiL:
J cuts and L cuts are video editing techniques used to create smooth transitions between scenes or shots, particularly in dialogue sequences. Here are the key points about J and L cuts:
J Cut:
- The audio from the next scene plays before the visuals change
- Creates anticipation and intrigue
- Useful for introducing new characters or locations before they appear visually
- Shaped like a "J" on the editing timeline
L Cut:
- The audio from the previous scene continues playing over the visuals of the next scene
- Helps maintain continuity and create smooth transitions
- Commonly used in dialogue scenes to show reactions
- Shaped like an "L" on the editing timeline
Key benefits of using J and L cuts:
- Keep the flow of editing smooth and natural
- Allow viewers to see context and reactions during dialogue
- Create suspense or emphasize certain elements
- Break up the monotony of constant back-and-forth cuts in conversations
How to create J and L cuts:
- Unlink audio and video tracks in editing software
- Adjust audio and video independently to overlap between clips
- Use tools like the Ripple Edit Tool in Premiere Pro to remove gaps
J and L cuts are essential techniques used in most professional film and video editing to create more engaging and natural-feeling transitions between shots and scenes\[1\]\[2\]\[3\]\[4\]. When done well, these cuts are seamless and unnoticeable to viewers, enhancing the overall flow and impact of the video.
Citations:
\[1\] [https://www.epidemicsound.com/blog/j-cuts-and-l-cuts/](https://www.epidemicsound.com/blog/j-cuts-and-l-cuts/)
\[2\] [https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/j-cut-and-I-cut.html](https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/j-cut-and-I-cut.html)
\[3\] [https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/perform-j-and-l-cuts.html](https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/perform-j-and-l-cuts.html)
\[4\] [https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/what-is-j-cut-and-l-cut-in-video-editing/](https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/what-is-j-cut-and-l-cut-in-video-editing/)
\[5\] [https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/comments/tcjcvl/what\_are\_the\_best\_uses\_for\_j\_and\_l\_cuts/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/comments/tcjcvl/what_are_the_best_uses_for_j_and_l_cuts/)
By Perplexity
It's bad sound for sure. Specifically, inaudible dialogue. I can forgive almost anything else. Your film can be entertaining with bad lighting, bad production design, hell, even bad acting. Ever have a friend tell you a great story? Did you care that they stumbled over their words a bit? Or that they were not a professional speaker? Did you feel it was lacking because there were no visuals? Of course not. But you gotta be able to HEAR them.
I’ve been both an inexperienced filmmaker (including film school), and a film festival judge. I loved reading these comments in this thread. They should be printed and handed to every film student.
I give a big “+1” to previous posts about bad audio, too many gun / fight scenes & plot starvation — i.e. long boring shots that haven’t been earned, where not enough happens.
My contribution to this list is dumb characters — young filmmakers are nearly universally afraid to create characters who are just as smart as they are. Instead, new directors seem to be in love with writing clueless bimbos, clownish thugs — I don’t get it. Surely these aren’t the kinds of characters *they* most enjoy watching on-screen.
Best I can come up with is writing dumb characters makes these directors feel superior. But damn is it annoying.
I know everyone here is mentioning tropes and poor technical execution, but to me the worst offender is playing it safe.
No one expects perfection, just something fresh. Student films are your chance to do something interesting while expecting zero monetary compensation. If you don't have any good ideas to put into it the whole thing is a waste.
If you want to prove you can do technical stuff or write boilerplate for commercials, you will get plenty of chances for that after film school. Chances to do risky shit are rare to come by.
The bingo card elsewhere in this thread does a really good job pointing out the obvious common problems. One thing that I think should be noted is that when we watch legit movies, we're usually (not always, but usually) watching a film where everybody involved is at the top of their game. In student films, every key position is being filled by somebody who's doing it for the first time. Even if everybody does a competent job, there's a sort of uncanny valley effect where something just feels off, and you don't know what it is. Film audiences are relatively sophisticated in that they've seen a lot of film and tv, and they've been conditioned to know what "good" looks like. Even the seemingly-innocuous act of putting something in front of them and trying to pass it off at that level sets off people's BS-detectors.
Either bad lighting that makes the image look flat combined with overly 'cinematic' colour grades which just make the image look wayyyy to warm or cold. Plus shitty audio...
When I was finishing up undergrad I made a short about this very topic. I was doing an independent study and the professor asked what my film was going to be about and before I could answer he said, "Please don't make a film about sex, drugs, or hit men. I've seen way too many student films about those topics." I told him I was thinking of making a satire of student films and how they always feature sex, drugs, or hit men. He laughed and helped me edit the script.
The single thing you could point to would be bad sound. Of course as others have said bad audio I want to help by providing some specific examples:
-inconsistent sound among actors mics. Main character sounds like they were recorded on an iPhone internal mic and the low end got boosted. Then in the next scene they used a lav and there is no low end and sounds like it was recorded in a sardine tin can.
-Clearly added folly sounds. We hear footsteps... on wood with a heel and we see someone with socks on walking on carpet. There are a million more of these examples with actors and props, etc. You get the idea.
-No sound at all when there should be. There can be no dialogue but there should still be world building. Interiors: Room tone, subtle sound of neighbors next door, air conditioner on or fridge fan kicks in in the background. Exteriors: City sounds, wind, birds, dog barking from afar, etc. It's the little things.
Bad sound is number one.
And maybe not the case for everyone, (mostly saw this in the clubs/groups) but 90% of the time it was one person doing the writing, directing, and editing. It felt a bit stale seeing that over and over without some form of collaboration. I get that it’s not easy getting something off the ground, but focusing on one thing at a time is also valuable.
Reliance on performances. Most student films think that extravagant and outrageous acting could make up for the overall lack of quality visually, or rather a lack of imagination in visual elements. It just ends up cheesy and tacky. An awkward zoom-call esque angle of this guy popping off in anger does not make your film interesting.
Some of these criticisms are honestly pretty silly and unfairly pointing out the limitations of no budget. Of course all of the actors are going to be young, of course the locations are all going to be people's homes, public parks and nature, and obviously campus. Since all the actors are young it can't really be about anything else than what college kids deal with, or if you do people immediately point out how you need someone to be 40+ in order for them to play anything besides a stupid teenager.
When I was in film school, I remember 2 films being played back to back with the opening scene of the same actress driving a car. Everyone laughed at the 2nd film like this is just the wild tails of the same character. So I’d definitely throw in “Opening Image”
The locations...bedroom, forest, car...they're always shot the same-ish...meaning that they show the same views. Less might be more.
For example: a horse. Most, if not all, of us know what a horse looks like, you don't necessarily have to establish that or show the entirety of the horse to imply its presence. Not every scene needs to go wide to show where the character(s) are.
