I begin by saying that Beauty in Chaos was by far the best student film I have ever seen. Both in cinematography and direction, this was an amazing film. Having been produced by a cast and crew of ALL high school student (with the exception of Brandon, who just graduated last year, and a few cast members who are in college) this was of a professional level that I have yet to see in a student film. The acting was also high caliber. Alex Carpenter played his role of Charles very well without getting over-dramatic as many high school drama students seem to do. Lily Behn was also good, considering how young she is. The direction, overall, was very good. Brandon Nicholas greatly improved over his last film, Oniroi (which wasn't really bad at all, but lost track of the main story in favor of side plots, in my opinion). In BiC, he was able to successfully juggle all the characters story lines while still keeping on task to the main storyline. Which brings me to the writing. Overall, the dialog and script were well written (with a couple of small exceptions where a line of dialog seemed forced and unnecessary). The overall plot of the movie was very original and intriguing and the end product did not disappoint. The editing and cinamatogrpahy was excellent. The originality in some of the cuts and angles used were very impressive, as well as the special effects. The only bad mark I give was that some of the night scenes were not lit enough, which added to the environment of the movie but added noticeable grain on the shot. The sound and foley effects were pretty good overall but were missing a few needed foley sounds here and there (such as dropping of helmet, etc). The dialog recorded was pretty OK, but a few problems occurred in the mixing of them. I found a lot of the voice overs and dialog were either too loud or too soft, which made them harder to hear. I end by saying that I mean no offense but believe that criticism helps. I repeat that this was an enormous accomplishment and I hope that everyone involved continue their work. Hope to see you all next film!
-Jason
