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watch My first action film, #15!

Jolly good show. Even my little cousins loved it. That was dope. No dialog but the story wasnt hard to follow. Left the right amount of holes for the viewers to fill in. Similar to Marcellus Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction.

How much it cost to put that together? If you can share.
 
I thought this was pretty good. The fight choreography was certainly well practiced - I didn't buy every punch given or taken, but overall convincing enough.

Edit was a little choppy. For example at 0:18, she's out of the car and to the door in a nano-second afterparking. The jump is a little severe.

At 1:54, what the hell is she looking at?

I kept thinking she had a few chances to run, but then I see she had a reason to stay and fight to the death.

Good job.

Alex




Lots of short screenplays free to good producer and director homes. Give a shout if interested!
 
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alex ma whitmer said:
I thought this was pretty good. The fight choreography was certainly well practiced - I didn't buy every punch given or taken, but overall convincing enough.

Edit was a little choppy. For example at 0:18, she's out of the car and to the door in a nano-second afterparking. The jump is a little severe.

At 1:54, what the hell is she looking at?

I kept thinking she had a few chances to run, but then I see she had a reason to stay and fight to the death.

Good job.

Alex




Lots of short screenplays free to good producer and director homes. Give a shout if interested!
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I noticed the car jump too but chalked as artistic. Lol. Didn't even hear it close.

I noticed the same things but i assumed it was done on purpose. She needed that key.
 
FreddyLongSongs said:
Jolly good show. Even my little cousins loved it. That was dope. No dialog but the story wasnt hard to follow. Left the right amount of holes for the viewers to fill in. Similar to Marcellus Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction.

How much it cost to put that together? If you can share.
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Man, that means a lot! Thank you so much and I'm glad the family enjoyed it. :)

I think we spent just over $1k from start to finish.
 
alex ma whitmer said:
I thought this was pretty good. The fight choreography was certainly well practiced - I didn't buy every punch given or taken, but overall convincing enough.

Edit was a little choppy. For example at 0:18, she's out of the car and to the door in a nano-second afterparking. The jump is a little severe.

At 1:54, what the hell is she looking at?

I kept thinking she had a few chances to run, but then I see she had a reason to stay and fight to the death.

Good job.

Alex




Lots of short screenplays free to good producer and director homes. Give a shout if interested!
Click to expand...

Thanks, Alex! It's definitely a learning experience - especially being my first one.

And interesting you mentioned the jump cuts being distracting. Like Freddy, the edit really didn't bother anyone and seemed intentional (which it is). I didn't want to have anything that insignificant drag too much unless I'm building tension.

Glad you found reason for her to just not run. It was definitely something she needed to do to finally live her life.
 
I thought the jump cut was fine, those are standard practice for pacing, what's worse is real-time action for the purpose of continuity's sake, which can ruin the pacing. Like a full walk to the door. I thought all our brains were trained to accept jump cuts. ;)

I'll try to check this out in full.
 
Agree on jump cuts. They have a practical and creative purpose. I just thought that particular one was off.

Sometimes (usually) they work, sometimes they feel like editing snafus or covers - like when the actor looks into the camera, and there is only one take to work from. So you edit out the glance, and it feels like what it is - chopping to cover. Sometimes you can pull it off.

a
 
Could be because the sound of the door is heard while we think she's still in the car so it almost sounds like shoving it into park as well. A tad jarring.

It works but I hear ya.
 
justinisfilming said:
Man, that means a lot! Thank you so much and I'm glad the family enjoyed it. :)

I think we spent just over $1k from start to finish.
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That's dope for only $1k. And thank you for an entertaining short film. You all are inspiring me for my short film. I didnt mention earlier but i really love the color grading.
 
its a good short and good attempt at fight choreography.

My criticisms would be:

1. Lighting - when the car is outside the room we can see the light in the window it's really off putting for me, I would have placed it elsewhere or masked over it, the best idea would have been to turn it into a practical to blend into the scene.

When she's on the bed looking out the window the light coming through doesn't feel natural and looks placed.

2. The fighting - it's a good attempt, probably better than what I could do, but my thoughts on it anyway, cuts are a bit weird, hits weren't believable, when she strangled him both times there was no strain so we knew it was soft, when she hits him with one hand on his back he flops like Brock Lesnar just hit him.