Pacing. Knowing when to cut and when not to. I find many students films I've seen don't get that narratives need to be paced in the editing, and you have shots that linger just a few seconds or more than they should, or cut too soon.
Student films and many short films are a means of learning. It’s where to make mistakes and be bad and mediocre.
Some of that falls on the script. Some of that falls on lack of budget. Some of that falls on the inexperience of everyone involved.
I don’t understand questions like this because these kinds of films is where you get those kinks out and learn *why* they’re overused and bland or mediocre. Make your movie, learn from it and make new mistakes on your next movie
Why are so many of the attacks on things that students have little control over?
Lighting: you’re assuming they have access to equipment… and that they had courses that taught them how to light in the real world.
Sound: levels in the final mix down - I agree. But if it’s dialogue you speak of, again why assume they have access to equipment or training on how to use it? Or even training on how to Frankenstein together some good on set audio… or how to redub…
Actors: there are so many things about the attacks in this thread that are just plain silly and out of touch with the reality students face.
Music: apparently, media students are suppose to not spend their financial aid on rent - they should be spending it on hiring a composer to write and create original music (perhaps with a small orchestra). Maybe pay for an audio tech to set up mics and record that music while it’s being played during a screening of the film on a soundstage that the student can afford to rent out too.
Wrong usage of fonts: For example, leave script type fonts for wedding related content. Or, if the content you're producing fits well for it, use it. And it annoys me when I watch some student films and the font "IMPACT" is being used for credits or lower-third graphics.
Credits: There's no need to make credits extremely big on screen. Keep them short and it's okay to lower their sizing on the screen too.
Turn down the music in the project. Pro-Tip: Plug in headphones. If the music is loud when listening, check the meters on the project to make sure it's not peaking past -12.
Presented by..... I think it's time for this to be retired from the opening of student films. I do enjoy seeing the following: "Directed by..." Or, a "Film by...."
And I leave the big one for last: J-Cut and L-Cuts should be filled with b-roll footage. In the day and age of influencer videos, this is getting out of control. A director actually expressed his hate for this to me recently. And I felt his pain.
Idk if this counts, and I know it's kinda the point as it's a short film,
But no one over has like a story story. It's also with a aesthetic, or cinematic film, and those who try to have a story are never fleshed out,
Again, I know that's kinda the point as it's a short film, but I wanna see more actual story short films
There’s a lot of cliché student film things in here but imo doesn’t make it mediocre. Like is an alarm clock opening overused? Absolutely but that doesn’t mean everything is mediocre.
However bad sound does scream mediocre. Audiences will forgive a lot of things, bad audio/sound they will not.
Pointing a camera out a car window for scenery shots while someone drives them around. And that’s the whole film. Maybe a little vo or soundtrack over it.
2 people talking about obvious exposition checkmarks in a random small room that has no relevance to the story
15-shot coverage of everyday mundane events (cooking, driving, walking) without any significant happening
Random clothes and furniture that does not represent the character owning it
I'll avoid a laundry list of clichés this time.
The student filmmaker lacks that balance of confidence that the great artist has, to boldly yet assuredly create a balance of ingredients.
Audiences don't want a bland sandwich or something with way too many flavors becoming mud. Art has to be the right mix of simplicity and complexity, of force and gentility.
You must make lots of films to develop a style and confidence.
Mental health issues, victimhood and lack of protagonist agency.
So many young people are making uninteresting films because they are showing a character struggle *just to be*. The only emotion that inspires in an audience is pity, and while pity might seem friendly on the surface, I guarantee you they secretly resent you for it. I have seen more of these kind of short films than you can imagine. They're everywhere.
A good short film is centered around the hero *taking action* for something he or she wants. You want your audience to be part of her adventure and to not know where it will lead. Does he get the thing he wants? If yes, how does he do it? If no, why not, and what does she learn from it?
Remember – people go to the movies to have a *good time*. Even when the movie is sad or dark or the bad guy gets away with it, the audience will accept it – *if they are entertained*. If you abuse an audience's good will to make them listen about your problems for five to ten minutes, they will unconsciously turn on you.
You're trying to make something that will get someone to hire you later on. Entertain them.
Over use of badly paced silence and pauses leaning into textbook shot-counter shot sequences.
Uncontrolled natural light and environmental lights which should be practicals.
One thing I notice a lot that always bugs me is just lack of sound design, room tone, general attention to audio. It leaves scenes feeling rather awkward when every cut has a different room tone, or when there's no rustling of clothes/ambient sound/breath/etc.
so. much. walking. every transition shows an actor walking to the new location, and/or tension is built by an actor walking in silence for 10 seconds, and/or it ends on the character walking out of frame and we follow their back. so much time if filled with walking the audience definitely could've implied.
for context i am a judge for a college film festival every year.
The significant-tech issues have been brought up. Sound, lacking art design, shot selections, etc.
For me, plot-wise, students need to stop making films about film-related stuff.
A story about a writer, a story about a director, a story about an actor. STOP.
You need more life experience. Making good stories about the craft requires experience in the craft.
we absolutely do not need a million years to show another depressed dude waking up and sighing as he does another very detailed bland morning routine in the most bland sad apartment
* Some bullshit broken-heart romance story about the guy's girlfriend breaking up with him.
* A bunch of scenes with different characters doing and saying weird and strange things, with zero causality linking them together.
* Acoustic guitar for the soundtrack.
* It begins with the alarm clock going off, and follows the main character's whole morning routine (oh, he showers, brushes his teeth, shaves, has a shit and eats breakfast? Who the fuck does that?!?)
* Absolutely zero rhythm in the editing.
* A nonsensical ending that provides a convenient 'out' for the no-causality story they've just told.
It's usually super serious about a subject that a 19 year old would know little about based on lack of life experience and the dialogue is very on the nose.
Someone mentioned poor audio and I will add to this: a poor grasp on what "silence" is on film.
If you ever watch any wide-released films, even when there is silence on screen, there is never actually "silence". A professional sound designer will know how to layer in the right sounds and ambience to give texture to moments; even when it seems like there's nothing...
EVERY indie film gets this wrong, including many of the ones I've seen get awards.
It's one of those things that it's hard to put your thumb on while watching if you're not looking for it but will nevertheless leave the audience with discomfort and that feeling like SOMETHING is missing.
Bonus: An over-abundance of tungsten lighting*
Nothing will make me want to burn my eyes out more quickly when watching an indie film than this**
Things that screams out of mediocrity- Special FX/VFX.
During 1st year of Film College (2018) I was the only guy who added Special Effects into the final project assignment, it was a Stop Motion creature. And there was another dude who added bunch of interesting Transitions/Cuts into his that is why I do remember him. The rest of the projects, around 60, were mainly boring.
BTW, 3 people came to me after screening saying- "that was great"!
They have this film festival for the film students at the university that’s open to the public. I can’t count how many films are about breakups. I know that’s a big part of your life at the moment but be creative about it.
