The Silent City, short film now online... in HD too!

R

Ruairi Robinson

Member
Hello, Ruairí Robinson here (I made Fifty Percent Grey and directed those Caveman Milk ads some of you might have seen)

I've decided to put my new live action short film "The Silent City" online. I wrote/directed/storyboarded and edited it myself, and also did 95% of the visual effects. It features Don Wycherley, Garvan McGrath, and Cillian Murphy - an actor some of you might have heard of... The film has endured a painful birth, and I hope it was worth it!

silentcity_500width.jpg


It appears to have done the trick though, because I've got an agent, and a manager in Hollywood now, and started being sent movie scripts from the studios for me to direct (about 50 scripts in the last couple of months!). Which is... well exactly what I've always wanted, so I'm a happy camper right now. Despite the fact that I can't afford to pay my rent (so I'm "grounded")

So here it is, in both standard def and high def formats:
http://www.ruairirobinson.com/silentcity/silentcity_small_h264.mov
(720x306 quicktime - 106MB)

http://www.ruairirobinson.com/silentcity/silentcity_720p_h264.mov
(1280x545 quicktime - 378MB)

(right click + save target as or option+click on a mac)


silentcity_images.jpg


More information on www.ruairirobinson.com including VFX breakdowns and such.

Cheers,
Ruairí Robinson
 
Hey "Raw-ree" !!

This is absolutely amazing. Havnt seen this quality of work in quite some time. You are officially my new idol. Looking at the amount of work YOU did on this is inspirational. Plus Cillian Murphy!!

Tell us all!! Budget? Time on pre/production/post? Programs? Camera? Ahhh !!

Take me under your wing! I am a fast learner.

Seriously though, keep up the amazing work, this is the best short film I have seen in a long time.


Peace and love,

Alan
 
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Looks awesome mate
Downloading now, what did you shoot on!
By the way good on your huge ego!
 
it was very cool. i can't think of anything bad or constructive to say. just very cool.

oh one thing. the skull looked fake... maybe it would have been better if you had a skull with some rotting skin on it so it looked like a dead guy instead of a skull.
 
Ruairi,

I've been curious about this movie since I caught your trailer a while back. I'm downloading the short right now. The movie's got a great look! Good luck on the future of it!
 
jenningsp said:
it was very cool. i can't think of anything bad or constructive to say. just very cool.

oh one thing. the skull looked fake... maybe it would have been better if you had a skull with some rotting skin on it so it looked like a dead guy instead of a skull.
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Heh, I thought that shot looked ok actually. But a couple of people picked up on that too...

The worst shot imho is the one at the start with the guy in the gas mask walking around. Gnnnppffff. Looks like a video game CG character...


at did you shoot on!
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Shot on 35mm using panavision anamorphic lenses. Robbie Ryan (Shot Red Road, which won stuff at Cannes) was DOP


Tell us all!! Budget? Time on pre/production/post? Programs? Camera? Ahhh !!
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Budget - cost me 7k euro + 3-4 grand from my producer to SHOOT the thing... then eventually got some assistance from the film board to complete it...

Time is a bit of a sore point for me, since it took wayyyyy long to finish than I would have preferred. I spent 6 months on the post with no income, then had to stop to figure out a way to pay my rent... then before I knew it a year had passed and the film was sitting there like an Albatross. At this point I hated every ****ing frame of the thing and wasn't even going to finish it. I decided finally to get my **** together and hacked all the stuff I hated out of it, and spent a couple more months on it (actually it was quite quick to finish in the end) and that was the end of last October - done and dusted.

3D was 3dsmax and vray to render.
 
epplegacks said:
Site appears to be down sir. Hope we didn't make you even poorer on account of bandwidth bills.
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Bandwidth seems to be choking pretty badly right now... linked from a few websites (and the files are BIG) It's dreamhost though, I thought I'd be ok for bandwidth... any chance of a mirror?

R.
 
wow, saw the first 20 seconds, still downloading, but it looks pretty sick.... This piece is seriously inspriring to a recently graduated film student! good luck in Hollywood ;) always good to see a fellow European to make it there!
 
What is this about? I think I missed it.

Edit: Really well done CG, by the by. I agree with what you say about the first shot. Looks like a PS3 game. Downloading your VFX breakdown.
 
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It looked good... but eh.... look is only a part of the whole thing... what was it about??
 
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that was very well done my man

i need to learn how to do CG and composites.

after the crane shot, it went compltely CG right? That helicopter like thing.

what type of microphones were used?
 
after the crane shot, it went compltely CG right? That helicopter like thing.

what type of microphones were used?
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The whole shot was CG (we had no money for a crane, so our *attempt* to rig the move in camera ended up pretty wobbly, so I had to roto the characters out, and place them in a 3D version of the same scene, and redo the camera move in 3D...

No idea about mics

Have you picked your next project yet?
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Well, I was turned down for funding for the next short I wanted to do, but I may not have to do another one... (I kind of would like to ANYWAY... but we'll see how it goes)

I'll be meeting a bunch of people soonish about projects, and have lots of reading to do in the meantime...

Pretty...prettyyyyy..pretttttyyyy....pretty...pret tyyy good.
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as a fan of curb your enthusiam too...

...faint praise is not lost on me, either.


How much of this is CG? What kind of camera did you use?
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Lots. There's a VFX breakdown on my website (and that doesn't include some of the CG shots)

was shot on a panavision 35mm camera (don't remember which one) with panvision C/E series anamorphic lenses


Cheers,
R.
 
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