Yesterday at noon Eastern time, I released the old version of my short film Defeat the Witch! on Youtube. As my first-ever film, I’m proud of it and I encourage all of you to watch if you haven’t already.
UPDATE: The post refers to the earlier cut of the film. The revised cut can be seen at the end.
That being said, I’ve received a couple of major critiques about the film. I don’t consider them insults at all, for I know that I have a lot to learn about the art of visual storytelling.
Here are the two major critiques:
The opening credits. Several different viewers let me know that credits at the beginning are a big turn-off, and I agree. The opening is key to hooking new viewers, and wasting their time with the credits at the start makes them click away. For my next short, I’ll definitely avoid this pitfall.
The lack of dialogue. I had avoided dialogue in the film for two reasons: I wanted any dialogue in my films to be voiced but didn’t have funds for voice actors, and I wanted to practice telling a story purely with visuals since I normally write prose. Thinking about it now, omitting dialogue was utterly silly, as it would have added to the story rather than taken away from it. Nonetheless, I still found it valuable to tell a story without words since films live and die based on how they communicate visually. In my next film, however, there will be dialogue because my viewers demand it.
All in all, I learned valuable lessons from this release. Film (including TV) is the world’s most important entertainment medium, so I intend to make my mark here.
UPDATE: As mentioned earlier, I have revised the film a little. I have now put the credits at the end, rather than the beginning.
If you want to support my animation endeavors, you can purchase a copy of Shining Tomorrow Volume 1.
I liked the no dialogue approach, myself. I thought that the story was perfectly clear without it. I would suggest that if you have a film that needs dialogue you avoid using voice actors and go with either word balloons or silent film style title cards.
I want to see more along these lines and in particular hope you will continue to embrace the 8-bit esthetic. Working within the limitations imposed by a cutscene in an old video game could yield some very interesting results. It makes me want to try scripting one myself.
I liked the no dialogue approach, myself. I thought that the story was perfectly clear without it.
Good to know I accomplished my goal there.
I would suggest that if you have a film that needs dialogue you avoid using voice actors and go with either word balloons or silent film style title cards.
I was thinking the same thing; I feel that voice acting would clash with the sound effects and the overall Super Nintendo-era aesthetic I’m going for. Sound and picture have to go together to make a film work.
I want to see more along these lines and in particular hope you will continue to embrace the 8-bit esthetic.
I intend to do exactly that.
Working within the limitations imposed by a cutscene in an old video game could yield some very interesting results.
Limitations breed creativity; my colleague Alexander Hellene recently posted about that on his own blog.
It makes me want to try scripting one myself.
Go for it.
Non-dialogue movies require subtle expressions and animations that you may not be able to pull off in an old video game style. I would opt for text boxes that show the character’s face (with the appropriate expression), and you could also have the character’s sprite play an appropriate animation as he speaks a certain line.
Personally, I would opt for a small, bold, and easy-to-read font over a gigantic font size that takes up 2/3 of the screen.
You’re correct — which is why my next film will have dialogue. While the text size won’t be super large, I’ll make it somewhat large to make it more easily readable on smaller screens.
Very retro 🙂
Aside from the lengthy credits, my main complaint is that overall it moves too slowly; I almost wandered away. So I upped playback to 1.5x and that seemed about right, albeit faster than the average sidescroller.
Didn’t actually think about dialog, but now that it’s been brought up — dialog balloons would be appropriate, if you can make them readable. Or maybe add a cue (little thought bubble or arrow) for whoever is speaking, with the dialog in captions below for max legibility. That would keep any dialog in-world, whereas I think with this style, voiceover dialog would seem intrusive.
Wow, it moves too slowly? I thought it moved too fast.
As for dialogue, I would likely put a text box up top, with an arrow pointing to the speaking character.
Anyhow, thank you for watching and commenting.