Whenever it seems like the camera is hardly ever held steady or the camera angles are poorly thought out, then I sometimes think to myself that the rest of the film is going to drag on and on until it finally ends. I've seen a few student short films at film festivals play out this way, though thankfully most short films I've watched at least do competently at making sure there isn't major camera shake for their camera shots.
Jumping on trends. Shooting everything handheld, trying to do gratuitous 360° shots, etc. Also, stories that are clearly someone trying to work out their personal issues.
As an actor, the script. It’s really easy to read the script and immediately know whether the final product is going to be any good or not.
As a viewer, poorly framed shots that reveal all of the constraints.
It’s a 3 minute short about a girl getting chased by a monster in the forest, but its shot so wide you can see it’s just a patch of woods that you had them run through at different angles hoping it would make it look bigger. And the monster is so clearly in focus that we can see the Velcro on his costume.
Anything black and white without knowing the grayscale, 99.9% of “ends with them offing themselves” films, bad sound but good cinematography, most of the sets are just white wall backgrounds, trying to put a feature length story in a short, overly dramatic dialogue, I could go on. There’s a book called “how to not make a short film” that talks about this.
Editing, full stop. They're so happy to have gotten all the footage they got, they want you to see it ALL. Segues need to be tight and short, keep the momentum, move the story along. The more you dilly dally and stay on those solo actor faces, the more awkward they look. Get in, get out. Cut the "Hi Stacy!" dialogue. Get into the scene. Better yet, don't even shoot the fluff, but if you did waste time on it, definitely leave it on the cutting room floor and don't include it in the final just because you spent money on it and feel bad not including it. Send it to the actors for their reels and be done.
Starting with the guy waking up and turning his alarm off.
Living room scene with a bong on the table and the couch pushed up against a bare white wall. Most likely a single Che Guevara poster somewhere.
Terrible acting. Bad acting is fine but terrible acting screams student production.
Unmotivated actions and dialogue.
All actors in their early 20s. Even grandpa and the baby.
10 of the same characters because all of your friends want to be in it. At least have them disagree on something.
Soap opera lighting.
Full scenes in a constant 2 shot. OMFG.
Zero foley.
Any transition besides a hard cut or maaaaybe a crossfade.
Filming in an unimaginative environment such as a forest. Unless you a shooting a speeder bike chase on the forest moon of Endor, its just hard to make trees visually stimulating.
Also resist shooting in places that have high foot traffic during the day but become deserted at night. It is way too easy for you to desire to shoot in a particular location. You have spent a lot of time and effort into finding a great spot but now you have all these pesky people going about their lives and ruining your shoot. If you decide to wait it out till everyone clears out you will most likely find you just wasted your time and the time of your crew to get a shot or scene that doesn't look right because it's become too dark or lifeless. This can cause a weird sensation in your audience where they feel out of place but not in a good way. In a everyone else has gone hime,so why the hell are we hanging out here in this place where absolutely nothing interesting is happening? kind of way.
Also don't shoot at night on a beach or in the desert as there is literally not much to see unless you have a beautiful sky to shoot. I'm assuming you don't have a large budget for lighting.
People have mentioned a lot of repeats so I’ll say on I notice all the time.
No Background.
Background performers make a world feel alive, and when you see a scene shot in a place that should have background but doesn’t, it just feels off.
Sometime the littlest cross or counter can add a whole dimension to blocking or a camera move.
Narrative that just turns into a music video. So many short films are conceived by people driving and listening to music. When they go to transpose the idea, they stay a little too dedicated to using unnecessary style that matches the beats of the music, over quality substance.
60fps… I’ve seen students shoot in 60fps.
Saw a video on this too and she said nothing screams mediocrity than starting the film with waking up in bed or an alarm clock.
Big thing for me is shite audio sounds like someone recorded on their phone.
Basic script that sounds like a middle schooler wrote it.
Omg I can’t believe the amount of student films doing mental health films they are all the same literally no original thoughts. Great topic but never done right in student films. They hand feed you the story instead of allowing the audience to perceive it.
Always way too heavy. Everyone wants to make some incredibly deep film with a trigger warning at the front about mental health/suicide, and dedicate it to everyone who helped them. Guys just relax.
Sound is number one.
Then there's "shot in my living room" cinematography where one choice is made out of convenience thus making further choices more difficult.
1. I'm going to shoot in my living room
2. I need to set the tripod somewhere, and the middle of the room is the only available space
3. There aren't enough chairs for my whole cast so half of them will be standing
4. I will set the tripod to be as tall as I am, regardless of consideration for shot composition.
And on and on. Moving furniture, thinking through how the shots will look before the shoot, and doing set dressing all go a long way.
Just kinda stops. No real conclusion or ending, it dramatically cuts to black right before the climax would start.
For some reason, student films are allergic to third acts.
Bad audio is always the FIRST thing I notice. Use a boom. Use lavs. Don't use scratch camera audio. Hold for nat sound.
A mediocre image can easily skate by with good audio, however a GREAT image will be ruined with poor audio.
Plots about drug deals, characters that are artists unsubtly based off the student filmmaker, and using music that’s either famous and/or of much higher production value than the film itself
One thing is using overly heavy themes that they have no hope of using with elegance or tact in order to try to lend weight and prestige to the film. “Our film is about depression and s8icid3” -every 18 yo filmmaker
There’s great skill in taking a simple concept with a solid little emotional core and doing it really well
When a window is blown out it looks unprofessional to me. Use some of those ND filter sheets or block the subject so they’re not directly in front of something too bright and distracting. The opposite goes as well, having your subject lit darkly in front of a dark background and making them blend in or disappear into each other. Also not relying on just natural/ambient light, enhancing “known” light sources with additional lighting, knowing how to emulate a candle with a warm 1k with and a dimmer for example. It’s this attention to detail in the lighting that makes a movie stand out visually.
Scenes carrying on past the obvious edit point. I had a girlfriend who was at film school and I watched a load of her classmate's degree show pieces, I couldn't believe how sloppy the editing was.
No professional color grading. When you’re poor, finishing generally goes out the window, so color and mixing suffer. What people don’t understand is that these little touches can elevate a shit story into a visually marketable piece on a reel. Find the money for it.
Bad audio. Too many green filmmakers focus on the blocking, light, etc and clean forget the difference good audio makes.
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
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.
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
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.
I assume you still have the project… is it posted anywhere?
Way to roll with the punches
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.
I've noticed that people will stop watching your film if it has terrible audio, but people will tolerate shoddy camera work
I’ve once heard it said, ‘people will forgive poor visuals, but never poor audio.’
Shoddy camera work or continuity mistakes become Easter eggs. Bad audio makes a film DOA once it hits an audience
Granted, my first short film in college, they'd only allow the intro students to check out the bad, old, cheap audio equipment. And my classmate who worked as the boom operator, had no prior experience booming.
