After watching your sample the first time I was left with the impression that you were flaunting the attractive scenes too much. Probably not enough closeup scenes and transitions, just picture post-card like clips, I thought to myself. But then I remembered that you did have all sorts of CUs and a transition scene here and there, so I ran it a second time wondering why I had made a mistake of judgment, but I was left with the same impression even after the second look; too much emphasis on paintings -- so why?.
On the third round I got it figured out. Whenever you have a background that is carefully composed and moody and just right, you hold on it for too long before a tiny, inconsequential figure enters and only so carefully as to not take too much attention away from the scenery. When the cut comes to the next scene, true, the figure is prominent, never walking in cycles (very appreciated here
)and towards the camera (nice) but what's different? The background is loose and the color temperature doesn't match the preceding scene. The same happens at other times, only on the tail end of a scene, when the figure exits and we are left to watch the picture he left behind for too long.
That's what leaves me with the impression that I'm being shown more a picture gallery than a film. The B&W night scene with mm far away by the edge of the ocean is way too long. The words are telling a story so let's watch something happen, is what I keep thinking with too much time to think (and the wisps of cobwebs floating about doesn't count for motion IMO).
You are like a coelacanth; a painter turning into a filmmaker and neither fish nor trilobite. The thing is that both parts are equally good and interesting to watch (and the soundtrack with your own voice and guitar will make this, once finished a real nice author film) but I miss something in there that would cement the two elements into a solid shape: I'd make all the backgrounds equally well painted in their finishing, and I'd put more movement into the picture scenes. Or if there is a need to have two views of this world, I'd jump less back and forth between the two. BTW the scene with all the little people crossing the wide open space looks great and comes as a relief because here is the motion I was wishing for earlier.
