What works well in a student film?

After watching and analysing student films in the thriller genre I have come to the conclusion that the best thing to do when making a film open is to keep it simple!
The best film I saw was the one where the least happened. The makers kept it simple and focused on introducing the characters, just giving a hint at the narrative and concentrated on making sure the conventions of the genre were met and focused on making the credits accurate and interesting.

I think by keeping things simple as a group we can add more in the post production stages like using the Foley effect, it might be more time consuming but over all it will reduce hum and noise and give the whole piece a higher quality feel. Also spending more time on things like lighting will give the piece a higher quality more professional look. In one of the films a looked at there was camera glare due to lighting on the location. If we look at things using different ratios of natural and unnatural light I think we will be able to get a good balance and will need to spend less time editing it and less time later re filming parts giving us more time to find good editing effects and music to use. I think the use of voice overs worked well to build suspense within the thriller genre and to give an eerie feeling, although if we were to do this I don't think it would be a good idea to have someone over dubbing it as it will be really hard to get it perfect and if its even slightly out it will look unprofessional and messy.

One thing that I didn't think worked well in student films were fight scenes. They always looked messy and very staged. we have to remember we have a very small budget when making these films so shouldn't over aim. The film will look a lot better if its made well but the content is simple than if we try something really outgoing, dont have the budget or resources to make look professional and it ends up looking poor quality. Another thing that we need to make sure we do well when it comes to making our film is casting. Although we only have the people available to us we have to make sure that they are compatent actors and that they fit the part we are casting them for. For example if we are casting the lead male protagonist for a thriller film it is unlikely that the character is going to be short and skinny, to make the genre obvious we would have to go with someone who is tall and well built so they fit the audiences pre conceptions about characterisation.

The fight scene in this film looks quite messy and unproffessional and like they haven't spent much time working it out. To make a sucessful fight scene it would need to be very well planned so everything flows and looks like a natural fight. Also the camera angles used highlights the fact that it is a fake fight as its clear that the hits don't reach, if they had used more shots that were directly behind someone the fight would have looked more realistic.