Forever War (Short Film)

Nice edit.. Love the TREES!! MAMA MIA!! Here in SO. FLA alls we gots is palms.. lol...
Betcha had some fun..

- - Justin
 
Jpeck, I think it would be a stuipd idea to have people on my crew that didn't know how to handle guns. Plus my crew was myself and four others including the two actors. So its not like I had a bunch of people walking around.

Also the other thing that Choptop brought up is that its harder to find blanks in certain calibers. Plus they cost more money. I think people would be more relaxed around blanks, instead of treating the gun like a gun. The moment you don't respect it is when bad things happen.
 
That's a damn nice looking little film, but in my opinion it falls apart everywhere else. I want to walk you through my thought process because I think it'll be valuable for you.

First reaction: they should have gone with anything but the Saving Private Ryan music. In general using recognizeable score is about the worst thing you can do.

Second reaction: wow, that's obviously the same actor lying dead in the water. They couldn't put him in a wig or something, or get someone from the crew?

Third reaction: for serious soldiers these guys sure can't shoot. Oh, they're using handguns now? They REALLY can't shoot.

Then there's the reveal which tells me that maybe the bullets are passing right through them, and the reveal that tells me yes, that IS the same guy in the water, and it's on purpose. But by then I've already got more than enough doubts about your story, which you fail to pay off. Given the title, I assumed it was some sort of time travel device, hearing you talk about it here, maybe it's ghosts. I don't know. You've given me no basis to make a decision. That's not the same thing as leaving things ambiguous, which I can respect. What is this movie saying? I have no idea.

I don't even want to dive into the live ammo debate. Suffice it to say you're putting yourselves in all kinds of safety and legal risk, and to cite a reason like SOUND (you've never heard of post-production?) is pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, like I said, this is a real pretty little film. If you guys spent a day making it off the cuff and here it is, great. If it represents any more effort than that, I'd say you should have spent a lot more time working on the script and some money working on the music.
 
Dougspice, the music is more temp than anything else. If I wanted to try for festivals I would have to come up with something else than what I have on there.

I never said sound was the reason why I used live ammo. To me it was easier to use live ammo because I can get it at WalMart and as long as everyone acts the same as if we were out shooting, then everyone will be fine.

As for the story, it tells the message that I want it to tell. Its not the best story in my bag but its just something I came up with. Personally I like short films that keep it open for you the viewer to come to some kind of conclusion. Even thou the text at the end gives you a kick in the right direction. But that's just the way I feel about what I made.
 
Drew... How did you do the tree hits and bullet hits in the dirt and ground. Looked very good indeed.


Liked the piece. Thought it was a bit slow in the beginning.. but nice gunfight in the woods..


Have you ever watched those extreme mountain biking movies and bmx movies where they follow the riders on cable cams... That would be awesome for one of your pieces... To fly above the people following a huge firefight... Just my fantasies... I plan on doing that for a kungfu fight scence sometime.


Thanks for showing!... Do you take requests? Next time, I'd love to see a shotgun and/or the gold plated desert Eagle.... lol


Also MENTAL NOTE: Do not try to take HVX from Drew... He's very heavily armed.. You'd fit in very nicely here in Florida. I'm in the market for either a rifle or a shotgun myself.. Wife won't let me get a handgun as we have kids.. and she'd probably be more likely to whack me if we had one anywya...
 
Justyn, I did the bullet hits on the tree and in the ground with Shake. I used two shots, one with the actor in it and another with the bullet hits. A gun fight from a cable cam would look sick.

I have two other shorts that I'm going to do here soon. One is about two assassins, so it has guns in it. The other one is about a circle, no guns in that one.

If your going to get a rifle I would strongly recomend getting an AR-15. Like a Bushmaster or something like that. They cost a little bit of money but boy you can tell where that money went when you shoot it. I would also say to look at POF (Patriot Ordnance Factory) because of the uppers they have are amazing. They don't need oil. But of course a shotgun is always a good home defender. Thanks for the comments man.
 
NOTE: I trust you know not to take anything I say personally.

First off, if you have to have that message of text at the end then you havn't done your job as a filmmaker. If we need that to sum up your film then you could just send us that and not have us spend time watching this or you spend time and money making it. I'm sure any reasonible person will agree with such a message but that doesn't excuse insanely heavy-handed moralizing.

The pace and camera work were off for me too. You introduce the other soldier out of no where. One minute the bald guy is just walking the next the other guy just appears and incredibly generic action music comes in. We really need more of a visual reveal on the other soldier perhaps accompanied by some sort of musical cue or sound effect.

The gun battles, despite looking real at first, weren't particularly enthralling. There's only so much slow mo one can look at so varying your types of shots would help a lot. One also beins to think these guys are the worst shots in the world when they are so close and still missing. I know this is a set up for your twist ending but it still pulls us out and the twist at the end doesn't seem worth it.

The actors also leave something to be desired. They aren't bad but the final close up of them wrestling simply isn't sold as it should be and makes us question everything. If they can't pull off a CU like that then I wouldn't put it in (a wide shot could work well if used right).

And yeah, for the love of God don't use live rounds. If for no other reason that when making movies you are usually depending on the good graces of others which may not be as forth coming when they find out your actually shooting guns, whether it be isurance or permission to use locations.
 
David, the text at the end wasn't used to sum up the short. If it was used to sum up the short I would have laid out exactly what had happened through out the short to "sum" it up. The text was something that people could think about and connect it to the reason why they couldn't die.

How was the pace and camera work off to you. If you could give specific examples that would help me better understand what you meant. To me the beginning pace where the soilder is introduced does its job. Then when the sniper shows up the pace changes because there is now danger. There was a change in music right as the sniper comes into the shot.

