I saw several projects of my peers. All of them were great and I mostly saw their rough cuts so all of them had their strengths and some loopholes in them. I’ll review some of them.
Anurit’s group – A maze of Anarchy
This was my favourite out of all the digital stories I’ve watched so far. It is basically an interactive digital story trailer shot in noir theme around the RMIT city campus. It is about some detective trying solve the mystery of a killer. The black and white effect looks great and blends well with the theme. The camera work is great. Good closeups capture the face expressions and other details. Also a lot of panning and other camera movements have been used. The background score and effects are good as well. The interactivity part is the best. It keeps you engaged till the end and you’re curious as to what the next decision would lead to, however they can do much more with interactivity by integrating social media into it somehow. Editing could have been better. It’s too long for a trailer and it becomes a drag after a point.
Mark’s group – International students in Melbourne
Overall this film looks great especially the visuals, the aerial shots of Melbourne, the time lapses and other elements like the use of statistics. The interviews are very well shot as well. Really like the overall feel. The things I have a problem with are that almost all of the b-roll footage of the city and even of Sydney is not shot by themselves and taken off the internet so they might face copyright issues. Also there’s issues with the audio especially at the start. The editing could have been better and the overall length can be shortened by removing some unnecessary stuff.
Karina’s group – A real day dream
Very interesting concept. It’s about how your dreams influence your future decisions. I did not see the whole of it. Just saw a little part of it since I came a little late to class that day. It has a cultural theme, and the part I saw had the issue of language barrier where the Chinese girl was having trouble trying to comprehend what the guy was saying. It makes you smile but also highlights a major issue. The camera work is simple. The things I did not like about it were the editing, could have been tighter, the audio was the biggest issue. They might have to work hard on it.
Julian’s group – Something about food
They basically showed several minutes of footage shot at Queen Victoria Market of food, veggies and fruits. I didn’t really understand what their concept was. They said they were going to edit it and shoot some other stuff as well. I think they want to show the different kinds of food according to different cultures that are available here in Melbourne. It was just raw footage so I cannot really comment on what I liked or disliked but from what I understood about the concept, it was good and based on the multicultural theme that all of us are working on. So best of luck to them.
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