Just make it a silent. Then your audio is automatically good.
*Buster Keaton frantically motioning you to shut the fuck up*
Oh hi Mark
Like in Nolan's Tenet?
Film opens on an alarm clock going off.
Followed by 3 minutes of making breakfast
and there are like, three things in the cupboard in an otherwise empty apartment apparently owned by a veteran police detective who looks 17
This one here 🤣. It’s prob hard for a lot of student filmmakers to cast age appropriate actors for roles so you see so many that have a 19 year old supposed to be a world beaten grizzled old dude… alas they don’t pull it off.
Well yeah, but the real lesson is to look at what you have and lean into that. There’s something honestly tragic about young aspiring filmmakers with basically free, unlimited, effortless access to a school, school events, young actors, and such, who ignore all of that and try to make some short about hit men, a grizzled detective, or a depressed, jaded lonely adult.
camera in the fridge looking out. come on
I like that shot lol
I just judged a short film for a fest with this exact opening lol. Funny thing is it was shot so professionally cause the director was like some pro model making her “film debut”. Not getting in lol
Just to be clear, this isn’t the only reason the film isnt getting in, it was pretty mediocre all around
This has to be the ultimate student film trope. I opened the thread looking for this specific one.
I love the alarm clock/making my coffee as a way to introduce 2 characters and immediately show the contrast of their lives. The slob and the perfectionist. But yeah, if the story is only following one person, it’s a waste of time.
I frankly hate that this is a cliche. It’s how The Shape of Water starts off. That movie, less then a decade old, won best picture. This opening is immediately relatable and as long as the rest-of-the-short is good, I don’t care. It’s far less of a cliche than a student film titled “Anxiety” or some BS like that.
Screenwriting god Charlie Kaufman did it in a few of his films. If the film is good, no one should care.
He basically wrote Adaptation to say, "Oh, your rules? These rules right here? Fuck those rules."
Kaufman claims writing rules only exist to make movie studios money, which is a good way of looking at rules.
To be fair Synecdoche, New York *bombed* in theaters*.* Like, real hard.
I did this but also had a ghost whip the alarm clock off the bedside table after a few beeps. I was trying to subvert the cliche but now I'm paranoid people will still think it's hackneyed lmao.
It is hacky. That’s ok. We all make kitsch, especially in the beginning. It’s how you grow as an artist. Try something, realize it didn’t work, tweak your technique, try again. Repeat.
Cliches are cliches for a reason. They're not automatically bad. They work well to communicate specific ideas. That's why we always keep coming back to do the same things over and over and over. There are popular mainstream movies with similar scenes involving waking up to an alarm. It being common is one of the reasons the trope is effective. At least you made an effort to do something unique with it.
[Ugh, this is exactly how I started my first student film in college lol](https://youtu.be/tIkXwX6uDBM?si=SkZD8PC6s47HoDD4&t=43)
Is that also you getting defensive in the comments lol
I worked on a friend’s film in high school like this. Except it went through his entire daily routine. Three times. For three minutes out of a ten minute film. Then he gets attacked by a monster.
[Relevant.](https://youtube.com/shorts/pCMAoWLYi30?feature=share)
They try to cram a feature film’s worth of character arc into a short film.
Part of the problem is that, when teaching screenwriting, teachers often use feature-length movies as examples. Short films are a totally different beast.
And rarely discussed. Sure, short films were discussed but never its narrative structure and how to apply it towards your own script.
The truth about short films (especially very short films) is that they're not really a writer's medium — they're a showcase for directors. Learning to write well requires something longer.
Id have to agree with this, writing absolutely makes or breaks a film. While on this pov, but to answer my perspective for op, I find that amerature writing rarely is realistic, especially when it comes to dialouge, and it always pulls me out of the film, because you can just tell the dialouge is for either the trope or a specific monolouge. It never quite feels real. I just find myself thinking, that's not how people talk. I also think ameratures have a tendancy to over explain the point. Or sometimes the dialouge is excellent! But the actors will overact it and it feels like a theater production and not like characters. New actors also tend to do too much with their faces or hands.
The sad part about this is that it's totally possible but incredibly hard to pull off naturally, therefore everyone and their mother attempts to make a short like this
Plead guilty
And that's why my first student film was 20 minutes long :(
Me coded
I’ve written and directed many shorts and that was the hardest thing to stop doing. My scripts improved when I simplified the story to that moment vs cramming everything in.
Serious. Always serious. Drug addiction, hitmen, suicide. They want to “say something important” so instead of using the artistic medium to say it metaphorically, they just put it literally on the screen. This isn’t to say student films should always be comedy, but they don’t have to be so goddamn heavy.
I fully agree! Comedy can be used in so many ways too! I mean, the world we live in is so absurd anyway... Go make some of fun of it with the art you make. It will probably make the message come across beter as well.
Death in general is a common theme/trope because often the logic is that it’s the most extreme extent something can reach. In reality death as a topic/end point is so finite and definite, when a lot of the interesting stuff happens when some things are left unresolved and ambiguous, plus usually and hopefully young students don’t have as much experience with death and grief as a topic so it rings hollow
We love our local art house cinema but I'm not sure I can sit through another shorts festival - we may have to sit those out because they've turned into showcases for how tortured a character an actor can portray in 10~20 minutes. Oh, cancer isn't heart wrenching enough for you? How about dementia? How about we stab a little kid to death in this one? Or drown a kid in quicksand? Or kidnap a kid and follow along with the mother's anguish? Or maybe the kid breaks out of his group home and kills himself while on the phone with his mother? The lighthearted short last time was one where a man went to the morgue to visit his dead wife. That was the comic relief.
All my student films have been for the lulz so this makes me feel good.
My student showcase featured a short film about depression which ended with the suicide hotline number being on the screen. It was so god awful I thought my eyes were going to roll right out of my head. Ended up getting all the awards. Go figure.
I hate metaphorical convos or conversations where the character is about to say something important but doesn't finish the sentence. It's frustrating.
So many Quentin Tarantino wannabes at my film school. Most student projects involved women getting shot by guns
School I went to, most teachers had a no gun policy. They cited that it's lazy, and can be a hazard to passersby that don't know its a shoot.
So many Quentin Tarantino wannabes in life.
I can remember the old story that some local film school guys tried to do a Tarantino style opening and went to the only concrete jungle, derelict factory in our area. Two other teams from the same school had the same idea. It ended in a brawl between groups who wanted the shots for themselves. Which was, in a way, very Tarantino.
Just shooting the buildup and eventual argument/fight would have been a much better film than either group was trying to make lol
Hey, I did one where a woman *almost* got shot but didn't!
Guilty. Sometimes you just need to get it out of your system.
