MonroeFilms (new and old films by Omni)

Hey I got around to watching the movie here's my review:

Pros:
Congrats on finishing another short film ("experience is everything" to quote Bruce's Old Spice Commercial)

Your after effects skills are definately on their way to becoming nothing short of awesome.

You're training yourself to become a one man crew, which is always great, (but I suggest also working with many people to train for that aspect as well)

Cons:
My beef was that there wasn't really a climax or much of any aliens... it got a little repetative, running away from nothing...

the audio was a little distracting due to noise in the background and hissing (an external mic is a must, if you're camera
doesn't have an input then record using a little tape recorder or go with a Zoom H2 or something)

Lighting was either lacking or nonexistent... Even though you were going for the Cloverfield style, lighting is always important (I think I mentioned this before), lighting isn't something noticeable, it's something that helps the audience watch your movie... it helps people to focus on the storyline opposed to trying to make out what's what on the screen.

As realistic as you want to make it, without lighting, people are just going to pass your movie off as a home video... I've watched many student flicks (part of my day job), and so many forget about sound and lighting... I'll sit there and try to understand what the movie is about, and even if the actors are great, the scenes are shot in awesome ways and are using great tried and true shots or even contemporary and fresh shots... I'm still waiting for it to be over.

Some of the videos I see are well lit and sound awesome (good crew) and maybe the actors aren't great and maybe it was directed by a goldfish, but we tend to let the crew of the good movies get higher up in the hiring process.

Being technical and creative makes you unstoppable (paraphrasing Robert Rodriguez), you're born creative but you can learn to be technical, so I suggest picking up a couple books on lighting, cinematography and sound or find one that combines it all and thumb through it (check out your library, those are so underused nowadays) and learn as much as you can.

This goes to everyone who wants to make it in the industry. It's the best advice someone could give... a few years back when I dropped out of University (becoming a teacher wasn't my thing) I was kind of lost as to what to do with myself... I could shoot heroin into my eyeballs, but that seemed a little extreme. Anywhoo... I took a Digital A/V course where I learned Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Lighting, Sound Engineering (sound boards and avids mostly), screenwriting, etc... then I immersed myself into a local film workshop where I learned more about editing and using real film equipment (lenses, cameras, etc), I learned how to further edit DV and even real film and eventually went on to more advanced workshops.

I learned as much as I could and afterwards that knowledge was put on my résumé and I was able to rise above the countless other applicants just from my knowledge... as much as I diss Film Schools that focus too much on what other directors have done and only touch on how to recreate your ideas on screen, it's even nice to have that on a résumé as well.

Hopefully this helps anyone and everyone!

Your friendly neighbourhood Westcroft.