watch ATLANTIS CONSPIRACY - Sci Fi Action concept short

This is my first attempt in sci-fi genre. I'm an indie filmmaker from Malaysia, have been making indie films of various genres,

This short was shot on RED ONE in 3 days with a skeletal crew, with a lot of favors from the post house to complete the short film.

It's a proof of concept short to pitch for the feature

Enjoy and thanks for watching! Here's the video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whlv_UXLSz4

Firstly I want to say that this short definitely is an effective proof of concept and I would be surprised if this doesn't get turned into a feature in the near future. If I were an investor I would back this concept without a doubt.

Here's my feedback:

I liked the camera movements. The opening shot of the camera moving in on the two characters comes to mind as well as when the soldiers are about to breach and enter the area. The camera moving really makes the whole thing feel alive, which for this type of film is very important and something that more up and coming filmmakers need to remember. Excellent composition of the shots. I really liked the wide shots.

I was intrigued by the story and it's mystical elements, something which I enjoy. It makes me want to know more about this world that the characters inhabit.

The two actors that really stood out for me were the male and female leads. Finding the right actors is one of the most important aspects of a film and you have chosen well.

Even though the music is from The Dark Knight Rises (I know it won't be in the feature) it fit the short well however in some parts the cuts between the different cues are too abrupt. I think the part where the gauntlet is about to be used the music should be taken out completely because the sound effects are really effective and they would have stood out much more if it was just the sounds without any music. The music building with the tension of the soldiers approaching was where that the DKR music really fits.

The CG effects were designed and executed very well. I liked the impacts on walls from soldiers being thrown against them. It shows that you and your team thought about how these kind of things would impact upon the environment around them so this sells a bit of realism with the science fiction elements. The effects of the gauntlet are effective. The way the giant Mech moves reminded me of ED-209 from Robocop and made me smile.

Overall this is an excellent short. It had me grinning at the cool action set-pieces. The costumes, props, sound quality and production values show that you are a filmmaker who knows how to put something together that's professional.

Best of luck with this and I hope that your goal of turning this concept into a feature is realized and a success!

I like the look of it.

Only 2 shots stood out that took me out of it... when the two cars pull in and you give the front on view... the cars are angled like a car commercial. Shooting cars has become tough in this regard. More car commercials are looking like films. Up to that point, this may very well have been a Land Rover commercial.

The second shot that pulled me out was when the guy with the love touches the chest of the soldier who just stood there and let him do it. In fact, many of the soldiers reactions didn't work for me.

Also, the two are hiding behind wood crates... wouldn't the soldiers just send some shots through that?

Dialogue was a bit heavy, cliche and I didn't believe any of the actors.

The camera movement was very nice and the FX were flawless.

Look's good.

As a PoC this should do well.

Script would benefit from a little more adult humor snark in it.
Low budget films suffer from too much "we're all serious" epic myth creation.

More 'Indiana Jones.'
Less 'Babylon AD.'

tokenwhiteboy said:

Also, the two are hiding behind wood crates... wouldn't the soldiers just send some shots through that?

Click to expand...

Yeah.
No more shooting the ground. Pfft.

Thanks all for the feedback and comment,

The Dark Knight soundtrack was used as a guide during our editing and once we have complete the edit we had a tough time finding or composing original score for the short. So we learn not to use too amazing scores during edit,

We also shot the entire short on tripod and dolly since we were trying to avoid the overused handheld look which at the end we have to make the floating movement in post for the action sequences.

This was also our first English language short film, hence we're still quite new in writing dialogues for English and working on it.

As for the wooden crates these will be the lousiest excuse we cld come out with (since audiences will never forgive) we really didn't have the budget to make the metal crates or concrete blocks we envision for the location which was basically an empty lot.

Wow!

That was great!

What did you use to do the particle effects?

And, how did you do the robot effects? Was it greenscreen with a poseable model or CQ?

Very impressive! Great job!

.

The robot is created entirely on CGI post, but our original plan was to use model (puppetry) but the results were not very impressive so at the end tehe VFX CG guys help us to create one entirely from scratch.

Very cool!

Intriguing story!

Btw, the puppetry picture is brilliant

congrats for the concept is amazing, they story is intriguing and cool, good luck at getting funding for a feature