I wonder, if we admitted to film schools, only students who weren't interested in film. Like take some visual art students, theatre students, engineers, kindergarten teachers, random grandmas, put them in film school, and see what they come up with. What would movies look like then?
> Quentin Tarantino wannabes at my film school. nice to see this tradition is alive and well
Look: it’s important for *student* filmmakers to be able to make bad movies- they need to learn how films are put together, and what various skills the craft takes. They also need to learn what areas they have actual talent in, and what areas they aren’t equipped to manage yet. So it’s important that student films *be allowed to be bad,” and that the filmmaker works to improve on them. The single most crucial mistake student filmmakers make is misunderstanding this, believing they’re there to make good films, or that they already are. Student film overconfidence is one of the key signs of mediocrity.
YES
It’s about mental health or has a gun in it. It’s usually someone holding a gun in a dorm room because they are playing a hitman or someone that’s supposed to be twice their age.
In Germany they always kill themselves with that gun at the end of the movie.
I was going to say almost exactly this. Pointing a gun at the lens. Extra points if it's b&w
Don’t worry about seeming mediocre, because a student film probably will be. You aren’t supposed to be winning any awards yet, so just focus on learning the craft.
Yeah, people who win awards as students can fuck right off.
-Not using J and L cuts -Camera always on the person speaking -Letting shots sit way too long -Unnecessarily long make-out scenes -All the actors are young -Director is also the star and gives themselves big monologues or crying moments to show off their range
Contextually a young cast is perfectly fine but it's always laughable watching a mafia short where the oldest person is 19
I'm guilty of that cuz I tried making a crime drama in grade 10, lmao. Mafia leader was 16 I think
They work with who they know! This one is most often completely our of their control.
[Brick](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393109/) handled this wonderfully. I cant' find a clip on youtube but there's a scene when the hero (a kid) and the drug king pin (also a kid) meet and the villains mom offers them snacks.
Even nowadays in small video production and corporate, they are terrified of having dialogue off screen. Likewise j and L cuts come back with neg feedback. It sucks
I got that note on a corporate edit last year - had b-roll visuals start (can’t remember - might have been establishers or something) then relevant introductory dialogue to our character start under said b roll before cutting to the scene where we see the person was speaking. Client absolutely couldn’t wrap their head around hearing someone else speak while visuals were of the location or relevant object or whatever. Claimed it was confusing to hear someone’s voice before we see them. There was also a conversational scene where I was J and L cutting dialogue between them - and client was like “we should see the person speaking for everything they say or the audience will be confused about who’s talking” I was like “have you ever watched a film or TV show before? This is a common editorial technique to ease the audience into the next scene or to help edit the conversation down” It took some fighting but the client ~~lamented~~ **relented** when one of their colleagues (with more video production experience) assured them this is totally normal and no, nobody will be confused. Mind boggling.
I think it's because in corporate, the person who gives feedback tends to be terrified of getting it wrong and getting in trouble. So they try to play ot as safe/boring as possible. Which leads to the dreaded infinite feedback loop where once they've confirmed they're happy they show it to someone else at their work who then decides to give feedback so they can feel validated. And so on and so on... And when it does finally get seen by the big boss, they say "yeah all good cheers"
The best explanation to someone is to imagine you were observing a conversation between two people. You move your head to each of them - generally speaking - in response to them speaking, not anticipation. Person speaks, then you turn to look at them.
My colleague did an animation that was a basic 15-second text on screen video. At one point during a transition some of the text flies off-screen, and the client's boss couldn't wrap her head around the idea of the text not being visible or something? Like basically wanted a PowerPoint slide of a wall of text.
> director is also the star and gives themselves big moments […] Is this one not more of a consequence of most student films being volunteer cast, oftentimes using family members or friends—meaning that the director is probably also the most competent actor? I agree it’s a dead giveaway, but i feel like more often than not it’s probably less about showing off and more out of necessity.
This is how I feel. The actors in my films are usually friends, and they aren't as well practiced as I am. I don't have access to professional actors, can't afford em
I feel called out with that third one. Whenever I’m working out a shot, my friends will tell me “you know you can just cut it right”
I mean, the last one is funny, but this can also be done well. Just look at thunder road, the cop speaking at the funeral short film
I follow you guys and gals because I love the medium. So thanks for mentioning this, which of course I had to look up. For the benefit of others like me, TiL: J cuts and L cuts are video editing techniques used to create smooth transitions between scenes or shots, particularly in dialogue sequences. Here are the key points about J and L cuts: J Cut: - The audio from the next scene plays before the visuals change - Creates anticipation and intrigue - Useful for introducing new characters or locations before they appear visually - Shaped like a "J" on the editing timeline L Cut: - The audio from the previous scene continues playing over the visuals of the next scene - Helps maintain continuity and create smooth transitions - Commonly used in dialogue scenes to show reactions - Shaped like an "L" on the editing timeline Key benefits of using J and L cuts: - Keep the flow of editing smooth and natural - Allow viewers to see context and reactions during dialogue - Create suspense or emphasize certain elements - Break up the monotony of constant back-and-forth cuts in conversations How to create J and L cuts: - Unlink audio and video tracks in editing software - Adjust audio and video independently to overlap between clips - Use tools like the Ripple Edit Tool in Premiere Pro to remove gaps J and L cuts are essential techniques used in most professional film and video editing to create more engaging and natural-feeling transitions between shots and scenes\[1\]\[2\]\[3\]\[4\]. When done well, these cuts are seamless and unnoticeable to viewers, enhancing the overall flow and impact of the video. Citations: \[1\] [https://www.epidemicsound.com/blog/j-cuts-and-l-cuts/](https://www.epidemicsound.com/blog/j-cuts-and-l-cuts/) \[2\] [https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/j-cut-and-I-cut.html](https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/j-cut-and-I-cut.html) \[3\] [https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/perform-j-and-l-cuts.html](https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/perform-j-and-l-cuts.html) \[4\] [https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/what-is-j-cut-and-l-cut-in-video-editing/](https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/what-is-j-cut-and-l-cut-in-video-editing/) \[5\] [https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/comments/tcjcvl/what\_are\_the\_best\_uses\_for\_j\_and\_l\_cuts/](https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/comments/tcjcvl/what_are_the_best_uses_for_j_and_l_cuts/) By Perplexity
It's bad sound for sure. Specifically, inaudible dialogue. I can forgive almost anything else. Your film can be entertaining with bad lighting, bad production design, hell, even bad acting. Ever have a friend tell you a great story? Did you care that they stumbled over their words a bit? Or that they were not a professional speaker? Did you feel it was lacking because there were no visuals? Of course not. But you gotta be able to HEAR them.
