The Ballad of Timm Mews

I am going to be pretty honest here...I watch to about the 1:37 mark...scrolled through hoping that I'd find something to get me watching again....found the "moment" and was let down. While I applaud the attempt at the creative approach...it didn't work for me for two reasons....1) the track was voicing was too slow...perhaps had you speed up the reading you could have sped up your editing and thus it probably would have moved at a better/faster pace. Because ultimately this piece could have been scaled down in time and it might have been better. 2) not sure how much time you had to write but the choice of vocabulary just seemed forced for me and maybe a little too over the top. There's just something about the wording that didn't sit well with me and I can't tell you why. I think you need to be careful with the basic editing mistakes of jumpcuts because there were a few in there. Pacing was too slow at times which is why I think you could have improved this by actually shortening it. Almost 6 mins is a bit too long. I also think this had a lot of creative potential...more inside outside shooting...more outside inside shooting...whatever to really have made it visually interesting since it is a rather longer story. And try to utilize your tripod more...stable shots are better to look at I think. Good sequences are better to view than unsteady pans, tilts, semi-circle pans, etc.
 
Thank you for being honest. I'd rather have that than any pat on the back.
You don't learn anything otherwise. I saw how blandly other local media covered the story. I wanted to try something different; more like a Peter Rosen type of treatment.

How would you have approched this story?
 
Its not so much that you didn't try...because I really liked how you tried something different in telling this. My approach and given this particular instance I would have setup the "hook"...by approaching this as a typical holiday tradition...kettle bell ringers doing their things around the holiday season...nats of interacting with people to learn his personality...then bring in the fact that this is not your average kettle or bell ringer...do the reveal of what he's trying to do and why...more interaction with the suspense of "can he make it" lurking...again show more of his personality...build up to the countdown of the big moment...reax to the whole thing...end it from outside store looking in as everyone celebrates (?). Perhaps you could have done the poetry thing for a small section but I'd probably might have responded better had you played off a Christmas poem, like Twas the Night before Christmas. Might be a bit cheesy but if you write it with enough substance you'd avoid the cheese. These and those types of ventures require just a bit more time to flesh out...you'd need a couple days to get it done and present if as a 48hr feature...not a dayturn because of the creativity involved. But at least you tried...I enjoyed the subject matter...was very interesting. I think you could have profiled just a bit more of this man to get the viewer thoroughly invested and rooting for him.
 
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Yeah... that needed to be about a third as long as it was. I, too, really like the effort overall. But, I'm just not sure it concisely conveyed your intended story. Take some of these ideas given, and tighten that concept up? Its a good start.
 
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