watch The Future West - Short Film

Hi everyone!

My name is Geoff James and I'm a filmmaker out of Atlanta, GA. My production company Cindicate Productions https://www.facebook.com/CindicateProductions has recently completed our third short film "The Future West" and would love for all of you to watch it and respond. Thank you so much for your time guys!!

http://youtu.be/uDj2h_4OYUc - "The Future West"

About:
Two friends are lost in the woods. As tensions mount, they begin to contemplate their future. The new short from Cindicate Productions.

Written and directed by Christopher Flippo
Produced by Christopher Flippo, Benson Greene, and Geoff James
Edited by Christopher Flippo
Director of Photography- Christopher Flippo

Chris Schulz... Wally
Geoff James... Sugar Baby
Lindsey Garrett... Whatsername
Carter Kinsella... Eddie

Color Correction and Graphics by Jonathan Hunt
Audio by Benson Greene
Timelapse photography by Craig Autry
Featuring "Look Back In" by Moby (permission granted)

gjamesCindicateProd said:

Hi everyone!

My name is Geoff James and I'm a filmmaker out of Atlanta, GA. My production company Cindicate Productions https://www.facebook.com/CindicateProductions has recently completed our third short film "The Future West" and would love for all of you to watch it and respond. Thank you so much for your time guys!!

http://youtu.be/uDj2h_4OYUc - "The Future West"

About:
Two friends are lost in the woods. As tensions mount, they begin to contemplate their future. The new short from Cindicate Productions.

Written and directed by Christopher Flippo
Produced by Christopher Flippo, Benson Greene, and Geoff James
Edited by Christopher Flippo
Director of Photography- Christopher Flippo

Chris Schulz... Wally
Geoff James... Sugar Baby
Lindsey Garrett... Whatsername
Carter Kinsella... Eddie

Color Correction and Graphics by Jonathan Hunt
Audio by Benson Greene
Timelapse photography by Craig Autry
Featuring "Look Back In" by Moby (permission granted)

Click to expand...

Congratulations on your third short. Managed to get to 12 minutes 59 seconds and bailed. Couldn't take another 8 minutes.

I only ever write critiques if someone asks and you asked so...

The primary issue for me is I lost interest in the story and characters. You could've cut it in half without the slightest issue.

The sense of disbelief also kept being broken by the cinematography. Every time there is an out-of-focus, grainy, blown out, wobbly or gratuitous use of a jib shot, the issue is I get pulled out of the short. Sure, if there's the occasional issue, I don't mind but there were just too many really obvious ones which pulled me out.

And the actor with the moustache was good as was the love interest. The character in the black shirt was not believable.

So it's about the same level as my third short...

Feedback

Hey Geoff,


Great job on your third short! I also have a small production company called HomeWrecker Films, based out of Orlando. We're similar yours I believe. We release a short film weekly. Check us out if you'd like. https://www.facebook.com/HomewreckerFilms

As for the film. I thought it was very well done. I do have to agree with a previous comment though, trim the fat. One thing I've learned in film school is that you want to get the audience to the good parts of the story as quickly as possibly. "Enter and Leave ASAP". But everything comes in time. Overall, nicely done!

Jake

You almost lost me one third through, but I got intrigued to see where are the characters going with the story. One thing that kinda spoiled the mood a few times is the sound being too clean and strong, it felt like everything was recorded in the studio with high gain. It felt weird in the opening scenes that the scenery shows pretty landscape on a nice sunny day, and the background sounded like winter storm from hell. Overall, I like the composition and framing, I thought characters were likable and real. I am no expert, so this is just my personal experience I got while watching your film, I hope it helps. Good luck in your future production.

Thank you so much everybody for taking the time to watch it and critique. I really do appreciate every comment.

Gorillaonabike - You're exactly right about the cinematography. We had many many issues with it in the end and not enough stabilizing in the world could help it in post.
I do appreciate all of the critiques and will be sure and pass them to my team so that our next one will be even better. We can't get better if we don't have people that tell us the truth and let us know when we go astray with our projects. So again thank you. You have helped out more than you know. We will have our next short ready by April. I'll be sure to post it on here. I promise it'll be much shorter Thanks again!!

Jake - Thank you so much man! I will be sure and check out your guys shorts. Great to meet fellow filmmakers and get great feedback. Our next one will be a lot shorter and hopefully get to the point a lot quicker. Thanks!

Oli5d - Thanks for watching! I appreciate the comments and so glad that you watched it even though the sound was bothering you. We had a few issues with the sound as well. We did some ADR because of a few airplanes and other issues. Thank you for being honest. We haven't got any comments about sound yet. We need to know these things so we can improve in the future. I really do appreciate it.

Aha.. that (at least partially) explains the sound sync issues I saw.

Hey Will! I was just about to write you on the welcome forum. Yeah we had a few too many issues with the sound and had to do some ADR. We shot it in three days and when we were done realized we had some serious planes and streams that had given us some difficult things to deal with. I appreciate you taking the time to watch Future and Dogberry. I was just talking to our Director the other day about how great this site is. It really is a huge help for issues that we just get used to. If you have any other questions or anything just let me know. We are filming our next short on March 7-9th and it will be a lot shorter and hopefully audio A LOT cleaner. I'll post it when it's done! Thanks again Will.