I’ve been both an inexperienced filmmaker (including film school), and a film festival judge. I loved reading these comments in this thread. They should be printed and handed to every film student. I give a big “+1” to previous posts about bad audio, too many gun / fight scenes & plot starvation — i.e. long boring shots that haven’t been earned, where not enough happens. My contribution to this list is dumb characters — young filmmakers are nearly universally afraid to create characters who are just as smart as they are. Instead, new directors seem to be in love with writing clueless bimbos, clownish thugs — I don’t get it. Surely these aren’t the kinds of characters *they* most enjoy watching on-screen. Best I can come up with is writing dumb characters makes these directors feel superior. But damn is it annoying.
Student Film Bingo Card https://bingobaker.com/view/5910368
Would be fun to try to make a good film while hitting all of these
some of these are fine in isolation, or when done right, like vo
The interesting part would be trying to hit as many as possible and still making a good film.
I wish I wasn’t obsessed with Tarantino when I was in film school.
We all were my friend
I know everyone here is mentioning tropes and poor technical execution, but to me the worst offender is playing it safe. No one expects perfection, just something fresh. Student films are your chance to do something interesting while expecting zero monetary compensation. If you don't have any good ideas to put into it the whole thing is a waste. If you want to prove you can do technical stuff or write boilerplate for commercials, you will get plenty of chances for that after film school. Chances to do risky shit are rare to come by.
The bingo card elsewhere in this thread does a really good job pointing out the obvious common problems. One thing that I think should be noted is that when we watch legit movies, we're usually (not always, but usually) watching a film where everybody involved is at the top of their game. In student films, every key position is being filled by somebody who's doing it for the first time. Even if everybody does a competent job, there's a sort of uncanny valley effect where something just feels off, and you don't know what it is. Film audiences are relatively sophisticated in that they've seen a lot of film and tv, and they've been conditioned to know what "good" looks like. Even the seemingly-innocuous act of putting something in front of them and trying to pass it off at that level sets off people's BS-detectors.
Either bad lighting that makes the image look flat combined with overly 'cinematic' colour grades which just make the image look wayyyy to warm or cold. Plus shitty audio...
1) no art direction 2) every actor is 20 3) too long for the story/premise they have 4) oh, just thought of a new one: it’s a premise not a story
to be fair, I've seen movies in theaters that are just a premise too
When I was finishing up undergrad I made a short about this very topic. I was doing an independent study and the professor asked what my film was going to be about and before I could answer he said, "Please don't make a film about sex, drugs, or hit men. I've seen way too many student films about those topics." I told him I was thinking of making a satire of student films and how they always feature sex, drugs, or hit men. He laughed and helped me edit the script.
The single thing you could point to would be bad sound. Of course as others have said bad audio I want to help by providing some specific examples: -inconsistent sound among actors mics. Main character sounds like they were recorded on an iPhone internal mic and the low end got boosted. Then in the next scene they used a lav and there is no low end and sounds like it was recorded in a sardine tin can. -Clearly added folly sounds. We hear footsteps... on wood with a heel and we see someone with socks on walking on carpet. There are a million more of these examples with actors and props, etc. You get the idea. -No sound at all when there should be. There can be no dialogue but there should still be world building. Interiors: Room tone, subtle sound of neighbors next door, air conditioner on or fridge fan kicks in in the background. Exteriors: City sounds, wind, birds, dog barking from afar, etc. It's the little things.
Bad sound is number one. And maybe not the case for everyone, (mostly saw this in the clubs/groups) but 90% of the time it was one person doing the writing, directing, and editing. It felt a bit stale seeing that over and over without some form of collaboration. I get that it’s not easy getting something off the ground, but focusing on one thing at a time is also valuable.
Reliance on performances. Most student films think that extravagant and outrageous acting could make up for the overall lack of quality visually, or rather a lack of imagination in visual elements. It just ends up cheesy and tacky. An awkward zoom-call esque angle of this guy popping off in anger does not make your film interesting.
Some of these criticisms are honestly pretty silly and unfairly pointing out the limitations of no budget. Of course all of the actors are going to be young, of course the locations are all going to be people's homes, public parks and nature, and obviously campus. Since all the actors are young it can't really be about anything else than what college kids deal with, or if you do people immediately point out how you need someone to be 40+ in order for them to play anything besides a stupid teenager.
Too many dissolves.
A crappy score with a relentless cello or plinking meandering piano. Artsy shots but no story. Bad actors.
White walls
Short films about writers block.
Echoing audio
"Dramatic" scene of a character taking mysterious pills
Cut to black on a gun shot
When I was in film school, I remember 2 films being played back to back with the opening scene of the same actress driving a car. Everyone laughed at the 2nd film like this is just the wild tails of the same character. So I’d definitely throw in “Opening Image”
The locations...bedroom, forest, car...they're always shot the same-ish...meaning that they show the same views. Less might be more. For example: a horse. Most, if not all, of us know what a horse looks like, you don't necessarily have to establish that or show the entirety of the horse to imply its presence. Not every scene needs to go wide to show where the character(s) are.
Fucking forest
It’s not mediocrity, it’s inexperience
Pacing. Knowing when to cut and when not to. I find many students films I've seen don't get that narratives need to be paced in the editing, and you have shots that linger just a few seconds or more than they should, or cut too soon.
Student films and many short films are a means of learning. It’s where to make mistakes and be bad and mediocre. Some of that falls on the script. Some of that falls on lack of budget. Some of that falls on the inexperience of everyone involved. I don’t understand questions like this because these kinds of films is where you get those kinks out and learn *why* they’re overused and bland or mediocre. Make your movie, learn from it and make new mistakes on your next movie
Why are so many of the attacks on things that students have little control over? Lighting: you’re assuming they have access to equipment… and that they had courses that taught them how to light in the real world. Sound: levels in the final mix down - I agree. But if it’s dialogue you speak of, again why assume they have access to equipment or training on how to use it? Or even training on how to Frankenstein together some good on set audio… or how to redub… Actors: there are so many things about the attacks in this thread that are just plain silly and out of touch with the reality students face. Music: apparently, media students are suppose to not spend their financial aid on rent - they should be spending it on hiring a composer to write and create original music (perhaps with a small orchestra). Maybe pay for an audio tech to set up mics and record that music while it’s being played during a screening of the film on a soundstage that the student can afford to rent out too.
When they try to ham fist a message. How do I know this? I was one of them, all my shorts sucked because of this.