3. Pacing after every hit - it just didn't feel right, but it's more of a preference thing, Iv grown accustomed to seeing 3-4 hits or more then a cut to make it more believable than a USA style of cut cut hit cut hit cut etc again just preference.

4. The look - aside from the lighting placement issues, I dig the look.

Overall it's good but just those little points addressed and it's a really good fight scene.

5. Story - I like the fact she has to take off the tracker and not just end with him on the bed, you gave her purpose which some people forget to do.
 
film_autre said:
its a good short and good attempt at fight choreography.

My criticisms would be:

1. Lighting - when the car is outside the room we can see the light in the window it's really off putting for me, I would have placed it elsewhere or masked over it, the best idea would have been to turn it into a practical to blend into the scene.

When she's on the bed looking out the window the light coming through doesn't feel natural and looks placed.

2. The fighting - it's a good attempt, probably better than what I could do, but my thoughts on it anyway, cuts are a bit weird, hits weren't believable, when she strangled him both times there was no strain so we knew it was soft, when she hits him with one hand on his back he flops like Brock Lesnar just hit him.

3. Pacing after every hit - it just didn't feel right, but it's more of a preference thing, Iv grown accustomed to seeing 3-4 hits or more then a cut to make it more believable than a USA style of cut cut hit cut hit cut etc again just preference.

4. The look - aside from the lighting placement issues, I dig the look.

Overall it's good but just those little points addressed and it's a really good fight scene.

5. Story - I like the fact she has to take off the tracker and not just end with him on the bed, you gave her purpose which some people forget to do.
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Thanks for your thoughts film_autre! Shooting action is hard, but it's fun! So I'm taking what I've learned from this experience and I'm bringing it on the next action film I do.

And also, I'm glad you actually appreciated the story. I wanted to be different from your typical YouTube action short by actually telling a story of an actual character.
 
justinisfilming said:
Shooting action is hard, but it's fun! So I'm taking what I've learned from this experience and I'm bringing it on the next action film I do.
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Shooting "convincing" action is hard, but you did that. Amazing that this is your first action movie. My wife occasionally acts in my projects. Her fantasy is to do a Patricia Arquette fight scene, like when she fought James Ganolfini, in TRUE ROMANCE. Your movie was a bit like that, in your own good way. I look forward to your next one!
 
Scoopicman said:
Shooting "convincing" action is hard, but you did that. Amazing that this is your first action movie. My wife occasionally acts in my projects. Her fantasy is to do a Patricia Arquette fight scene, like when she fought James Ganolfini, in TRUE ROMANCE. Your movie was a bit like that, in your own good way. I look forward to your next one!
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AHH I'm glad you thought so! Really appreciate the kind words.
 
Thanks for posting that! Cool to see techniques, like pause and move the camera, shoot the next angle, without going through an entire setup. Reminds me of how Rodriquez shot EL MARIACHI. Way to get the most out of crunch time.

Questions: How did you go about getting permission to shoot in that motel? How many rooms did you pay for? Was it for one night, or longer?

What training or fight experience do your actors have? Are they martial artists that you got from a dojo, friends, etc.?

Where did you get the ankle tracker?
 
Scoopicman said:
Thanks for posting that! Cool to see techniques, like pause and move the camera, shoot the next angle, without going through an entire setup. Reminds me of how Rodriquez shot EL MARIACHI. Way to get the most out of crunch time.
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That whole pause thing isn't really ideal but if you really don't have time for 5 separate shots, then it's an option.

Questions: How did you go about getting permission to shoot in that motel? How many rooms did you pay for? Was it for one night, or longer?
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My producer just talked to the owner and he was nice enough to just give us the rooms for their normal price without any premiums / shooting fees. Trust me, we went through a lot of other motels and let me just say, this guy was the BEST case scenario.
We got three rooms for just one night.

What training or fight experience do your actors have? Are they martial artists that you got from a dojo, friends, etc.?
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From what I know, neither actors are martial artists. Stephanie has just been doing stunts for a while now so she's pretty experienced while Richard have had just some basic combat training for acting. Our stunt coordinator is certified to do what he does though by passing a bunch of advanced combat training.

Where did you get the ankle tracker?
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Our awesome production design team built it!
 
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