I'm quite impressed! Aside from what cyanide has already mentioned, i can't find much fault with it. While i didn't find the after-ending part to be extraneous, it did drag on a bit. Perhaps you could combine this with the credit roll so that they happen at the same time. Maybe have the credits roll up on top of the video on one side of the screen and have the captions appear on the other side. This is a rather common technique. Then again, maybe "common" isn't what you want ;)

Probably the only other thing i would suggest is to tighten it up some. Did you ever see "A River Runs Through It"? The father is home schooling his sons and as he reviews their writing assignments he hands the papers back saying "again, half as long". I felt there were many times when you could have cut scenes a little shorter and kept up the pace better. There is a lot of empty material you could cut out without affecting the content.

I did find myself wondering why the first friend didn't invite the other two along for the ride. Oh well, had that happened there wouldn't have been the rest of the story to tell ;)

Not bad, but not good either if you want the truth. The story and acting lacks creditability. How can three guys be freezing their rear ends off and at the same time none of them are smart enough to put their hands in their pockets, or pull the hood up on the coat if they have one? The guy with the beard has both the top of coat and shirt open and he's suppose to be cold? The guys all are "struggling" to walk through what at best is a few inches of snow, and nobody's ears are red from being in the cold. No sale.

Both the introduction and credits are way too long and far too prominent for the type, ength and quality of such a project. You also missed some opportunties to add more realisum. Somebody could have fallen in the water. On the plus side your special effects were pretty good.

FWIW: Don't want to be the unloved critic - no one does...

Actually nice work.

I like the font used for "The End", but the other text didn't have anything to set it apart from the credits -> I'd use something a bit fancier, maybe colored &/or shadowed - it seemed almost stenciled, & if you like that effect, I'd go for something more exagerated (movies are exageration).

RE: effects, I think I might try adding a slight bit of sideways shimmer, maybe even a *faint* smoke overlay to the genie, probably extending a little bit beyond the core genie composite.

RE: audio, don't think I'd overdub but more likely would add to and increase the volume of the music/emotion track whilst maybe lowering the pitch of the strings - also, might well add to, exagerate the sound effects like more crunch/bite walking in the snow etc...

I *think* the reason the ending seemed a bit off was it isn't what folks are used to - it seems to end but then goes back to full screen which says maybe it didn't. Not necessarily a bad thing, making people notice something... On 1st look I'd envision this with the standard iris to black etc., although using a bit more fade would work too so it wasn't so abrupt.

I think I'd also consider showing the ending video scenes at a much reduced size in different positions on a black screen with the caption fading in. Either way I would perhaps consider a more drastic change to the music.

Sorry to focus so much on the audio, but people rely on 3 or more senses in everyday life to record an event or experience. We've only got 2 we can effect directly with movies, so an awful lot depends on a really exagerated audio experience. My favorite example, used to point out just how much stuff like sound fx are exagerated in movies/video/tv, is so universal that hardly anyone notices without prompting - *when was the last time you drove your car onto grass or a dirt road, & had the tires squeal?*

Perhaps Cary Grant was such a great heterosexual lover type lead, because to him it wasn't a natural, everyday thing. Pump up, exagerate the audio & fx for audio and video, & I think IMOO that your viewers will be left wishing it were longer.

All stuff that can be done without a re-shoot to add to the sell. Not to contradict anyone, but editing this to add a bit of encouragement I guess I'd say... Watched a movie on SciFi last night ("AntiBody") that had tons of contradictions & stuff that was totally not realistic. Consider 90%+ of computer, hacker type flics beyond impossible/unlikely/foolish, including Clancy's work. Used to be a street racer many, many (well, longer then I'll say) and couldn't sit through the opening of the flic with Van D.. None the less, I'm in the minority - when people watch a movie they give whomever permission to entertain them etc., and voluntarily suspend disbelief. Some folks dislike the realism of "Band of Bro" & many hate the detail that draws an audience to bloody horror flics.

mike

I liked it. Maybe adding some snow-crunching sound effects would help, but might be hard to do. I disagree with everyone else on the ending: I liked it the way it was. Try making the video of the 3 guys durring the credits look like an old 8mm film. It might look neater. Infact, what if you turned it into a silent film with only music, and then after any action you bring up a screen with the text of what they say? probely to much work to do that though.
Also, can you get rid of the camera in the lamp? You can cleary see the tripod and camera in the lamp when you're recording it. A solution might be to put the camera/tripod farther away and zoom in. Maybe put it in front of a tree so you couldn't tell the difference between them.
try raising the volume of the helicopter when it's on the screen. It doesn't seem loud enough.

i liked it overall though. :)