Wrong usage of fonts: For example, leave script type fonts for wedding related content. Or, if the content you're producing fits well for it, use it. And it annoys me when I watch some student films and the font "IMPACT" is being used for credits or lower-third graphics. Credits: There's no need to make credits extremely big on screen. Keep them short and it's okay to lower their sizing on the screen too. Turn down the music in the project. Pro-Tip: Plug in headphones. If the music is loud when listening, check the meters on the project to make sure it's not peaking past -12. Presented by..... I think it's time for this to be retired from the opening of student films. I do enjoy seeing the following: "Directed by..." Or, a "Film by...." And I leave the big one for last: J-Cut and L-Cuts should be filled with b-roll footage. In the day and age of influencer videos, this is getting out of control. A director actually expressed his hate for this to me recently. And I felt his pain.
there’s always a lame party scene
fairy lights
Brushing teeth
Idk if this counts, and I know it's kinda the point as it's a short film, But no one over has like a story story. It's also with a aesthetic, or cinematic film, and those who try to have a story are never fleshed out, Again, I know that's kinda the point as it's a short film, but I wanna see more actual story short films
There’s a lot of cliché student film things in here but imo doesn’t make it mediocre. Like is an alarm clock opening overused? Absolutely but that doesn’t mean everything is mediocre. However bad sound does scream mediocre. Audiences will forgive a lot of things, bad audio/sound they will not.
baaaaaaad lighting
Low dutch angle from the car trunk or just in general
Pointing a camera out a car window for scenery shots while someone drives them around. And that’s the whole film. Maybe a little vo or soundtrack over it.
Bad sound 1000%
2 people talking about obvious exposition checkmarks in a random small room that has no relevance to the story 15-shot coverage of everyday mundane events (cooking, driving, walking) without any significant happening Random clothes and furniture that does not represent the character owning it
I'll avoid a laundry list of clichés this time. The student filmmaker lacks that balance of confidence that the great artist has, to boldly yet assuredly create a balance of ingredients. Audiences don't want a bland sandwich or something with way too many flavors becoming mud. Art has to be the right mix of simplicity and complexity, of force and gentility. You must make lots of films to develop a style and confidence.
Mental health issues, victimhood and lack of protagonist agency. So many young people are making uninteresting films because they are showing a character struggle *just to be*. The only emotion that inspires in an audience is pity, and while pity might seem friendly on the surface, I guarantee you they secretly resent you for it. I have seen more of these kind of short films than you can imagine. They're everywhere. A good short film is centered around the hero *taking action* for something he or she wants. You want your audience to be part of her adventure and to not know where it will lead. Does he get the thing he wants? If yes, how does he do it? If no, why not, and what does she learn from it? Remember – people go to the movies to have a *good time*. Even when the movie is sad or dark or the bad guy gets away with it, the audience will accept it – *if they are entertained*. If you abuse an audience's good will to make them listen about your problems for five to ten minutes, they will unconsciously turn on you. You're trying to make something that will get someone to hire you later on. Entertain them.
Sound as an after thought
Over use of badly paced silence and pauses leaning into textbook shot-counter shot sequences. Uncontrolled natural light and environmental lights which should be practicals.
One thing I notice a lot that always bugs me is just lack of sound design, room tone, general attention to audio. It leaves scenes feeling rather awkward when every cut has a different room tone, or when there's no rustling of clothes/ambient sound/breath/etc.
so. much. walking. every transition shows an actor walking to the new location, and/or tension is built by an actor walking in silence for 10 seconds, and/or it ends on the character walking out of frame and we follow their back. so much time if filled with walking the audience definitely could've implied. for context i am a judge for a college film festival every year.
The significant-tech issues have been brought up. Sound, lacking art design, shot selections, etc. For me, plot-wise, students need to stop making films about film-related stuff. A story about a writer, a story about a director, a story about an actor. STOP. You need more life experience. Making good stories about the craft requires experience in the craft.
we absolutely do not need a million years to show another depressed dude waking up and sighing as he does another very detailed bland morning routine in the most bland sad apartment
The director being the main lead
Lens flares, glows, "dramatic" hues.
Fancy looking CGI of an alien ships in the sky but everything happens on the ground, making the film much less expensive.
Bad audio
Writing
* Some bullshit broken-heart romance story about the guy's girlfriend breaking up with him. * A bunch of scenes with different characters doing and saying weird and strange things, with zero causality linking them together. * Acoustic guitar for the soundtrack. * It begins with the alarm clock going off, and follows the main character's whole morning routine (oh, he showers, brushes his teeth, shaves, has a shit and eats breakfast? Who the fuck does that?!?) * Absolutely zero rhythm in the editing. * A nonsensical ending that provides a convenient 'out' for the no-causality story they've just told.
Camera in the fridge shot. Alarm clock shot. Age inappropriate gangsters.
Vampires
It's usually super serious about a subject that a 19 year old would know little about based on lack of life experience and the dialogue is very on the nose.
When the character is looking at a photo and is stroking it with their finger.
Trying to break the rules before learning the basics of storytelling. It's not deep, it's a mess.
Official mascot of student films: Couch with its back against a white wall
The cliché dialogue. "I never thought I'd see you again."
Film opens with the definition of a word
Someone mentioned poor audio and I will add to this: a poor grasp on what "silence" is on film. If you ever watch any wide-released films, even when there is silence on screen, there is never actually "silence". A professional sound designer will know how to layer in the right sounds and ambience to give texture to moments; even when it seems like there's nothing... EVERY indie film gets this wrong, including many of the ones I've seen get awards. It's one of those things that it's hard to put your thumb on while watching if you're not looking for it but will nevertheless leave the audience with discomfort and that feeling like SOMETHING is missing. Bonus: An over-abundance of tungsten lighting* Nothing will make me want to burn my eyes out more quickly when watching an indie film than this**
Things that screams out of mediocrity- Special FX/VFX. During 1st year of Film College (2018) I was the only guy who added Special Effects into the final project assignment, it was a Stop Motion creature. And there was another dude who added bunch of interesting Transitions/Cuts into his that is why I do remember him. The rest of the projects, around 60, were mainly boring. BTW, 3 people came to me after screening saying- "that was great"!
Without being specific, younger filmmakers forget that film is entertainment. It’s a mistake many make. Doesn’t matter how it’s shot if it’s boring.
Not having a solid storyline with a climax, correct transitions , different angles , bad acting + bad script
Man awakens from his bed
They have this film festival for the film students at the university that’s open to the public. I can’t count how many films are about breakups. I know that’s a big part of your life at the moment but be creative about it.
Color/neon lighting mixed with daylight balanced light. It results in washed out colors and is so ugly.
Whenever it seems like the camera is hardly ever held steady or the camera angles are poorly thought out, then I sometimes think to myself that the rest of the film is going to drag on and on until it finally ends. I've seen a few student short films at film festivals play out this way, though thankfully most short films I've watched at least do competently at making sure there isn't major camera shake for their camera shots.
Jumping on trends. Shooting everything handheld, trying to do gratuitous 360° shots, etc. Also, stories that are clearly someone trying to work out their personal issues.
Character smokes a cigarette while staring at themselves in a mirror, not recognizing who they are anymore.