As for the gun battles I didn't shoot the whole thing in slow-mo. I shot the parts that move very quickly in real life that I wanted to show more of. As for the close shooting part of it. I wanted people to question why aren't they hitting each other when there's no way for them to miss. I mean maybe I should put a little disclaimer at the head of the short saying that this short isn't based in reality, so people expect something like that.

I do agree that the acting in the short wasn't top knotch but this was the first time for both of these people acting. So consiter that when you look at it. I think for no experience they did very well. Its all a learning process and we all have to start somewhere.

As for using live ammo and that stuff. We were out in National Forest where everyone goes shooting at. On the weekend the place sounds like a wars zone with all the shooting. So getting permission to use that area was so far from my mind it only cross into it when you brought it up.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Live Ammo? :huh:

I guess nobody learned the lesson from Brandon Lee's death.

Even HOLLYWOOD doesn't use live freaking ammo in its films.

That was pretty stupid.

The firefight was pretty unbelievable as well.
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We are using live ammo too. =) Our scene with the live ammo is at a make shift firing range in the woods the night before an armored car heist. I'm pumped to see this! Downloading now....

Okay, I just watched it... I don't know who the kid was firing that tank, but he's clearly got military experience. Ed Norton reminds me of him. I was totally into it that short and frankly I don't think anyone is going to tell that kid he's stupid or anything that he does is stupid to his face. He looks like my crazy Irish associates in Boston. :evil:

That short was kinda like watching porn... Ya know when you fast forward to get to the good stuff? In this case GUNS.

I think shorts are all about having fun, doing what you love and entertaining people (even if it means getting killed doing it). There's honor in that.

All in good humor ladies and gentlemen. =)
 
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"I think shorts are all about having fun, doing what you love and entertaining people....... There's honor in that."

I agree totally
 
Wow, I'm kind of surprised by how much people are laying into this short film. I'm wondering what the motivation is for doing that? Are you trying to be helpful?

The guy wrote it in one day, shot it two for something to do. To me the story made sense, it had a good message, and the shots looked good. The awesome thing about filmmaking is there is no wrong or right way of doing things and nothing ever plays the same way to everyone. Saying things like the music was over done or there shouldn't have been text at the end is just silly because that's your opinion, not the way it is. It was a five minute action short - should he have spent more time getting his point across so he didn't need the text at the end? If you even answer that question you're somehow presuming that you know, without a doubt, what the best way to make a film is. Remember eveything is subjective and there's an audience for everything. Coming in and saying this should've been done that way, or that should've been done this way is very brazen and somehow assumes that you have all the answers. Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now.
 
ShamrockFilms, man I had a good laugh from what you said...gun porn...lol. Also my brother, the soilder actor, doesn't have any military experience. We just go out shooting alot and when we shoot we setup little courses with targets and stuff.

I also totally agree with you that shorts are about having fun. Sometimes you have a little too much fun and have to get everyone back into line. Plus its something you can learn from if you want to of course.
 
Thanks bluegrey for putting it into perspective for the ones that seem to have a problem with the short. We all had fun doing it and my brother and I get a laugh or two watching it. To me it has served its purpose. Now I'm going to see if there are any festivals out there that want to show it.
 
this debate is pretty entertaining. i'm especially amused by the people that don't get the premise of the story. if the title and the shot of the soldier looking at his own dead body don't make the little light bulb over the top of your head go on, it's time to change the bulb or check if your brain is still pluged in. some surprisingly dense people here. ;)
as far as the ammo: there are people that are comfortable with firearms and there are people who aren't. yes it would be ideal to have blanks but on a no budget shoot you work with what you have and be extra extra extra cautious.
good job on the film. i personally didn't like the look that much. wish the color correction would have been more stylized but that's just me. overall i appreciate your sentiment and hardwork very much. thank you for spreading truth in your creative work, it maybe the only voice we have for a while.
 
Johnny, thanks for the kind words man. I was thinking about messing with the colors a little bit but I love the greens in the trees and I don't want to lose that. But Shake has some interesting color correcting for digital projection and film outs that I might mess with.
 
Didn't read any other posts. I thought the story was a little weak. The music did in it for me though. I didn't like it.

Can't you make a real bullet into a blank by taking off the projectile part? or. what? I don't know anything about guns.
 
bluegrey said:
Wow, I'm kind of surprised by how much people are laying into this short film. I'm wondering what the motivation is for doing that? Are you trying to be helpful?
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Yep. Bad films don't help anyone. If I see someone who obviously has talent, but is making obvious mistakes, it should be mentioned. That's the only way anyone learns.

The awesome thing about filmmaking is there is no wrong or right way of doing things and nothing ever plays the same way to everyone. Saying things like the music was over done or there shouldn't have been text at the end is just silly because that's your opinion, not the way it is.
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Sorry, but you're so wrong here. Sure, art is subjective. But there are INARGUABLY good ways and bad ways of doing things. Is it coincidental that the majority of people generally like Scorcese, Spielberg, whoever? No, it's not. It's that truly talented directors have learned the intricacies of storytelling - the right and wrong ways of getting a point across.

It was a five minute action short - should he have spent more time getting his point across so he didn't need the text at the end?
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Yes. Shouldn't that be obvious?

Your argument seems to be in favor of some sort of filmmaking nihilism or anarchy, where every film is as good as every other. Do even you actually believe that? Give this same subject matter, camera, location, and all the rest of it to Steven Soderbergh, and he's going to make a far better film than this. That's not a slight against Drew. We're all here to learn and to share advice when we can. If you can't learn, or can't take criticism, you're going to be making the same film ten years from now.

Sorry if it seems like I'm "laying into this short film", but I for one don't go in for the apologism that's all too common around here. This forum should be more than an endless stream of "Awesome movie man! What were your settings? How'd you do the CC?"
 
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