'I'll Stand By You' by Salt Mountain Productions
Second Edit
The film was directed by Daniel Mount and shot over one day in
Manchester on a Canon SD550. The main players are Emily Sinclair (who
is, somewhat confusingly, also me...), Hamish Sturgeon, Sophie Hannah
Harrison and the brilliant 5-year-old Mai Harrison.
Read 'I'll Stand By You' HERE
Second Cut Comments... have YOUR say!
'I'll Stand By You' by Salt Mountain Productions
First Edit
First cut: Producers notes for the filmmakers
- Tighten, right from the get go – do we need two shots of hi doing his hair at the start? Recut with that mentality.
- Needs a grade as right now is feels terribly domestic
- Don’t need fades to black at start
- Trim some of the lines at the door, performance and sound let you down
- Try telling the story of what happened at the restraint with just the sound of a restraint and a mobile phone ringing and being answered (over black). Might help.
- It’s over at 3:23, get out as fast as you can – you can keep following shots, just trim
- You do not need any fades to black – just cut, it has more confidence
First Cut Comments... have YOUR say!
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#1
Think you could do with trimming some of the beginning to get the runtime down and the whole film feels quite yellow, coulddo with sorting the colour a bit.
Like the second half alot more than the first. Feel you might have a bit of a pacing issue to begin with. Maybe look at what cuts you could make to each scene to help the film flow. -
#2
I'd cut the establishing business altogether and start with her leaving her front door. She tells us she's a single mom and we get this is a first date so everything in the first scene is redundant, plus it's technically weak. Tighten up the edits. Too much black before he returns. Too long snogging. Minor edits here and there will move it along better. Consider doing ADR on his dialogue at the start since the ambiance is drowning him out.
Good job overall. This was one of my favorite scripts. -
#3
Would have lingered on the disappointment on the girl's face as the door slams shut -more atmosphere.
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#4
I agree with all of Evan's notes as listed above. He hits all the same things I was thinking while watching this. You need to get this down at least another minute to be in the running. If you have to ADR the outdoor scenes outside her front door, it may be worth it simply because you lose some of what he's saying both times.
One other note is that although I like your music choices quite a lot, I find they "fade out" too quickly as you end each scene they're associated with, so it feels funny to me. I'd try fading them out a little slower so it doesn't sound like it's almost a quick cut. It could end up working to motivate the transition from one scene to the next...? Give it a shot and see what comes of it.
This was also one of my favorite scripts when I read the original 50, and I think you did a pretty good job here overall.
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