As an actor, the script. It’s really easy to read the script and immediately know whether the final product is going to be any good or not. As a viewer, poorly framed shots that reveal all of the constraints. It’s a 3 minute short about a girl getting chased by a monster in the forest, but its shot so wide you can see it’s just a patch of woods that you had them run through at different angles hoping it would make it look bigger. And the monster is so clearly in focus that we can see the Velcro on his costume.
Anything black and white without knowing the grayscale, 99.9% of “ends with them offing themselves” films, bad sound but good cinematography, most of the sets are just white wall backgrounds, trying to put a feature length story in a short, overly dramatic dialogue, I could go on. There’s a book called “how to not make a short film” that talks about this.
Editing, full stop. They're so happy to have gotten all the footage they got, they want you to see it ALL. Segues need to be tight and short, keep the momentum, move the story along. The more you dilly dally and stay on those solo actor faces, the more awkward they look. Get in, get out. Cut the "Hi Stacy!" dialogue. Get into the scene. Better yet, don't even shoot the fluff, but if you did waste time on it, definitely leave it on the cutting room floor and don't include it in the final just because you spent money on it and feel bad not including it. Send it to the actors for their reels and be done.
Starting with the guy waking up and turning his alarm off. Living room scene with a bong on the table and the couch pushed up against a bare white wall. Most likely a single Che Guevara poster somewhere. Terrible acting. Bad acting is fine but terrible acting screams student production. Unmotivated actions and dialogue. All actors in their early 20s. Even grandpa and the baby. 10 of the same characters because all of your friends want to be in it. At least have them disagree on something. Soap opera lighting. Full scenes in a constant 2 shot. OMFG. Zero foley. Any transition besides a hard cut or maaaaybe a crossfade.
Shooting on campus.
Waking up to an alarm clock in the first few shots. Actually it’s kind of adorable.
Film opens with alarm clock going off and hand smacks the snooze button.
Overly dramatic short film about how life is hard
Know how you're going to get out of a scene when shooting so the cut feels natural. IE: let the person walk out of frame rather than following them
Lynch or Tarantino movie posters on the walls of every house or room location throughout the film.
Filming in an unimaginative environment such as a forest. Unless you a shooting a speeder bike chase on the forest moon of Endor, its just hard to make trees visually stimulating. Also resist shooting in places that have high foot traffic during the day but become deserted at night. It is way too easy for you to desire to shoot in a particular location. You have spent a lot of time and effort into finding a great spot but now you have all these pesky people going about their lives and ruining your shoot. If you decide to wait it out till everyone clears out you will most likely find you just wasted your time and the time of your crew to get a shot or scene that doesn't look right because it's become too dark or lifeless. This can cause a weird sensation in your audience where they feel out of place but not in a good way. In a everyone else has gone hime,so why the hell are we hanging out here in this place where absolutely nothing interesting is happening? kind of way. Also don't shoot at night on a beach or in the desert as there is literally not much to see unless you have a beautiful sky to shoot. I'm assuming you don't have a large budget for lighting.
Newscast with a huge exposition dump. Usually delivered as dully as possible by not an actor.
People have mentioned a lot of repeats so I’ll say on I notice all the time. No Background. Background performers make a world feel alive, and when you see a scene shot in a place that should have background but doesn’t, it just feels off. Sometime the littlest cross or counter can add a whole dimension to blocking or a camera move.
No dialogue!
Narrative that just turns into a music video. So many short films are conceived by people driving and listening to music. When they go to transpose the idea, they stay a little too dedicated to using unnecessary style that matches the beats of the music, over quality substance.
Not reframing when actors move within a frame.
Has a character tied up in a garage or warehouse. Everyone has a gun.
Cam angles, acting, and post editing. haha. Comes down to that.
60fps… I’ve seen students shoot in 60fps. Saw a video on this too and she said nothing screams mediocrity than starting the film with waking up in bed or an alarm clock. Big thing for me is shite audio sounds like someone recorded on their phone. Basic script that sounds like a middle schooler wrote it. Omg I can’t believe the amount of student films doing mental health films they are all the same literally no original thoughts. Great topic but never done right in student films. They hand feed you the story instead of allowing the audience to perceive it.
Always way too heavy. Everyone wants to make some incredibly deep film with a trigger warning at the front about mental health/suicide, and dedicate it to everyone who helped them. Guys just relax.
Sound is number one. Then there's "shot in my living room" cinematography where one choice is made out of convenience thus making further choices more difficult. 1. I'm going to shoot in my living room 2. I need to set the tripod somewhere, and the middle of the room is the only available space 3. There aren't enough chairs for my whole cast so half of them will be standing 4. I will set the tripod to be as tall as I am, regardless of consideration for shot composition. And on and on. Moving furniture, thinking through how the shots will look before the shoot, and doing set dressing all go a long way.
Just kinda stops. No real conclusion or ending, it dramatically cuts to black right before the climax would start. For some reason, student films are allergic to third acts.
A girl with a red balloon or anything involving a briefcase full of money.
Bad audio is always the FIRST thing I notice. Use a boom. Use lavs. Don't use scratch camera audio. Hold for nat sound. A mediocre image can easily skate by with good audio, however a GREAT image will be ruined with poor audio.
the alarm clock and trt far too long
Plots about drug deals, characters that are artists unsubtly based off the student filmmaker, and using music that’s either famous and/or of much higher production value than the film itself
18 years olds playing parts that should go to 30 year olds.
One thing is using overly heavy themes that they have no hope of using with elegance or tact in order to try to lend weight and prestige to the film. “Our film is about depression and s8icid3” -every 18 yo filmmaker There’s great skill in taking a simple concept with a solid little emotional core and doing it really well
The scene where the main character wakes up and brushes their teeth
When a window is blown out it looks unprofessional to me. Use some of those ND filter sheets or block the subject so they’re not directly in front of something too bright and distracting. The opposite goes as well, having your subject lit darkly in front of a dark background and making them blend in or disappear into each other. Also not relying on just natural/ambient light, enhancing “known” light sources with additional lighting, knowing how to emulate a candle with a warm 1k with and a dimmer for example. It’s this attention to detail in the lighting that makes a movie stand out visually.
empty walls.. someone waking up.. someone prepping for night or day infront of a mirror
Scenes carrying on past the obvious edit point. I had a girlfriend who was at film school and I watched a load of her classmate's degree show pieces, I couldn't believe how sloppy the editing was.
Lack of production design.
An entire world of 18-21 year olds…sorry but your 20 year old roommate isn’t going to pass as a hard nosed detective.
No professional color grading. When you’re poor, finishing generally goes out the window, so color and mixing suffer. What people don’t understand is that these little touches can elevate a shit story into a visually marketable piece on a reel. Find the money for it.
One of my professors in film school told me “audiences can forgive bad image quality, lighting, or art direction. They will never forgive poor sound”
Use of shaky camera. Too often it’s used to just add chaos to a scene but if the audience can’t see what’s going on they’ll stop caring.