Firstly I want to give Rami Santrisi a shout out and congratulations on completing this project. I’m sure it had its fair share of challenges and lessons. I pray that he continues to practice keep putting forth work.
As the motto goes: It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get going.
This is the trailer for the film:
If you’re interested, you can also check out the article about the short film on the Muslim Link newspaper: DC Area Film Makers Join Forces On 3D Movie
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A well constructed film tells a good comprehensible story visually and audibly. To give the film a proper critique, I watched the full Leap of Faith short film four times.
- First, I watched it without sound
- Second, I just listened to it with no visuals
- Third, watched it normally in 2D
- Finally in 3D on YouTube
Below are my thoughts, feedback and a rubric for the review. All feedback I’ve given below is a means for all of us to improve our craft of story telling.
You can watch the film first by clicking the image below:
My Review (spoiler alert!):
Fun Factor — How entertaining was the film? — 2/10
It was cool seeing the film in 3D and it was fun seeing guys jumping off cliffs, but that’s as far as the fun factor went.
The film seems to drag during many parts making it seem much longer than it really was.
Performance – How was the acting? — 3/10
A sign of good acting and character directing is when you watch the film without any sound and you know what emotions the character is feeling. In the scenes of dialog, the characters didn’t have much dynamic range in either their body language or their facial expressions.
The best acting in the film was the professor. However, I felt his scene wasn’t needed for the story.
Eye-Candy — Quality of cinematography, production value, special-fx — 6/10
Visually the short looked great. The composed shots weren’t poster quality but the use of the Canon 7D HD-DSLR cameras certainly brought out the color saturation and lens usage certainly brought forth focus appropriately.
It think it would have been really cool if a water proof underwater rig was used to capture the splash of the actors as they fell in.
3D was cool and certainly different from most short film projects out there. There aren’t that many interesting 3D videos out there on YouTube either. I was certainly curious how this was going to look.
My only complaint about 3D on YouTube is that you can only watch the classic stereoscopic 3D (red/blue, red/green, etc) and not the polarized projection light technology they used in the movie theaters and special (expensive) monitors today. However, this isn’t something the producers budget or control.
Story — How well the plot and characters play out? — 1/10
When it came to story, there was much left to be desired.
I felt as though:
- There was no conclusive plot
- There were no believable character motivations
- Most dialog didn’t add to character or further story
- Most of the scenes were completely unnecessary.
I understand that there were two completely different plot lines.
- Plot Line #1: Man overcoming his fear of heights so he can jump with is friends off a cliff.
- Plot Line #2: Man overcoming his fear of financial insecurity to sponsor an orphan even, although he makes $200/week
The two stories didn’t really seem to connect. If two stories don’t connect and tie into each other, why tell them at all together?
Why was the cliff jumping scene necessary at all? He swallowed his fear and jumped off the roof of his house to save the girl. That should have been the end of the film. All other scenes that didn’t build up to that should have been cut out.
Something that I didn’t understand is how sponsoring an orphan is a life changing decision that the main character has to go about telling everyone about it. In the real world, someone making two hundred dollars a week has other financial priorities than figuring out whether or not they can sponsor an orphan.
After watching this film, I felt as though it would have been more appropriate to make this into two separate films.
Even if the two plot lines were separated into two films, what did him applying to the job have to do with his fear of heights or wanting to sponsor an orphan. Was he going to make more money in the new job? If thats the case, it wasnt clear. This scene didnt fit into the story at all.
If I had to approach the story using the resources the filmmakers used, this is what it would be:
Opening
Kareem, his brother and friend are hiking until one of them takes a tumble off a cliff and the brother is hanging on for dear life. He tries to save him but the extreme emotional stress anchors him to a fear of heights which makes him unable to pull up his hanging brother, watching him fall to the river below to his death leaving an orphaned son.
Everyday Life of Main Character
Its several months since the incident. Kareem still blames himself for the deaths and the depression keeps him from keeping a steady paying job and passing up lucrative opportunities because he believes he won’t be successful just as he wasn’t successful in saving his brother, resulting in major financial difficulties which bears to question as to whether or not he can care for his orphaned nephew who’s mother died at childbirth.
Pressure Increases
Kareem being Jameel’s uncle and closest next of kin, risks loosing Jameel to child services if he doesn’t get his act together.
Situation Arises
One day Jameel and the neighborhood kid are playing catch and the ball goes on the roof. Jameel finds a ladder and climbs up the side of the house to get the ball, but the ladder is unstable and collapses, leaving Jameel hanging on the side of the house screaming for help.
Responding to the Situation & Facing of Fear
Kareem hearing the cries sees Jameel hanging on the side, climbs through a window and onto the roof in an attempt to save Jameel. All the while the ball is on the gutter and rolls down due to vibration from Kareem hitting one end of the gutter while reaching for Jameel. Neighbor’s kid goes for the ball but cant see the car speeding down the street. Kareem sees flashbacks of his brother’s death.
Triumph
With tears in his eyes, Kareem swallows his fear, with an burst pulls Jameel onto the roof and then immediately leaps off the roof leaving Jameel sitting on top to witness as Kareem dashes the neighbor’s kid out of the way of the speeding car just as we hear the deafening “POP!” of the ball as the car runs over it.
Aftermath
Kareem having overcome his fear of heights and is able to forgive himself for his brother’s death and is able to move on with his life. He starts a successful business and also spends his time going around giving motivational speeches helping people overcome their fears, using his personal story to inspire people.
Dialog – 2/10
There were many moments during the film where I felt the dialog wasn’t necessary.
The whole dialog between the main character and his friend while hiking talking about creation, the jummah salah scene of the main char falling asleep, the tennis scene and the whole “high class” cloths story arch didn’t seem to have a place in the story. The dialog in those scenes didn’t further either of the plot lines much or add to character development that was necessary for the story.
I also felt that the pacing of the film between the characters lines was super slow. I’d recommend tightening up the editing to fix that.
Sound — How well is the sound used to enhance the film? — 3/10
There wasn’t much depth to the sound design. There wasn’t much use of Foley or environmental sounds to really bring you in. The slow dialog made the film seem that much slower.
Message/Theme — 5/10
The idea of overcoming your fears and donating or orphans is great. I just felt that the two themes presented together didn’t work well. If there was focus on one theme, it would have made the film that much more enjoyable.
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Overall Score — 3/10
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Final Thoughts
I’m wondering how well the film has been received by others. I haven’t seen too many comments on the particular videos that have been uploaded on Vimeo and YouTube. I noticed on the video trailer itself, most of the views came from it being advertised (paid). However, it seems that most of the views for the trailer came from India which I assume isn’t the target market. I hope Rami reaches his goals for the film.
In the future I’d love for the opportunity to collaborate with Rami in the scriptwriting and story phase. I believe I have a lot to offer and it’s an area that Islamic media as a whole is desperately lacking.
